Previous
Idioms
Definition of Imagery
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After Apple-Picking" contain imagery that engages... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines... read full definition
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—White Salty Outline:
Chapter 8 centers on Orin, who is waking up at home in hot and arid Phoenix, Arizona. Wallace uses imagery and a series of similes to convey a lot about Orin in a compressed space:
Home with the team, no matter how high the AC or how thin the sheet, Orin wakes with his own impression sweated darkly into the bed beneath him, slowly drying all day to a white salty outline just slightly off from the week’s other faint dried outlines, so his fetal-shaped fossilized image is fanned out across his side of the bed like a deck of cards, just overlapping, like an acid trail or timed exposure.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Pulmonary Organ:
In Chapter 9, Wallace uses similes and imagery to describe how the Pump Room works:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The Pump Room is essentially like a pulmonary organ, or the epicenter of a massive six-vectored wind tunnel, and when activated roars like a banshee that’s slammed its hand in a door, though the P.R.’s in full legit operation only when the Lung is up, usually November–March. The intake fans pull ground-level winter air down into and around the room and through the three exhaust fans and up the outtake ducts into networks of pneumatic tubing in the Lung’s sides and dome: it’s the pressure of the moving air that keeps the fragile Lung inflated.
Related Themes:
Chapter 57
Explanation and Analysis—State Bird:
In Chapter 57, Randy Lenz and Bruce Green walk around the city at night. The passage is packed with imagery, including one image that Lenz comments on with verbal irony:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The State Bird of Massachusetts, [Lenz] shares to Green, is the police siren. To Project and to Swerve.
Related Themes:
Chapter 69
Explanation and Analysis—Outsider's Perspective:
In Chapter 69, Marathe infiltrates Ennet House looking for either The Entertainment or Joelle. A series of contemptuous images and similes demonstrate that he feels uncomfortable in the house:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The living room smelled like an ashtray, and its ceiling was yellow like the fingers of long smokers. Also the living room evening resembled an anthill which had been stirred with a stick; it was too full of persons, all of them restless and loud.
Related Themes:
