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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
Key Examples in Lady Audley’s Secret
Volume 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Fantastical Shadows:
When she describes the landscape of its waterways and gardens, Braddon deploys vivid visual imagery to introduce her reader to the beautiful but perturbing surroundings of Audley Court:
The broad outer moat was dry and grass-grown, and the laden trees of the orchard hung over it with gnarled, straggling branches that drew fantastical shadows upon the green slope.
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Volume 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Red Glory:
Toward the end of the third chapter of Lady Audley's Secret, the author employs visual imagery and foreshadowing to tint a scene of late summer beauty with a sense of unease:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The same August sun which had gone down behind the waste of waters glimmered redly upon the broad face of the old clock over that ivy-covered archway which leads into the gardens of Audley Court. A fierce and crimson sunset. The mullioned windows and twinkling lattices are all ablaze with the red glory; [...] even into those dim recesses of brier and brushwood, amidst which the old well is hidden, the crimson brightness penetrates in fitful flashes till the dank weeds and the rusty iron wheel and broken woodwork seem as if they were flecked with blood.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Twilight Stillness:
Just before the reader is introduced to Phoebe Marks and her hapless cousin Luke, the narrator uses auditory imagery to accentuate the eerie silence that envelops Audley Court in the early twilight:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The lowing of a cow in the quiet meadows, the splash of a trout in the fish-pond, the last notes of a tired bird, the creaking of wagon-wheels upon the distant road, every now and then breaking the evening silence, only made the stillness of the place seem more intense. It was almost oppressive, this twilight stillness.
Related Themes:
Volume 1, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Stale Tobacco:
When George and Robert go to Ventnor to investigate the mystery of George's wife, the narrator employs the sensory languages of smell and sight and appeals to the reader’s sense of pathos. This brings the scene of Captain Maldon's impoverished cabin to life for Braddon's audience and gives them some context about the circumstances from which Lucy came:
Unlock with LitCharts A+George mechanically followed his friend into the little front parlor—dusty, shabbily furnished, and disorderly, with a child's broken toys scattered on the floor, and the scent of stale tobacco hanging about the muslin window-curtains.
Related Themes:
Volume 1, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Rustling Silks:
In a description of Lady Audley's mannerisms and showy taste in clothes, Braddon uses a simile and some auditory and tactile imagery:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Her fragile figure, which she loved to dress in heavy velvets, and stiff, rustling silks, till she looked like a child tricked out for a masquerade, was as girlish as if she had just left the nursery. [...]
Related Themes:
Volume 1, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—A Signal Light:
In this passage, the narrator uses visual imagery and a simile referring to a signal light to describe Alicia Audley’s features and their contrast with Lucy’s. Even though Alicia is undeniably beautiful, it does her no good when Lucy’s next to her. Writing as if they are directly warning Alicia about this misfortune, the narrator notes:
Unlock with LitCharts A+So it was not in the least use, my poor Alicia [...]The black curls (nothing like Lady Audley's feathery ringlets, but heavy clustering locks, that clung about your slender brown throat), the red and pouting lips, the nose inclined to be retrousse, the dark complexion, with its bright crimson flush, always ready to glance up like a signal light in a dusky sky [...]
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Explanation and Analysis—Beautiful Fiend:
In this section of Lady Audley's Secret, the narrator describes a portrait of Lady Audley when Alicia, Robert, and George sneak into her private rooms. Braddon uses visual imagery and a simile comparing Lucy to a demon to suggest the underlying, unpleasant facets of her character:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[Lucy] had something of the aspect of a beautiful fiend. Her crimson dress, exaggerated like all the rest in this strange picture, hung about her in folds that looked like flames, her fair head peeping out of the lurid mass of color as if out of a raging furnace. Indeed the crimson dress, the sunshine on the face, the red gold gleaming in the yellow hair, the ripe scarlet of the pouting lips, the glowing colors of each accessory of the minutely painted background [...]
Related Themes:
Volume 1, Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Violet and Velvet:
Lucy is vividly described using the sensory language of sight, as she sits like a glowing golden vision by the fireside during an evening at Audley Court:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Lady Audley sat in the glow of firelight and wax candles in the luxurious drawing-room; the amber damask cushions of the sofa contrasting with her dark violet velvet dress, and her rippling hair falling about her neck in a golden haze.
Related Themes:
Volume 2, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Gunpowder and Bohea:
Lucy Audley’s power as the female head of a household is underlined with an allusion and some powerful scent imagery in this passage from Volume 2, Chapter 7:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea [...] [it] imparts a magic harmony to her every movement, a witchery to her glance. The floating mists from the boiling liquid in which she infuses the soothing herbs; whose secrets are known to her alone, envelope her in a cloud of scented vapor, through which she seems a social fairy, weaving potent spells with Gunpowder and Bohea. At the tea-table she reigns omnipotent, unapproachable.
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