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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
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Shrimp-Color:
This passage paints a vivid picture of the Wragby grounds during the early morning hours through visual and auditory imagery, as Constance and Clifford set off on the path around the park:
The sheep coughed in the rough, sere grass of the park, where frost lay bluish in the sockets of the tufts. Across the park ran a path to the wood-gate, a fine ribbon of pink. Clifford had had it newly gravelled with sifted gravel from the pit-bank. When the rock and refuse of the underworld had burned and given off its sulphur, it turned bright pink, shrimp-coloured on dry days, darker, crab-coloured on wet. Now it was pale shrimp-colour, with a bluish-white hoar of frost.
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Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Brooding Bodies:
As she wanders miserably through the grounds of Wragby Hall, Connie's emotional turmoil stands in stark contrast to the vitality of the spring around her. The author employs lush visual and tactile imagery to juxtapose Connie’s gray mood with the greening world:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Yet it was spring, and the bluebells were coming in the wood, and the leaf-buds on the hazels were opening like the spatter of green rain. How terrible it was that it should be spring, and everything cold-hearted, cold-hearted. Only the hens, fluffed so wonderfully on the eggs, were warm with their hot, brooding female bodies! Connie felt herself living on the brink of fainting all the time.
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Explanation and Analysis—Sea Anemone:
As Connie and Mellors have sex, she realizes that for the first time in her life she isn’t in control of the sexual power dynamic. Lawrence describes this realization through visual imagery and a metaphor of a sea anemone. During their lovemaking, Connie feels an intense pressure building:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Whilst all her womb was open and soft, and softly clamoring, like a sea-anemone under the tide, clamoring for him to come in again and make a fulfilment for her.
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Explanation and Analysis—Melting Her All Molten:
As Connie and Mellors have sex, Lawrence explains the intensity of Connie’s feelings through tactile imagery and a series of similes:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Rippling, rippling, rippling, like a flapping overlapping of soft flames, soft as feathers, running to points of brilliance, exquisite, exquisite and melting her all molten inside. It was like bells rippling up and up to a culmination.
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Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Loud Wild Calling:
In this passage from Chapter 14, Lawrence employs auditory imagery to immerse readers in the serenity of the morning after Mellors’s proposal:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Then he woke up and looked at the light. The curtains were drawn. He listened to the loud wild calling of blackbirds and thrushes in the wood. It would be a brilliant morning, about half past five, his hour for rising. He had slept so fast! It was such a new day! The woman was still curled asleep and tender. His hand moved on her, and she opened her blue wondering eyes, smiling unconsciously into his face.
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Explanation and Analysis—Milk-White:
At the beginning of Chapter 14, the author utilizes visual imagery to portray the contrast between the tanned and untanned parts of Mellors’s body as he undresses in front of Connie:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And he took off his old cotton pyjama-jacket, and pushed down the trousers. Save for his hands and wrists and face and neck he was white as milk, with fine slender muscular flesh. To Connie he was suddenly piercingly beautiful again, as when she had seen him that afternoon washing himself.
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Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—Slippery Fire:
As they lie naked in his bed and he talks to her quietly, Mellors strokes Connie's buttocks and genitals. Lawrence brings the scene to life for the reader with strong tactile imagery:
Unlock with LitCharts A+All the while he spoke, he exquisitely stroked the rounded tail, till it seemed as if a slippery sort of fire came from it into his hands. And his fingertips touched the two secret openings to her body, time after time, with a soft little brush of fire.
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