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 4
Explanation and Analysis—Small Boys, Grandfathers:
When Bruno looks out of his bedroom window, he sees hundreds of people beyond the fence, all wearing the same clothes. In this passage, the author uses visual imagery to show the uniformity and dehumanization that the Auschwitz uniforms imposed on the people the Nazis imprisoned and murdered:
[...] [H]e watched the hundreds of people in the distance going about their business, and that was the fact that all of them—the small boys, the big boys, the fathers, the grandfathers, the uncles, the people who lived on their own on everybody's road but didn't seem to have any relatives at all—were wearing the same clothes as each other: a pair of grey striped pyjamas with a grey striped cap on their heads.
Related Themes:
Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Became a Figure:
Bruno worries that Shmuel has stopped wanting to visit him and sits anxiously by the fence. The narrator employs visual imagery to show Bruno's anticipation and relief as he sees his friend approaching from a distance:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[Bruno was] extremely worried that he would have to leave Out-With without seeing his friend again, when a dot in the distance became a speck and that became a blob and that became a figure and that in turn became the boy in the striped pyjamas.
Related Themes:
Chapter 19
Explanation and Analysis—Shut In:
Bruno doesn’t know why he, Shmuel, and the large group of prisoners around them have been forced into a crowded room. However, everyone else seems to be all too aware. Boyne uses auditory imagery to capture the horrifying finality of the moment as the gas chamber doors close behind the crowd of men and boys:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Shmuel may well have opened his mouth to say something back, but Bruno never heard it because at that moment there was a loud gasp from all the marchers who had filled the room, as the door at the front was suddenly closed and a loud metallic sound rang through from the outside.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—In the Crowd:
As they are searching for Shmuel’s father in the camp, Bruno and Shmuel are accidentally swept up in a line of marching prisoners being herded into the gas chambers. The narrator employs tactile imagery and metaphor to immerse the reader in Bruno’s overwhelming physical experience of this horrible moment:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Bruno closed his eyes for a moment and felt it wash over him. When he opened them again he wasn't so much marching as being swept along by the group of people, and all he could feel was the mud that was caked all over his body and his pyjamas clinging to his skin with all the rain and he longed to be back in his house, watching all this from a distance and not wrapped up in the centre of it.
Related Themes:
