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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 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Chapter 2: Clover
Explanation and Analysis—Lofts:
Rebecca Skloot describes the conditions Henrietta Lacks and her family endured when they traveled to South Boston during tobacco harvests. At night, White and Black farmers were segregated not only by race but by the quality of their sleeping quarters. The stark contrast between the two groups is rendered in vivid sensory imagery:
White farmers slept upstairs in lofts and private rooms; black farmers slept in the dark underbelly of the ware-house with the horses, mules, and dogs, on a dusty dirt floor lined with rows of wooden stalls for livestock, and mountains of empty liquor bottles piled almost to the ceiling.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Tobacco:
Rebecca Skloot reconstructs Henrietta Lacks’s early life in Clover, Virginia, grounding her story in the sensory details of rural labor and family life. Before her legacy became defined by medical science, Henrietta’s childhood was marked by both hardship and small joys. Skloot uses imagery to show this:
Unlock with LitCharts A+They spent much of their young lives stooped in those fields, planting tobacco behind mule-drawn plows. Each spring they pulled the wide green leaves from their stalks and tied them into small bundles — their fingers raw and sticky with nicotine resin — then climbed the rafters of their grandfather’s tobacco barn to hang bundle after bundle for curing. Each summer day they prayed for a storm to cool their skin from the burning sun. When they got one, they’d scream and run through fields, snatching armfuls of ripe fruit and walnuts that the winds blew from the trees.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5: Blackness Be Spreadin All Inside
Explanation and Analysis—Ferris Wheel:
Not long after beginning radiation treatments at Johns Hopkins, Henrietta Lacks confides her illness to her cousins, Sadie and Margaret. She waits for their annual trip to the carnival in Turner Station, a setting filled with ritual, fun, and familiarity. Choosing a moment high above the ground, suspended on the Ferris wheel, she finally tells them the truth: she has cancer. The scene is filled with vivid visual and sensory imagery:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Henrietta told her cousins about the cancer at a carnival that came to Turner Station each year. The three of them climbed onto the Ferris wheel as usual, and she waited till it got so high they could see 88 across Sparrows Point toward the ocean, till the Ferris wheel stopped and they were just kicking their legs back and forth, swinging in the crisp spring air. “You remember when I said I had a knot inside me?” she asked. They nodded yes. “Well, I got cancer,” Henrietta said. “I been havin treatments down at John Hopkins.”
Related Themes:
