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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 The Jungle Book
1. Mowgli’s Brothers
Explanation and Analysis—Mouth an Egg:
In the intimate moment shared between Father Wolf and Mowgli in the book’s first story, Kipling uses tactile imagery and appeals to the reader’s sense of pathos:
A wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs can, if necessary, mouth an egg without breaking it, and though Father Wolf’s jaws closed right on the child’s back not a tooth even scratched the skin, as he laid it down among the cubs. ‘How little! How naked, and – how bold!’ said Mother Wolf softly. [...] ‘I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our Pack or in my time,’ said Father Wolf. ‘He is altogether without hair, and I could kill him with a touch of my foot. But see, he looks up and is not afraid.’
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Explanation and Analysis—Moon Eyes:
In the face-off between Mother Wolf and Shere Khan in “Mowgli’s Brothers,” the narrator uses vivid visual and auditory imagery, a simile referring to the weather, and a metaphor to enhance the scene’s intensity:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The tiger’s roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes, like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.
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3. Kaa’s Hunting
Explanation and Analysis—Black Velvet Embroidery:
This passage from "Kaa's Hunting" paints a vivid and captivating image of Mowgli's surroundings in the jungle palace of the Bandar-Log. Kipling blends visual imagery with simile to bring the dramatic setting to life in the reader's mind:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The domed roof had half fallen in and blocked up the underground passage from the palace by which the queens used to enter; but the walls were made of screens of marble tracery–beautiful milk-white fretwork, set with agates and cornelians and jasper and lapis lazuli, and as the moon came up behind the hill it shone through the open-work, casting shadows on the ground like black velvet embroidery.
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Explanation and Analysis—Sick and Giddy Ride:
The passage below comes from "Kaa’s Hunting," and it describes Mowgli's harrowing journey through the jungle with the Bandar-log monkeys. Kipling's narrator uses hyperbolic visual and tactile imagery to bring Mowgli’s ride to life for the reader:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Sick and giddy as Mowgli was he could not help enjoying the wild rush, though the glimpses of earth far down below frightened him, and the terrible check and jerk at the end of the swing over nothing but empty air brought his heart between his teeth. [...] he felt the thinnest topmost branches crackle and bend under them, and then with a cough and a whoop would fling themselves into the air outward and downward, and bring up, hanging by their hands or their feet to the lower limbs of the next tree.
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9. ‘Rikki-Tikki-Tavi’
Explanation and Analysis—Watch-Spring Coils:
In the fierce confrontation between Nagaina and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the author employs simile and auditory imagery to bring the reader closer to the fight:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Again and again and again she struck, and each time her head came with a whack on the matting of the veranda, and she gathered herself together like a watch-spring. Then Rikki-tikki danced in a circle to get behind her, and Nagaina spun round to keep her head to his head, so that the rustle of her tail on the matting sounded like dry leaves blown along by the wind.
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13. Her Majesty’s Servants
Explanation and Analysis—Camp Stampede:
In this passage from “Her Majesty’s Servants,” the narrator deploys visual and tactile imagery to immerse readers in the scrambled atmosphere of the Amir of Afghanistan’s camp:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[...] the Amir had brought with him for a bodyguard eight hundred men and horses who had never seen a camp or a locomotive before in their lives – savage men and savage horses from somewhere at the back of Central Asia. Every night a mob of these horses would be sure to break their heel-ropes, and stampede up and down the camp through the mud in the dark, or the camels would break loose and run about and fall over the ropes of the tents, and you can imagine how pleasant that was for men trying to go to sleep
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