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Hyperbole
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
Book 1, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Childhood Imagination:
In a particularly flowery passage, Eliot uses imagery to capture the relationship between an imaginative child and their environment, as seen in the following passage:
What grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep and delicate fibres within me as this home-scene? These familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird-notes, this sky, with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious hedgerows — such things as these are the mother tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them.
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Book 5, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Maggie and Tom's Battles:
After Mr. Tulliver passes away, the narrator takes a moment to reflect on the different battles that Maggie and Tom are engaged in, using imagery in the process:
Unlock with LitCharts A+While Maggie’s life-struggles had lain almost entirely within her own soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and the slain shadows for ever rising again, Tom was engaged in a dustier, noisier warfare, grappling with more substantial obstacles, and gaining more definite conquests.
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Book 6, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Women as Goddesses:
In between scenes in which Maggie spends time with her love interests, the narrator takes a moment to combine imagery with social commentary, as seen in the following passage:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And if people happen to be lovers, what can be so delightful, in England, as a rainy morning? English sunshine is dubious; bonnets are never quite secure; and if you sit down on the grass, it may lead to catarrhs. But the rain is to be depended on. You gallop through it in a mackintosh, and presently find yourself in the seat you like best — a little above or a little below the one on which your goddess sits (it is the same thing to the metaphysical mind, and that is the reason why women are at once worshipped and looked down upon), with a satisfactory confidence that there will be no lady-callers.
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Book 7, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—The Drowning:
Eliot captures the drama and tragedy of the Tulliver siblings’ drowning with evocative imagery, as seen in the following passage:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water — and the huge mass was hurrying on in hideous triumph. But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on the golden water. The boat reappeared — but brother and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted: living through again in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their little hands in love, and roamed the daisied fields together.
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Conclusion
Explanation and Analysis—After the Flood:
The Conclusion of the novel—after Maggie and Tom drown in the flood—opens with a personification and evocative imagery, as seen in the following passage:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Nature repairs her ravages — repairs them with her sunshine, and with human labour. The desolation wrought by that flood, had left little visible trace on the face of the earth, five years after. The fifth autumn was rich in golden corn-stacks, rising in thick clusters among the distant hedgerows; the wharves and warehouses on the Floss were busy again, with echoes of eager voices, with hopeful lading and unlading.
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