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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 Secret Life of Bees
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Bees at Night:
Although her father doesn’t keep bees himself, Lily’s room at T. Ray’s house fills with them anyway. As Lily watches the bees slip in and out of her bedroom wall in The Secret Life of Bees, Kidd uses visual imagery and a simile describing the bees’ wings to show how Lily ties the bees' movement to her own sense of longing.
At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin. I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt the longing build in my chest.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Mud and Peaches:
Lily holds on to her one meager memory of her mother as tightly as she can. Here, Kidd uses a flashback and imagery that calls forth all the senses to show how Lily clings to a part that brings her comfort:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I followed her into the closet and scooted beneath dress hems and pant legs, into darkness and wisps of dust and little dead moths, back where orchard mud and the moldy smell of peaches clung to T. Ray’s boots. I stuck my hands inside a pair of white high heels and clapped them together.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Moon Cracked:
As Lily and Rosaleen sleep in the woods the night before they reach Tiburon, Lily has a deeply unsettling nightmare. She uses visual and auditory imagery and hyperbole to show how fear follows her as she slips into unconsciousness:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I plopped onto the mossy dirt. We stared across the water at each other. In the dark she looked like a boulder shaped by five hundred years of storms. […] In my dream I was back on the peach farm […] I could see a huge, round moon in the sky. […] Next I heard a sound like ice breaking, and, looking up, I saw the moon crack apart and start to fall. I had to run for my life.
Related Themes:
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Red Hot Toes:
As they walk toward Tiburon having escaped the jail, Lily asks Rosaleen what she dreamed about the night before. Rosaleen answers in a way that surprises her, using visual imagery and a simile to describe a startling dream:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She gazed at the treetops, rubbing her elbows. "Well, let’s see. I dreamed the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., knelt down and painted my toenails with the spit from his mouth, and every nail was red like he’d been sucking on red hots." I considered this as we set off for Tiburon, Rosaleen walking like she was on anointed feet, like her ruby toes owned the whole countryside.
Related Themes:
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Black Mary:
Even though she has seen the Black Mary depicted on the Boatwrights’ honey jars, Lily feels shock and fascination when she first sees the Black Madonna statue. Kidd uses visual imagery and metaphor to explore this when Lily arrives at the Boatwrights’ home. She stops in her tracks because the figure looks nothing like the religious images she grew up with:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She was black as she could be, twisted like driftwood from being out in the weather, her face a map of all the storms and journeys she’d been through. Her right arm was raised, as if she was pointing the way, except her fingers were closed in a fist. It gave her a serious look, like she could straighten you out if necessary.
Related Themes:
