Previous
Genre
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 2: Georgia
Explanation and Analysis—Big Anthony's Death:
On the Randall plantation, Big Anthony’s death partly compels Cora to escape. A failed escape attempt sends Big Anthony to the stocks, custom-made at Terrance Randall’s behest. Through imagery, the novel casts his execution as another display of gruesome, unspeakable inhumanity:
They gathered on the front lawn. Randall’s visitors sipped spiced rum as Big Anthony was doused with oil and roasted. The witnesses were spared his screams, as his manhood had been cut off on the first day, stuffed in his mouth, and sewn in. The stocks smoked, charred, and burned, the figures in the wood twisting in the flames as if alive.
Related Themes:
Chapter 6: North Carolina
Explanation and Analysis—Rotting Ornaments:
Following an escape from South Carolina that takes her to the end of the underground railroad, Cora arrives in North Carolina greeted by a terrifying scene:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The corpses hung from trees as rotting ornaments. Some of them were naked, others partially clothed, the trousers black where their bowels emptied when their necks snapped. Gross wounds and injuries marked the flesh of those closest to her, the two caught by the station agent’s lantern. One had been castrated, an ugly mouth gaping where his manhood had been. The other was a woman. Her belly curved. Cora had never been good at knowing if a body was with a child. Their bulging eyes seemed to rebuke her stares, but what were the attentions of one girl, disturbing their rest, compared to how the world had scourged them since the day they were brought into it?
Related Themes:
Chapter 8: Tennessee
Explanation and Analysis—Black Tennessee Trees:
Imagery grants a bleak first glimpse of Tennessee, as Ridgeway and Cora enter the state after her capture. The chapter opens with a survey of the ravaged hinterlands:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Crows glided over. The world was scorched and harrowed as far as they could see, a sea of ash and char from the flat planes of the fields up to the hills and mountains. Black trees tilted, stunted black arms pointing as if to a distant place untouched by flame. They rode past the blackened bone of houses and barns without number, chimneys sticking up like grave markers, the husked stone walls of ravaged mills and granaries. Scorched fences marked where cattle had grazed; it was not possible the animals survived.
Related Themes:
