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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
Key Examples in Treasure Island
Chapter 1. The Old Sea Dog at the “Admiral Benbow”
Explanation and Analysis—The One-Legged Sailor:
Early in Chapter 1, Jim Hawkins uses vivid imagery to describe the frightening nightmares he has of a "seafaring man with one leg," whom Billy Bones has warned him about:
How that personage haunted my dreams […] On stormy nights, when the wind shook the four corners of the house, and the surf roared along the cove and up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with a thousand diabolical expressions. Now the leg would be cut off at the knee, now at the hip; now he was a monstrous kind of creature […] to see him leap and run and pursue me over the hedge and ditch was the worst of my nightmares.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Admiral Benbow:
In Chapter 1, Jim uses vivid imagery to describe Billy Bones, an old sailor who identifies himself as "The Captain" when he arrives at the Admiral Benbow, the inn where Jim and his parents work and live:
Unlock with LitCharts A+A tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails; and the saber cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white.
Chapter 6. The Captain’s Papers
Explanation and Analysis—The Treasure Map:
In Chapter 6, the novel uses descriptive language and vivid visual imagery to describe the invaluable map of Treasure Island, where Captain Flint's buried treasure supposedly lies:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It was about nine miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine land-locked garb ours, and a hill in the centre marked “The Spy-glass." […] above all, three crosses of red ink—two on the north part of the island, one in the south-west, and, beside this last, in the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from the captain’s tottery characters, these words:—Bulk of treasure here.
Related Themes:
Chapter 13. How My Shore Adventure Began
Explanation and Analysis—Hating the Island:
Chapter 13 opens with the crew's first morning on the island. Jim describes the surrounding landscape using visual imagery:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Grey-coloured woods covered a large part of the surface. This even tint was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sandbreak in the lower lands, and by many tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others—some singly, some in clumps; but the general coloring was uniform and sad. The hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock.
Explanation and Analysis—A Poisonous Brightness:
In Chapter 13, the narrative's visual imagery foreshadow the mutiny that occurs once the Hispaniola arrives at Treasure Island:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The foliage round that part of the shore had a kind of poisonous brightness.
Related Themes:
Chapter 14. The First Blow
Explanation and Analysis—The Horrid Scream:
In Chapter 14, Jim hides out on Treasure Island and watches Long John Silver speak with Tom, another member of the ship's crew. In a moment of tension between Silver and Tom, the novel uses auditory imagery to heighten the sense of danger Jim feels while he watches the pair argue:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Far away out in the marsh there arose, all of a sudden, a sound like the cry of anger, then another on the back of it; and then one horrid, long-drawn scream. The rocks of the Spyglass re-echoed it a score of times; the whole troop of marsh-birds rose again, darkening heaven, with a simultaneous whirr; and long after that death yell was ringing in my brain, silence had reestablished its empire, and only the rustle of the redescending birds and the boom of the distant surges disturbed the languor of the afternoon.
Chapter 22. How My Sea Adventure Began
Explanation and Analysis—Traversing the Island:
In Chapter 22, the novel uses visual and auditory imagery as Jim searches for Ben Gunn's coracle, a small, round paddleboat made of wicker:
Unlock with LitCharts A+As I continued to thread the tall woods I could hear from far before me not only the continuous thunder of the surf, but a certain tossing of foliage and grinding of boughs which showed me the sea breeze had set in higher than usual. Soon cool draughts of air began to reach me; and a few steps farther I came forth into the open borders of the grove, and saw the sea lying blue and sunny to the horizon, and the surf tumbling and tossing its foam along the beach.
Chapter 34. And Last
Explanation and Analysis—Coins Like Autumn Leaves:
In Chapter 34, Jim, Long John Silver and the rest of the crew finally find the ever-elusive buried treasure. Jim uses vivid imagery and a simile to describe the money he and the others find:
Unlock with LitCharts A+English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what looked like wisps of string or bits of spider’s web, round pieces and square pieces […] nearly every variety of money in the world must, I think, have found a place in that collection; and for number, I am sure they were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my fingers with sorting them out.
Related Themes:
