White Fang Literary Devices

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

Explanation and Analysis—A Crystal World:

In Part 1, Chapter 1, London uses vivid imagery to create an ominous mood and to emphasize the silence and horror of the Northland wilderness. He describes a thick layer of frost covering the bodies of two men, Bill and Henry, who are crossing the wilderness with a coffin, tasked with the errand of bringing it to the nearest town for a burial:

But front and rear, unawed and indomitable, toiled the two men who were not yet dead. Their […] eyelashes and cheeks and lips were so coated with the crystals from their frozen breath that their faces were not discernible. This gave them the seeming of ghostly masques, undertakers in a spectral world at the funeral of some ghost. But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, putting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.

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Explanation and Analysis—A Circle of Gleaming Eyes:

In Part 1, Chapter 1, London uses vivid imagery when describing the pack of starving wolves surrounding Bill and Henry as they set up their camp at night, adding to the overall mood of danger and horror at the beginning of the novel:

[Bill] pointed toward the wall of darkness that pressed about them from every side. There was no suggestion of form in the utter blackness; only could be seen a pair of eyes gleaming like live coals. Henry indicated with his head a second pair and a third. A circle of gleaming eyes had drawn about their camp. Now and again a pair of eyes moved, or disappeared to appear again a moment later.

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Explanation and Analysis—The Terrifying Silence:

In Part 3, Chapter 4, when White Fang runs away from the Indians back into the forest, the novel uses imagery of absence, both of sights and sounds, to express his feelings of loneliness and fear:

Here was no meat, nothing but a threatening and inedible silence […] The night yawned about him. His senses, accustomed to the hum and bustle of the camp, used to the continuous impact of sights and sounds, were now left idle. There was nothing to do, nothing to see nor hear. They strained to catch some interruption of the silence and immobility of nature. They were appalled by inaction and by the feel of something terrible impending.

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White Fang: Imagery 3 key examples

Definition of Imagery