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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
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Sorrowful Weight:
In Chapter 2, Jack continues to describe his family's home. It is full of stuff—consumer goods of all types with seemingly no purpose, tucked away into countless boxes. These boxes will stay in their house throughout the novel and their reactions to them will change over time. Here, in the first reference to them, Jack uses imagery to compare the objects' physical weight to their emotional weight:
[...] we regard the rest of the house as storage space for furniture, toys, all the unused objects of earlier marriages and different sets of children, the gifts of lost in-laws, the hand-me-downs and rummages. Things, boxes. Why do these possessions carry such sorrowful weight? There is a darkness attached to them, a foreboding. They make me wary not of personal failure and defeat but of something more general, something large in scope and content.
Related Themes:
Chapter 29
Explanation and Analysis—Sorrowful Weight:
In Chapter 2, Jack continues to describe his family's home. It is full of stuff—consumer goods of all types with seemingly no purpose, tucked away into countless boxes. These boxes will stay in their house throughout the novel and their reactions to them will change over time. Here, in the first reference to them, Jack uses imagery to compare the objects' physical weight to their emotional weight:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[...] we regard the rest of the house as storage space for furniture, toys, all the unused objects of earlier marriages and different sets of children, the gifts of lost in-laws, the hand-me-downs and rummages. Things, boxes. Why do these possessions carry such sorrowful weight? There is a darkness attached to them, a foreboding. They make me wary not of personal failure and defeat but of something more general, something large in scope and content.
Related Themes:
Chapter 30
Explanation and Analysis—Panic, Half Goat:
At the beginning of Chapter 30, Jack wakes in the night in acute panic, terrified of the effects of Dylar and filled with homicidal rage toward Mr. Gray. Jack describes how his fear makes him feel small using visual imagery, while making an allusion to ancient Greek mythology:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In the dark the mind runs on like a devouring machine, the only thing awake in the universe. I tried to make out the walls, the dresser in the corner. It was the old defenseless feeling. Small, weak, deathbound, alone. Panic, the god of woods and wilderness, half goat. I moved my head to the right, remembering the clock-radio. I watched the numbers change, the progression of digital minutes, odd to even. They glowed green in the dark.
Related Themes:
