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Imagery
Explanation and Analysis—Olfactory Imagery:
Olfactory imagery features prominently in The Story of My Life. For example, in Chapter 1, Helen describes the climbing roses at the Keller homestead as hanging "in long festoons from our porch, filling the whole air with their fragrance, untainted by any earthy smell." In Chapter 7, she notes the "spicy, clovery smell" of her pony's breath when she catches him in the pasture and puts a bit in his mouth. But the most impeccable example of olfactory imagery appears in Chapter 11 during her time at Fern Quarry:
Here were great oaks and splendid evergreens with trunks like mossy pillars, from the branches of which hung garlands of ivy and mistletoe, and persimmon trees, the odour of which pervaded every nook and corner of the wood — an illusive, fragrant something that made the heart glad[...] It was delightful to lose ourselves in the green hollows of that tangled wood in the late afternoon, and to smell the cool, delicious odours that came up from the earth at the close of the day.
This passage evokes Helen's nostalgia for her childhood home and recalls the first few pages of her story. Fern Quarry was just 14 miles from Tuscumbia, and its foliage differed in kind but was equally abundant. She describes the "odour" of the persimmon trees as an "illusive, fragrant something that made the heart glad" and wonders at the "cool, delicious odours" of the earth. After Helen describes losing her sight and hearing, she begins to place more emphasis on olfactory imagery. Intuitively, it makes sense that Helen would rely more on her other senses. Careful readers will notice this subtle shift in her descriptions. The comparative lack of visual and auditory imagery does not in any way compromise the vividness of the passage—it rather makes her descriptions of nature all the more outstanding for their originality and depth.
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