Journey to the Center of the Earth: Imagery 5 key examples

Axel repeatedly associates his uncle with the visual imagery of metal and minerals. This seems fitting, as he’s a scientist who studies them, but it also aligns with the professor's looks and temperament. He’s not a cozy, welcoming figure. Instead, he’s “tall,” “spare,” and has an “iron constitution.” All of this suggests that he is unyielding, hardy and robust, much like the minerals and metals he examines as a geologist. These visual details help readers visualize a character who is as tough and enduring as the rock and stone specimens he works with. 

The simile comparing Lidenbrock's nose to a knife-blade further accentuates how severe he seems. By likening his nose to a sharp, surgical instrument, the passage communicates that Lidenbrock is perceived as cutting and abrasive. The phrase “hard-nosed” is often used to describe someone who is tough, shrewd, practical, and stubborn. Lidenbrock is all of these things, so it makes sense that his nose seems like it’s made of iron.

Axel lightens the mood by noting that while it might look like it could magnetize metal, his uncle’s nose is actually mostly used for “snuff.” Snuff was a kind of powdered tobacco popular in the Victorian period. It provided a quickly absorbable dose of nicotine and also made the user sneeze, which was thought to be healthy. This reference tempers the “iron” hardness of this description a little. The compulsive sneezing that snuff causes doesn’t seem as harsh and mineral-like as Lidenbrock’s other characteristics: indeed, it’s almost silly. Although he's certainly tough and "spare," Lidenbrock does have some redeeming human qualities.

The visual imagery of this passage invokes a captivating, dizzying vista. Axel is looking out at the city from a significant height, feeling the vertigo-inducing movement of the rushing wind. The “optical illusion” he describes allows readers to envision the vast landscape and seascape laid out beneath the steeple. The “scattered clouds” are actually the only thing that’s really moving, but they make the “green plains” and “sparkling sea” seem like they’re bounding up toward the narrator. Movement and stillness are reversed in Axel’s perspective, and this “inversion” makes him feel like he’s falling. The reader feels his sense of disorientation and excitement intensely.

It’s also an interesting contrast to the coming adventure. Although he's scared, Axel is also exhilarated by being so far above the ground. However, he is still terrified to venture below it.

Furthermore, the simile comparing distant sails to “the wings of sea birds” contributes to the reader's understanding of how high up Axel really is. The ships he’s describing are actually huge: they would have to be, if they're visible from so far away. However, he’s on such a tall building that they seem as tiny as “the wings of sea birds” in the distance. The “wings” of the ships in this scene point to the idea of exploration and the possibility of journeying across vast spaces. Although Axel has no idea how much of his adventure he’ll spend near streams, rivers, and seas, this scene subtly mirrors the impending journey by water.

The passage’s visual imagery illuminates the subterranean world’s surprising beauty and richness. Even Axel—whom the reader has probably realized is quite fond of minerals—seems surprised by the brightness and abundance he sees. The “beds of schist” adorned with “beautiful shades of green” and “metallic threads of copper and manganese” intertwined with “traces of platinum and gold” invoke a vision of a complex tapestry of precious, uncommon things.

Axel had not been sure what he would see underground. This moment illustrates the falsity of any expectations he might have had of the underground being drab or monochromatic. The rocks are not just geologically interesting from his perspective as a mineralogist, but they also have an inherent beauty that is so intense the narrator struggles to understand it. He can’t even “think” what else might be hidden away that humanity will never find.

Furthermore, the imagery of sparkling, clandestine hoards of metals and gems in this passage contributes to the fairy-tale like atmosphere of the scene. It suggests that the party is entering a secret world full of hidden treasures. In addition to the valuable knowledge Axel believes they’re about to collect, there seems to be a possibility of accruing enormous material wealth.

The visual imagery used in the passage illustrates the lightning's erratic and perilous dance around the ship for the reader. The ball is blindingly bright, “half fiery white, half azure blue,” and its unpredictable movement—“now here, now there”—contributes to the unpredictability and urgency the scene evokes. All of the imagery here is of uncontrolled, furious energy bouncing dangerously close to the characters. Verne’s clipped, sharp diction echoes the panic Axel feels as the ball of lightning bobs close to their supplies of gunpowder and to the ship’s body.

An unnerving sense of fear and uncertainty soaks through this entire scene. The light is beautiful but terrifying. Axel, his uncle, and Hans are immobilized by the phenomenon. The sense of urgency and desperation the men feel is mirrored in this passage’s diction. Instead of long, descriptive sentences, the narrator’s speech is abrupt and truncated. The events seem to bleed together, especially as the sentence is only partially broken by semicolons toward the end. It's as if the time the characters spend with the ball of lightning is endless, and this reflects their fear. The impression the reader gets is of the terrifying, uncaring scale of natural phenomena. The lightning doesn't care if they're heroic explorers: if it gets too close, it will blow them to smithereens.  It makes these characters seem very small and powerless, despite their bravery.

The visual imagery the narrator uses in this passage vividly contrasts with the subterranean landscapes of preceding chapters. After spending time in a gloomy world of darkness and cold, the novel abruptly begins highlighting the Sicilian environment's richness and lushness. Axel’s language is full of warmth and brightness, and it's packed with the language of color. He and his party are surrounded by land like “a belt of green,” and they look out past trees at a "lovely lake or sea." Their surroundings are brimming with living people and fresh, green plants.

Verne’s descriptions of the “little harbor” with its “vessels of peculiar form” surrounded by “groups of islands” and “blue mountains” paint a quaint picture of a lively, inhabited region. After all their time underground, this passage is almost as startling as the descriptions of some of the subterranean monsters. This picturesque Italian scene is the polar opposite of some of Verne’s earlier images of both chilly Iceland and the icy-white stalagmites and mysterious lights far below it. Axel has arrived at the end of his adventure at an entirely different kind of volcano to Snæfellsjökull. The descriptions of Sicily here—in addition to providing a contrast to the world underground—also point to all the other pleasant changes soon to follow.