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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
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Phantom Hooves:
At the end of Chapter 3, Hightower looks out the window and sees Byron Bunch approaching his house. He does not recognize him at first, and Faulkner uses imagery to capture how Hightower comes to understand who and what he is seeing:
[...][W]ith the echo of the phantom hooves still crashing soundlessly in the duskfilled study, he watches quietly the puny, unhorsed figure moving with that precarious and meretricious cleverness of animals balanced on their hinder legs[...]
The "phantom hooves" come from Hightower's own imagination. He seems to have just been lost in reverie about his grandfather's time as a Confederate soldier. The "phantom hooves" belong to the horses the cavalry rode into battle. The hooves are "crashing soundlessly" because Hightower is coming to his senses. He is sitting in his office, where most likely no horse has ever stepped. He knows this. What's more, Hightower has no actual memory of what it sounded like when the cavalry rode. Those are his grandfather's memories. He is simply imagining them. Still, he must adjust to reality. When he looks out the window, he struggles to recognize Byron because he is caught between his physical senses and the sensory world he has created in his head. This in-between state leads him to make strange and distorted inferences about what he is seeing: before he thinks that Byron or any other human neighbor might be coming up the road, he first thinks of an animal walking on its hind legs. Hightower's mixed-up senses do not necessarily make him seem like he has lost his mind, but they do indicate that he has a difficult time shuttling back and forth between memory or daydreaming and reality.
Related Themes:
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Familiar Comforts:
In Chapter 7, at age 14, Christmas returns home to McEachern's house after assaulting a Black girl. Faulkner uses imagery and alliteration to describe what Christmas encounters at home:
The grass was aloud, alive with crickets. Against the dewgray earth and the dark bands of trees fireflies drifted and faded, erratic and random. A mockingbird sang in a tree beside the house. Behind him, in the woods beyond the spring, two whippoorwills whistled. Beyond them, as though beyond some ultimate horizon of summer, a hound howled.
The grass is "aloud" and "alive." This repeated "al" sound evokes the lulling, repetitive sound of the crickets. There are triple "f" sounds in "fireflies drifted and faded" and double "r" sounds in "erratic and random." "Whippoorwills whistled" and "hound howled" are likewise alliterative phrases. All of these double and triple sounds pulse through the passage, creating a sonic experience for the reader that is similar to the sonic experience Christmas is having outside. There is a pleasant familiarity to each repeated sound.
Christmas is returning to the house after a traumatic event that culminated in an outburst of violence. Part of why he is struggling with his behavior is because of the abuse he has endured at McEachern's hand. However, this passage demonstrates that Christmas still finds something soothing about the place where he has grown up. It is the only thing he knows. Furthermore, as he contemplates later in the passage, he appreciates that McEachern is predictable. Like the crickets, birds, and hounds, he knows the rhythm of the man's behavior. In fact, Christmas prefers McEachern's predictable cruelty to Mrs. McEachern's unpredictable kindness.
Related Themes:
