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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
Part 2
Explanation and Analysis—The Bunk House:
Steinbeck uses detailed imagery in his description of the bunk-house where the white migrant workers sleep in the ranch. After George and Lennie arrive in Salinas, the narrator notes that:
The bunk house was a long, rectangular building. Inside, the walls were whitewashed and the floor unpainted. In three walls there were small, square windows, and in the fourth, a solid door with a wooden latch. Against the walls were eight bunks, five of them made up with blankets and the other three showing their burlap ticking. Over each bunk there was nailed an apple box with the opening forward so that it made two shelves for the personal belongings of the occupant of the bunk [...] In the middle of the room stood a big square table littered with playing cards, and around it were grouped boxes for the players to sit on.
Here, Steinbeck paints a historically realistic and visually detailed picture of working and living conditions for migrant laborers during the Great Depression. The men share one long room with “whitewashed” walls and “unpainted” floors. The room, then, is simple and unfurnished. There are eight bunk-beds, three with cheap, rough, and uncomfortable “burlap ticking” instead of cloth, and over each “was nailed an apple box” which the laborers use as shelves for their few and meager personal belongings. Steinbeck is detailed in his imagery here, reflecting his own personal experience in such environments as a former farm-worker during the summers of his adolescence.
Part 6
Explanation and Analysis—The Deep Green Pool :
Steinbeck uses rich and lush imagery when describing the natural environments of California. In an echo of the opening lines of the novella, Steinbeck describes a “deep green pool” near the Salinas River after Lennie has fled the ranch after killing Curly’s wife:
Already the sun had left the valley to go climbing up the slopes of the Gabilan mountains, and the hilltops were rosy in the sun. But by the pool among the mottled sycamores, a pleasant shade had fallen. A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side; and it swam the length of the pool and came to the legs of a motionless heron that stood in the shallows. A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while its tail waved frantically.
Here, Steinbeck’s language is far more visually detailed than elsewhere in the novella. Invoking multiple senses, he paints a rich portrait of the natural scene, from the hills that are “rosy in the sun” to the “pleasant shade” beneath the trees. He then focuses on small interactions between animals. A “water snake” swims across the pool and is eaten by a “motionless heron,” its tail waving “frantically” as it is swallowed. Steinbeck turns to natural imagery during this pivotal scene in the novella to suggest that nature has gone on, unaffected, while the human drama of the story unfolds.
