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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—Lenny's Apartment:
Plath employs vivid imagery in her depiction of the apartment owned by Lenny, a popular disc-jockey or “DJ” who dates Doreen:
It was built exactly like the inside of a ranch, only in the middle of a New York apartment house. He’d had a few partitions knocked down to make the place broaden out, he said, and then had them pine-panel the walls and fit up a special pine-paneled bar in the shape of a horseshoe. I think the floor was pine-paneled, too. Great white bearskins lay about underfoot, and the only furniture was a lot of low beds covered with Indian rugs. Instead of pictures hung up on the walls, he had antlers and buffalo horns and a stuffed rabbit head.
Lenny, who enjoys country music and wears western-style clothing, lives in an apartment that is decorated like a “ranch” with “pine-panel” walls and a “pine-paneled bar in the shape of a horseshoe.” Here, Plath includes a number of specific visual details, noting, for example, the “great white bearskins” on the floor, the “low beds covered with Indian rugs,” and the “antlers and buffalo horns” hanging on the wall in lieu of pictures. Plath’s imagery here suggests that Lenny is an affluent and trendy man whose preference for country-style decor and fashion stands in odd tension with the fact that he lives in the heavily urbanized city.
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Doctor Gordon's Office:
Plath employs detailed imagery in her depiction of the mental health facility operated by the relatively unsympathetic Doctor Gordon:
Doctor Gordon’s waiting room was hushed and beige. The walls were beige, and the carpets were beige, and the upholstered chairs and sofas were beige. There were no mirrors or pictures, only certificates from different medical schools, with Doctor Gordon’s name in Latin, hung about the walls. Pale green loopy ferns and spiked leaves of a much darker green filled the ceramic pots on the end table and the coffee table and the magazine table. At first I wondered why the room felt so safe. Then I realized it was because there were no windows.
In Esther’s first attempt to receive mental health care at a medical facility, she is introduced to Doctor Gordon, who is young and male and whom Esther perceives as arrogant. His office, she notes, is “hushed and beige,” with beige walls, carpets, chairs, and sofas. Using detailed visual imagery, Esther observes the “pale green loopy ferns and spiked leaves” of the plants that decorate the office, as well as the other furnishings, such as “ceramic pots on the end tables.” The imagery used in this passage emphasizes the safe but bland nature of the mental care facility, which does little to inspire its patients or respect their individuality.
Related Themes:
