Monday, October 5 types of imagery and practice

 

Figurative Language Devices: imagery

1) Seeing /Visual imagery is the most common form of imagery in literature. 

At its core, every story has five elements: introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. 

Tied into each of those elements are vivid images of the characters and the scenery, making visual imagery not only common but paramount. (paramount means very important!)

For example:  "She had chestnut brown hair with glimmering golden hues." 

Visual imagery might describe a character's appearance or set the scene.

For example:  "The ancient willow trees swayed in the moonlight." 

For example: "She sat at the desk, chin on hand, and carelessly flipped through the pages. When she got to chapter three, she sat up straight, and pulled off her glasses."

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2)  Smelling / Olfactory Imagery

Science has proven our sense of smell is our strongest link to the past. A single whiff of our mother's favorite flower can take us back in time. To no surprise, authors want to tap into some of that.

For example: He walked into his mother's kitchen and caught the buttery scent of scone dancing though the air.

For example: His room stank of rotten eggs which made Shaina retch, and she covered her mouth with her hand.

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3) Taste / Gustatory Imagery

Taste / Gustatory imagery has to do with our taste buds. 

For example: I imagined biting into one of those warm scones while the mixture of flour, butter, and strawberry jam danced a jig upon my tongue. 

For example: The tracker dog sniffed the table and recoiled in the stench of bleach and ammonia.

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 4) Touch/Tactile Imagery

Touch /Tactile imagery reaches out to our sense of touch. 

For example: The shop clerk in Ireland enveloped  his customer in a handmade cashmere wrap, the silky wool breezes enveloping her arm in softness. 

For example: As I tumbled down the hill, the loose rocks raced alongside me, pricking my hands and face like a hundred tiny knives.

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5) Hearing / auditory imagery 

Hearing (sound) / auditory imagery appeals to our sense of hearing. 

For example: The happy couple scooped up their newborn puppy up in the middle of the night because his yipping was tearing at their eardrums - and their hearts.

For example: The children were screaming and shouting in the fields.

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We are exploring these in class, but I want you to be aware of two of types of literary imagery. I explain them below and give you examples, but you will never be accessed on them in this class. 

There are two other types of literary imagery:

1) kinesthetic imagery, which is used when a writer appeals to the reader's sense of motion

As I watched I felt the tug of the rope on the pirate's neck

2) organic imagery, when the writer communicates internal sensations, such as fatigue, hunger, thirst or internal emotions, such as fear, love and despair.  

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood     Birches by Robert Frost 1916

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Group practice: For each of the following identify the type of imagery: seeing /visual,     hearing/auditory,    smelling/ olfactory,  tasting/ gustatory,  or feeling/ sensory.

 

1.        In the hard-packed dirt of the midway, after the glaring lights are out and the people have gone to bed, you will find a veritable treasure of popcorn fragments, frozen custard dribblings, candied apples abandoned by tired children, sugar fluff crystals, salted almonds, popsicles, partially gnawed ice cream cones and wooden sticks of lollipops.   from Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

The type of imagery used is _____________________________.

Examples from the text that support this are: (insert examples)   ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2.        In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots.   Patrick Suskind's novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

 

The type of imagery used is __________________________

 Examples from the text that support this are: (insert examples)   ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3.        On rainy afternoons, embroidering with a group of friends on the begonia porch, she would lose the thread of the conversation and a tear of nostalgia would salt her palate when she saw the strips of damp earth and the piles of mud that the earthworms had pushed up in the garden. Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hundred Years of Solitude

                            The type of imagery used is ____________________________________

Examples from the text that support this are: (insert examples)__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4.        It commenced rainin one day an did not stop for two months. We went thru ever different kind of rain they is, cep'n maybe sleet or hail. It was little stingin rain sometimes, an big ole fat rain at others. It came sidewise an straight down an sometimes even seem to come up from the groun.    Forest Gump by Winston Groom

 The type of imagery used is ____________________________________

                                Examples from the text that support this are: (insert examples)  

                             _________________________________________________________                                                              __________________________________________________________________________

5.        Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago. Herman Melville Moby Dick

 The type of imagery used is ____________________________________

Examples from the text that support this are: (insert examples)______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

                               Independent Practice.For each of the following sentences, identify the imagery is 1)                     seeing/ visual, 2) hearing/ auditory, 3) smelling/olfactory, 4) tasting/ gustatory 5) touch/                            tactile

 

1.      The eerie silence was shattered by her scream.                                      _______________________

2.      Her face blossomed when she caught a glance of him.                          _______________________

3.      He could hear his world crashing, when he heard the news.                 _______________________

4.      She was like a breath of fresh air infusing life back into him.              ________________________

5.      The concert was so loud that her ears rang for days afterward.            ________________________

6.      The deep yellow hues of the sunset drowned in and mixed with the blues of the sea.____________

7.      ­­ Mommy hauled her little baby up in the air, placed him on the bed and prodded her fingers in his squishy skin eliciting fits of belly-laughs.  _____________________

8.      Brown horned gazelle meandered about the tall grass blinking away the following flies; cushioned paws didn’t make sound and the gazelle didn’t know the danger lurking behind it.  ______________

9.      Ja’Nelle didn’t have to wait for the clock to strike 2, her mother stormed out of her room, slamming the door behind her and glaring at her daughter, daggers in her eyes._____________

10.  The wings of the fan curved like a dog’s ears waggled with a raucous squeak at a speed that the air couldn’t reach the one sitting under it._____________

Now it’s your turn.

11. Write a tasting/ gustatory imagery sentence ­­­­about blood oozing out of a split lip or phlem from a cold

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12. Write a seeing/ imagery sentence about the moon, your friend’s eyes or fall leaves.

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13. Write a smell / olfactory imagery sentence about either cinnamon or baby powder

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14. Write a hearing / auditory imagery sentence about the chirping of birds or the rustle of paper

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15. Write a feeling / tactile sentence about something hairy, pointed or sticky

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