Imagery

1. Imagery In its most common use, imagery suggests visual pictures, though many insist that words denoting other sensory experiences are, properly speaking, images.

2. Visual • A distant airplane, a delta wing out of nightmare, made a gliding shadow on the creek’s bottom that looked like a stingray cruising upstream. At once a black fin slit the pink cloud on the water, shearing it in two. Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

3. Visual • Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling,  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,  And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . . Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est

4. Visual • Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red gas-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

5. Auditory • And now ‘twas like all instruments, • Now like a lonely flute; • And now it is an angel’s song, • That makes the heavens be mute Samuel Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner

6. Auditory • The birds have started singing in the valley. Their February squawks and naked chirps are fully fledged now, and long lyrics fly in the air. Birdsong catches the mountains’ rim and pools in the valley; it threads through forests, it slides down creeks. Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

7. Group Practice • Find the words or phrases that evoke strong visual or auditory images.

8. Group Practice • Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smoldering. She smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips, and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:

9. Pair Practice • “Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!” shouted Mrs. Wilson. “I’ll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai___” Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand. Then there were bloody towels upon the bathroom floor, and women’s voices scolding, and high over the confusion a long broken wail of pain.”

10. Simile • a figure of speech that expresses a resemblance between things of different kinds (usually formed with ‘like’ ‘as’ or ‘similar to’) • “I’m as corny as Kansas in August; I'm as normal as blueberry pie.” (lyrics from South Pacific) • “How does it feel How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone ?” (Bob Dylan; “Like a Rolling Stone”

11. Metaphor • a figure of speech in which one thing is referred to as another; for example, “my love is a fragile flower” DOES NOT use “like” or “as” • A Lion in Winter (film) • “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” (The Temptations) • “My love is a red, red rose” (Shakespeare)

12. Simile or metaphor? • Your task is to identify each sentence as either a simile or metaphor. • Remember that similes compare two things using “like” or “as.”

13. Simile or Metaphor? • 1) The baby was like an octopus, grabbing at all the cans on the grocery store shelves. • 2) As the teacher entered the room she muttered under her breath, "This class is like a three-ring circus!" • 3) The giant’s steps were thunder as he ran toward Jack.

14. Simile or Metaphor? • 4) The pillow was a cloud when I put my head upon it after a long day. • 5) I feel like a limp dishrag • 6) Those girls are like two peas in a pod.

15. Simile or Metaphor? • 7) Ms. Kanawi’s smile was the sun during our long, arduous final. • 8) No one invites Holden to parties because he’s a wet blanket. • The bar of soap was a slippery eel during the dog’s bath.