In order to maximize meaning and overall total effect of a piece of work, writers use various literary devices. These techniques enhance the author’s work and add a dimension that results in higher reader satisfaction. Throughout the poems I have read this quarter thus far, I have discovered the use of imagery as a prominent source of literary embellishment. In particular the image of night is used in poems “Acquainted with the Night,” written by Robert Frost, and “Her Kind,” written by Anne Sexton, to portray a dark and lonely tone. All through both poems there is a dark feeling due to word selection and associations to evil things. The use of night in both cases helps to solidify the idea of loneliness. Each poem puts to work the same image to create the same affect but each work has slight differences and similarities in the way it makes night apply to loneliness.
Imagery can be presented in many different ways. A strong image of night exists all over Robert Frost’s piece, “Acquainted with the Night,” due to a very descriptive representation of things that happen or belong to the night. By simply describing the details of night Frost can paint a picture of a lonely man. The key to using imagery is to choose images that have very distinct characteristics that associate themselves with that image. Frost’s idea of choosing night to portray a sense of being alone is due to the connections of cold, dark, wet and unknowns that go along with the night. The same affect would not be able to be created if the …
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…unt the night with power. Through the use of imagery the writer is able to apply several different meanings by using one simple image. This makes the poems overall affect more efficient in making its point. The composition has become less wordy and is able to make a vivid scene with out the need of extensive descriptions.
Examining the differences and similarities of the two different applications of night as an image of loneliness, is a good way to determine what the overall feel of the poem is. When reading these works one must take the existing mold of an image and see if there are any dual meanings of why the author chose that particular concept. The use of an image as a literary devise allows the piece to touch its readers on a more personal level.
Free Yellow Wallpaper Essays: Descriptions
Descriptions The Yellow Wallpaper
The descriptive elements in The Yellow Wallpaper do a tremendous amount towards enhancing the reader’s perception of the particular kind of insanity that afflicts the narrator. The descriptions, most notably of the wallpaper itself, are multi-sensory, artful and detailed. Using metaphorical images, and surprising combinations of words, the narrator gives numerous ways for readers to experience the wallpaper. In the line regarding the wallpaper: “…they connect diagonaly, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase.” The word pairings of ‘optic horror’ and the similie are unusual and sensory. This serves to peak the reader’s interest and more effectively draw the reader into the description.
Additionally, the range of descriptions of the wallpaper not only cover several intense and detailed visual descriptions, but also an equally detailed olfactory description. The narrator describes the smell of the wallpaper in the following lines:
But there is something else about that paper – the smell! I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here.
It creeps all over the house.
I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hinding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.
It gets into my hair.
Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it-there is that smell!
Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours trying to analize it, to find what it smelled like.
It is not bad – at first, very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.
In this damp weather it is awful. I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me.
It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house-to reach the smell.
But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell.
The two most notable descriptions of the wallpaper also follow (paragraphs removed to save space):
I never saw a worse paper in my life.