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Imagery in a Thousand Splended Suns

Decent Essays

Sensory imagery is an incredibly important aspect of any well written novel. It is what allows the reader to experience what is going on in the story with more than just an intellectual understanding of the material. Without these sensory details it becomes easy for a reader to dismiss or misunderstand what a character is going through at any point in the story.
An excellent example of both sensory description and imagery is when Laila’s home is destroyed in a rocket attack. The beginning of the scene is of Laila helping bring her family’s belongings out of the house. While on the surface this sounds extraordinarily dull the choice of phrasing and inclusion of sensory details instead creates an experience in the readers mind that is …show more content…

The beauty of the rainbows juxtaposed by the grotesqueness of the bloody chunk of Laila’s father creates a palpable tension and release that can only be crafted with strong sensory details and descriptions. Hosseini does an amazing job throughout his novel with including rich engaging sensory driven imagery. This scene of Laila’s home being destroyed is just one example of how the author can arrange words on a page that causes the audience to feel rather than simply understand what is going on. By using language in this way the reader is compelled to create a much richer and rewarding experience that would be impossible to have without using sensory details. Without imagery to evoke an emotional connection one might as well be reading a textbook for information instead of a

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