Three Good Rules Equals One Good Book In the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler is about courage and reveals that one who is willing to sacrifice their safety for others is a benevolent person and is almost guaranteed, respect, or hatred from the people around them. The book Kindred demonstrates the three rules needed to write a successful book. They are the setting, good imagery, and symbolism. These rules should be the base of any great book. A good rule to begin with would be foreshadowing. Butler started the story off with, “The trouble began long before June 9, 1976, when I became aware of it, but June 9 is the day I remember” (Butler 13). When the reader reads this they wonder why this date in general, it is her birthday but as they continue …show more content…
. . the trees I’d been near were pine needles for instance, were pine trees, tall and straight with branches and needles mostly at the top … she had worn a long dark dress that covered her from neck to feet.” (Butler 15). This was a great place to put such imagery because it describes the setting and what women wore. Although she was at the riverbank and she was bound to get mud on her she still wore that dress; Butler describes the scene making it sound old and because of her good imagery she is able to make the reader feel like they are there and experiencing it. Butler also created a character with a gun she described the gun with, “I turned, startled, and found myself looking down the barrel of the longest rifle I had ever seen. I heard a metallic click” (Butler 14). Butler shows the rule, use good imagery, when she describes the gun when I read it I felt like I was there I read quickly but it felt like it lasted a bit longer because it makes your heart beat faster because she described it and you felt like you were so close to
One of the strongest literary images I experienced was while reading from Of Wolves and Men by Barry Holston Lopez.While reading the story Barry Holston Lopez was describing what the wolf looked like, he said:"The wolf weighs ninety-four pounds and stands thirty inches at the shoulder. His feet are enormous, leaving prints in the mud along a creek". In my opinion, Barry Holston Lopez did an astounding job describing what the wolf looked like. One of the reasons this was so memorable was because for me it was so easy to imagine what the wolf looked like due to of how well Barry Holston Lopez explained it in such detail. This really contributed to the main idea of the text because it helped you experience the story so much
The use of imagery builds the story and expresses how important Dillard's childhood was in shaping the women she has become today . The excerpt begins with a reflection upon her childhood and growing up a tomboy. Dillard set the stage for “the chase” by explaining the day as “cloudy but cold” (5) with cars lining the snow covered street. Imagery is used not only to set the stage for the day of “the chase” but it is also used to describe the man chasing them as a city man dressed in “a suit and tie, street shoes” (10). Using imagery to describe the man’s appearance helps the reader to understand how unusual the man's appearance was and that the man was chasing them through the city. Dillard builds the suspense of “the chase” by taking the reader through the motions, past a “...yellow house...under a low tree, up a bank, through a hedge…” (12), she builds an image in our minds of the neighborhood. The imagery is used to build up the scene, convey suspense and create emotions for the reader.
Capote opens his narrative by illustrating how Nancy 's bedroom looks. He starts off by using comparison of Nancy 's bedroom by describing it as, "... the smallest, most personal room in the house-girlish, and as frothy as a ballerina 's tutu." The author first uses a simile to describe her bedroom. The way Capote describes the bedroom lets the reader know she was girly. He then uses two parallels, mentioning, "Walls, ceilings, and everything else except a bureau and a writing desk, were pink or blue or white." Capote 's description of the bedroom lets the reader know what colors her room was. The descriptions give the reader more of an understanding of how girly and innocent Nancy was. Capote uses imagery throughout the story to give the audience an understanding of how Nancy 's bedroom was set up. For example, "A cork bulletin board, painted pink, hung above a white started dressing table..." and "The white-and-pink bed, piled with blue pillows..." This
Throughout the book, Walls uses many examples of imagery to create mental pictures for the reader. This makes the writing more vivid and allows readers to feel like they're part of the action. An example is when Walls describes the houses at Little Hobart Street in Welch. She writes, “They were made of wood, with lopsided porches, sagging roofs, rusted-out gutters, and balding tar
First and foremost, Willa Cather and Mary Austin both employ beautiful imagery in their writings to recreate the landscape of the story they are telling, which heightens the understanding and appreciation for their writings. Their use of imagery is specific to appealing to their audience’s visual senses. In My Antonia, for example, Willa Cather describes the landscape at a particular moment by saying, “One afternoon we were having our reading lessons on the warm, grassy bank where the badger lived. It was a day of amber sunlight, but there was a shiver of coming winter in the air. I had seen ice on the little horsepond that morning, and as we went through the garden we found tall asparagus, with its red berries, lying on the ground, a mass of slimy green” (Cather 29). My Antonia has these descriptive passages throughout it, which enables the reader to feel part of the book. Likewise, Mary Austin’s The Land of Little Rain also utilizes imagery: Mary Austin says, “the mountains are steep and the rains are heavy, the pool is
The use of imagery allows the reader to picture the long-lasting emotions gripping the narrator. Being a concrete representation of an object or sensory experience (myLearning), imagery permits the reader to visualize what the narrator is experiencing. One example of imagery is used in line 5 “I'm stone. I'm flesh.” The narrator is using metaphoric and literal imagery describing his body. The reader can visualize the attempt to harden the body against the onslaught of emotion, and the reflection of the vulnerable flesh body in the granite wall. Another example of imagery can be found in lines 22 through 24 “Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's / wings cutting across my stare. / The sky. A plane in the sky." Here the realistic memories of war involuntarily flash through the narrator’s mind.
Barton utilizes imagery often throughout her letter. One example is when she describes the tents that are “dark and still as death.” Her imagery is used to show the somber mood that has fallen upon the army on this night before a bloody battle, and it arouses the reader’s apprehension. Her entire focus changes during this paragraph, going from herself to the soldiers and their families, and the tone becomes less informative and and more concerned for the people around her who may die the next day. Her imagery also shifts: instead of illustrating her immediate surroundings, she
The way the narrator uses an abundance of imagery throughout this story, imagery is heavy when the narrator
The human mind is a fragile thing. It can be both strengthen and broken down easily. Actions and even words can be the thing to kill a person mentally. Physically harming or locking away a person can lead to mental and bodily withdrawal. Harming a person with words can leave lasting effects and always stay within a person's psyche. Oppressing and locking away a person's true nature or desires can cause someone to act in way that he or she has never behaved before. When done by a loved one, it can affect a person even more. In William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” and Susan Glaspell's “Trifles”, two different women are kept mentally and physically locked away by a person who is supposed to love and protect them. Though Emily and Mrs. Wright
Willa Cather is well known for her vivid imagery. I believe this plays a major role in telling of the story. When using imagery it can help readers imagine a more clearer picture when reading. Willas imagery has helped making literary criticism more noticeable and help you have a better understanding . For an example on page 16, “As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of winestains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.”. Imaging this has helped set up what Antonia sees in the prairie. I think Willa makes imagery more vivid to make the reader enjoy the image just as much as she does. Doing this ensures the author that her
Many quotes of the book that display imagery, also support and create the mood of the book or story. One example is, “three dusty windows barred with iron” (pg 75). The word “dusty”, probably means the windows are old, which in my opinion feeds into the mysterious mood. Another example is, “The court was very cool and a little damp, and full of premature twilight, although the
Imagery is one of the best used literary devices in this short story. Imagery means “The use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas.” (http://dictionary.reference.com/define/imagery) In The Pedestrian Bradbury tells us that Mr. Mead’s house “had all of its electric lights brightly lit, every window s loud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool darkness.” (51) This story also uses imagery when it talks about the police car and says, “…peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with bars. It smelled of riveted steel. It smelled of harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and metallic. There was nothing soft there.”
Imagery is widely used in O'Connor's story, which makes the characters and surroundings seem lifelike. In the depiction of the grandmother the reader can visual see the woman sitting in the car waiting on the others to arrive. "Her collar and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had penned a purple spray of violets containing a sachet." These are a few phrases of description that O'Conner used to describe the old
The author uses imagery to interest the reader in her story that may seem mundane without the imagery. An example of this happening is when Jeannette is going to her new school in Welch it was her first day and the teacher picks on her because she did not have to give the school her records to her not having them as that is happening a tall girl stabs her out of nowhere“I felt something sharp and painful between my shoulder blades and turned around. The tall black girl with the almond eyes was sitting at the desk behind me.
Another example of imagery in the story is when the author used it to describe Emily when she ask for poison to the druggist.“still a slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eyes ockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keepers face ought to look”. The author makes emphasis in Emily’s face and eyes meaning that she is lost in her own world and foreshadows that Emily would use the poison for something wrong.