Higher Close Reading

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Higher Close Reading

• Imagery

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What its Not!

• Imagery does not mean descriptive writing eg
• Down on the level, its pink walls, and
  straggling roses, and green-painted rain barrel
  hidden by a thick dusty planting of spruce and
  larch, was Fin-me-oot Cottage, where house
  martins flocked to nest in summer, and small
  birds found plenteous food on the bird tables. . .

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What Imagery Is

• Technically it is mainly concerned with three
  figures of speech
• Simile
• Metaphor
• Personification

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1. Simile

• Signified by the use of like or asas.
• For example
• The messenger ran like the wind
• The poppies were as red as blood
• Easy to recognise trickier to explain

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The messenger ran like the wind

• It is not enough to say the messenger ran very
  fast because this just gives you the meaning
  (denotation) when you will be asked about its
  effect
• A better beginning would be
• The simile (quote it) gives the impression of
  speed because the wind is fast
• But this will still not explain why the writer
  specifically chose wind so

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an even better answer

• The simile (quote it) gives the impression of
  speed because the wind is seen as a powerful
  force which reaches great speeds. It might also
  suggest that the runner was so fast that he was
  creating turbulence like the wind.
• N.B. its denotation plus connotation

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Why is this simile effective?

• the poppies were as red as blood
• Answer
• (This simile is effective) because it tries to
  communicate the intensity of the red colour of
  the poppies. The word blood suggests not just
  colour, but the richness of the flowers tone.
• Now its your turn

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Metaphor

• The metaphor is probably the most powerful device
  in the English language
• Metaphor says something is something the woman
  is a cat not literally of course
• The attributes of the cat and the woman are
  shared. The connotations of a cat reflect the
  qualities of the woman
• Think about the difference if the woman had been
  compared to a kitten

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Why use a metaphor?

• Good metaphors contain a lot of information that
  can be transferred economically to the reader
• Think about the connotations of this metaphor and
  what conveys to you about the umbrellas As the
  wind strengthened the men clung on to the big,
  black birds of their umbrellas. Few words but
  lots of ideas.

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So . . .

• To work with a metaphor your need to
• Identify the metaphor but you get no marks for
  that on its own.
• Show how the connotations of the metaphor help to
  develop or refine your idea of what is being
  described the literal root.
• Show the link between the connotations which you
  have chosen and the literal meanings of the words
  used in the metaphor
• (2 and 3 can be reversed)

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Example 1

• Too many tourists are so wedded to to their
  camera that they cease to respond directly to the
  places of beauty they visit. They are content to
  take home a dozen rolls of exposed film instead,
  like a bank full of monopoly money.
• Show how the metaphor highlights the writers
  disapproval of the tourists

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So how do we apply this formula?

• The metaphor is wedded (0 marks)
• The connotations of wedded are being in a
  permanent relationship as a result of being
  married, dependency, closeness, exclusivity
• All of which have the effect of illustrating how
  completely indispensable and consuming the camera
  is to the tourist as if they are married.
• The literal root of the image is established in
  point 2!

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Just as . . . so too

• Just as wedded has connotations of being in a
  permanent relationship as a result of being
  married, so too does the tourist and the camera
  share similar traits. Each have a dependency and
  closeness, and suggest how indispensible and
  consuming the camera is to the tourist as if they
  are married.

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Summary (metaphor)

• Identify or quote the metaphor
• 2. Show how the literal and figurative come
  together to create an effect
• 3. Say what the effect is

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Personification

• Personification is a sub-set of metaphor
• Some thing or an animal is given human attributes
• Analyse it in the same way as a metaphor
• Consider the sky wept