Imagery refers to the collection of images contained in a text. Imagery is not purely visual; instead it includes all sensory representations. If a writer makes you smell freshly-baked bread, see the new blade of grass, feel the agony of thirst or the warmth of a radiator on a cold day, then you have been affected by imagery. When you think about it, it seems miraculous that this can be achieved by the tiny squiggles that we call letters.
This quiz tests your knowledge of the different uses of imagery.
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You can find more about this topic by visiting BBC Bitesize - Writing fiction
This is a straightforward example of the use of sensory imagery. Kafka tells the reader to visualise the overcast sky through the window and describes the sound the raindrops make as they beat against the gutter
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He describes the sound through the simile (the muffled watch) and more literally (low, dull, quick). Poe also uses internal alliteration: the repetition of the 'ch' sound in 'much', 'such' and 'watch', which, by appearing as almost-regular beats, reinforces the imagined sound of the watch and of the tell-tale heart
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Sound imagery, such as onomatopoeia and alliteration, is also considered to be figurative language
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'Sopping' is an example of onomatopoeia
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Would you have imagined that a writer could use five different types of imagery in only 29 words?
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The two words are nearly alliterative, but not quite ('z' and 'sh')
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This passage allows you to visualise the contrast between the hotel and its drab surroundings. It also describes the brash colours as a scream and a howl which hushes the landscape - the visual is reinforced with auditory imagery
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The colours of the hotel 'scream' and 'howl' (personification), the 's' and 'sh' sounds are repeated in the last line (internal alliteration), and 'hush' is an example of onomatopoeia
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