B. And now nothing but drums, a battery of drums, the conga drums jamming out, in a descarga, and the drummers lifting their heads and shaking under some kind of spell. There�s rain drums, like pitter-patter but a hundred times faster, and then slamming-the-door-drums and dropping-the-bucket drums, kicking-the-car-fender-drums. Then circus drums, then coconuts falling-out-of-the-trees-and-thumping-against-the-ground drums, then lion-skin drums, then the wacking-of-a-hand-against-a-wall-drums, the-beating-of-a-pillow-drums, heavy-stones-against-a-wall-drums, then the thickest-forest-tree-trunks-pounding-drums, and then the-mountain-rumble-drums, then the little-birds-learning-to-fly drums and the big-birds-alighting-on-a-rooftop-and-fanning-their-immense-wings drums�
- Oscar Hijuelos, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
In this passage the author uses actual objects to describe what sound that the drums are making. By using things such as dropping-the-bucket drums and mountain-rumble-drums, you get a sense of what the drums sound like without even hearing them because you know the other sounds. He uses then in this passage many times not because new drums are coming in, but that the same drums start to make new sounds. This shows that the drummers are still going hard at their work, just changing the beat to make it more interesting.
C. She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father�s voice and her sister Margaret�s. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.
The author creates an almost angry atmosphere, you hear her father and sister yelling and a dog barking. This means that probably something else is going on. You hear that the bees are humming, which could mean that the dog and the others are yelling about the bees. The pinks filling the air leaves the reader uncertain but still gives you the feeling that something isn�t right.
D. It was a mine town, uranium most recently. Dust devils whirled sand off the mountains. Even after the heaviest of rains, the water seeped back into the ground, between stones, and the earth was parched again.
-Linda Hogan, �Making Do�
This writer makes it feel very lonesome and seldom in this town. Everything is dry and it feels like it is almost a barren wasteland. Like it is a prairie and the only thing that travels in and out are the dust devils. The dusty mountains and dry earth bring about a very open and somber feeling. Both very vague and not much happens there. But, the dry earth is just a wide open plain and a dusty mountain could lead to problems or whatever.
E. A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells
- T.S. Eliot, � The Waste Land�
In the first two lines, the woman pulls her hair so tight, it could be played like the strings on a violin. It makes it seem like she is very angry and pulls her hair so taught in spite of her anger. It helps set the mood by showing what kind of person she is shows what the rest of the place is like in the passage. The place seems like an awful wasteland that no one would ever want to go and visit.
F. At first I saw only water so clear it magnified the fibers in the walls of the gourd. On the surface, I saw only my own round reflection. The old man encircled the neck of the gourd with his thumb and index finger and gave it a shake. As the water shook, then settled, the colors and lights shimmered into a picture, not reflecting anything I could see around me. There at the bottom of the ground were my mother and father scanning the sky, which was where I was.
- Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior
Visual Imagery is used in this expression to get the writers point across. She describes very vividly what the narrator sees in the water. Whether it is was real or not, she uses very descriptive details to show that it is a somber but some what important and meaningful event. In the last sentence, it is very plain, but in the sentences before it is very descriptive. The author did this to make the place the narrator is in very nice and amazing while the place where her parents are very bleak and boring.
G. I sat on the stump of a tree at his feet, and below us stretched the land, the great expanse of the forests, somber under the sunshine. Rolling like a sea, with glints of winding rivers, the grey spots of villages, and here and there a clearing, like an islet of light amongst the dark waves of continuous tree tops. A brooding gloom lay over this vast and monotonous landscape; the light fell on it as if into an abyss. The land devoured the sunshine; only far off, along the coast, the empty ocean, smooth and polished within the faint haze, seemed to rise up to the sky in a wall of steel.
- Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
In this passage, the sea and the land are both used to create a mood of one another. The author has a negative mood towards the land and more of a positive feeling for the sea. He describes the sea as smooth and polished while he describes the land as somber. He makes the sea seem very powerful and the land as just an empty space that serves no purpose.
H. I also enjoy canoeing, and I suppose you will smile when I say that I especially like it on moonlight nights. I cannot, it is true, see the moon climb up the sky behind the pines and steal softly across the heavens, making a shining path for us to follow; but I know she is there, and as I lie back among the pillows and put my hand in the water, I fancy that I feel the shimmer of her garments as she passes. Sometimes a daring little fish slips between my fingers, and often a pond-lily presses shyly against my hand. Frequently, as we emerge from the shelter of a cove or inlet, I am suddenly conscious of the spaciousness of the air about me. A luminous warmth seems to enfold me.- Helen Keller, The Story of My Life
Helen Keller uses many visual images in this passage even though she was blind and deaf. She describes the moon climbing softly across the heavens behind the pine trees. She knew it was there, she just couldn�t she it for herself. She describes the moon vividly but describes the pond lily very lightly. She describes the moon so in depth because it is so much more important than a mindless pond lily.
I. Queen: There is a willow grows askant the brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.There with fantastic garlands did she make Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples�There on the pendent boughs her crownet* weeds *coronet Clamb�ring to hang, an envious silver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,hymns As one incapable of* her own distress, insensible to Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element. But long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy -William Shakespeare, Hamlet
The imagery in the passage shows you that she is crying in her book. It is a very somber mood and everything seems very fragile. If you changed line ten, I think it would take away from the passage. It is meaningful enough by itself. It does not need to be spruced up with a simile. It is so descriptive the reader can already picture what is going on in the story.
J. A ripe guava is yellow, although some varieties have a pink tinge. The skin is thick, firm, and sweet. Its heart is bright pink and almost solid with seeds. The most delicious part of the guava surrounds the tiny seeds. If you don�t know how to eat a guava, the seeds end up in the crevices between your teeth.
When you bite into a ripe guava, your teeth must grip the bumpy surface and sink into the thick edible skin without hitting the center�.
A green guava is sour and hard. You bite into it at its widest point, because it�s easier to grasp with your teeth. You hear the skin, meat, and seeds crunching inside your head, while the inside of your mouth explodes in little spurts of sour.
- Esmeralda Santiago, When I Was Puerto Rican
The author of this passage uses very distinct descriptive words in the second sentence. Although they aren�t very big, they get the point across. Most people have all felt things like that so it is very easy to comprehend that way. The way she uses sour in this passage makes the green guava out to be a bad thing. She calls it sour twice to get her point across that it tastes horrible and should never be tried.