Imagery Definition and Examples - Reading Comprehension

Must imagery use figurative language?

• Yes

• No

Tags

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Which of the five types of sensory imagery is most prominent in this excerpt from 100 Days of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez?

On rainy afternoons, embroidering with a group of friends on the begonia porch, she would lose the thread of the conversation and a tear of nostalgia would salt her palate when she saw the strips of damp earth and the piles of mud that the earthworms had pushed up in the garden. Those secret tastes, defeated in the past by oranges and rhubarb, broke out into an irrepressible urge when she began to weep. She went back to eating earth. The first time she did it almost out of curiosity, sure that the bad taste would be the best cure for the temptation. And, in fact, she could not bear the earth in her mouth. But she persevered, overcome by the growing anxiety, and little by little she was getting back her ancestral appetite, the taste of primary minerals, the unbridled satisfaction of what was the original food.

• visual

• auditory

• olfactory

• tactile

• gustatory

Tags

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Which of the five types of sensory imagery is most prominent in this excerpt from Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost?

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

• visual

• auditory

• olfactory

• tactile

• gustatory

Tags

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Which of the five types of sensory imagery is most prominent in this excerpt from 1984, by George Orwell?

Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black mustachioed face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston’s own. Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight.

• visual

• auditory

• olfactory

• tactile

• gustatory

Tags

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Which of the five types of sensory imagery is most prominent in this excerpt from Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind?

In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys, the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries, and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, from their bellies that of onions, and from their bodies, if they were no longer very young, came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease.

• visual

• auditory

• olfactory

• tactile

• gustatory

Tags

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Choose the best definition of the literary term, "imagery."

• A way of seeing things in a new light.

• A technique using descriptive details from the five senses.

• A way to describe a character’s emotions.

Tags

CCSS.RL.11-12.3

CCSS.RL.6.3

CCSS.RL.7.3

CCSS.RL.8.3

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

What effect does the imagery produce in 1984, by George Orwell?

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him. The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats.

• Since the opening line is in April, this passage sets up expectations for Winston Smith to better his situation throughout the spring.

• The contradictory details of Winston’s building being named Victory Mansions and it smelling of boiled cabbage and old rag mats creates a feeling of unease in the reader.

• The fact that most of these details are unpleasant—the vile wind, the gritty dust, and old rag mats—makes the reader understand that Winston is a pessimistic man.

Does the following sentence include gustatory imagery?

Ms. S-R and her family went out for dinner, once she had a free night.

• Yes

• No

• I don't know

Tags

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Which of the five types of sensory imagery is most prominent in this excerpt from Moby Dick, by Herman Melville?

Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

• visual

• auditory

• olfactory

• tactile

• gustatory

Tags

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Which of the five types of sensory imagery is most prominent in this excerpt from The Song of Solomon, a novel by Toni Morrison?

As she unfolded the white linen and let it billow over the fine mahogany table, she would look once more at the large watermark. She never set the table or passed through the dining room without looking at it. Like a lighthouse keeper drawn to his window to gaze once again at the sea, or a prisoner automatically searching out the sun as he steps into the yard for his hour of exercise, Ruth looked for the watermark several times during the day.

• visual

• olfactory

• auditory

• tactile

• gustatory

Tags

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.9-10.4

CCSS.RI.8.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.9-10.4