What is the American wife’s main desire in the story?

What does the wife’s interest in the cat suggest about her?

How does George, the husband, react to his wife’s desire?

What could the cat in the rain symbolize?

Which imagery is used at the beginning of the story to set the mood?

Why might Hemingway choose rain as the main setting element?

What does the ending, when the maid brings a cat, suggest?

What theme can best describe the story?

From the story, which statement best reflects Hemingway’s writing style?

What is symbolism in literature?

What might the rose in "Beauty and the Beast" represent?

What does the apple symbolize in the story of Snow White?

Why do authors and story-tellers use symbols?

After struggling to escape a hard life, the protagonist is described in the last chapter as twirling around on a spring day surrounded by newly budding trees and blooming flowers. What does this resolution symbolize?

Mary tried to concentrate on the excuses Demetrius was making as he was going on and on in circles, but she was distracted when a small spider suddenly dropped from the ceiling on a thread of web. He hung there in the air for a moment, swinging back and forth just over Demetrius’ left shoulder. Demetrius continued to explain himself. Mary, rolling her eyes, half listening because she didn't believe him, as she watched the spider fasten one end of his thread to the door frame and set off once again through the air, beginning to build his web.

What is the SYMBOL in this story?

Mary tried to concentrate on the excuses Demetrius was making as he was going on and on in circles, but she was distracted when a small spider suddenly dropped from the ceiling on a thread of web. He hung there in the air for a moment, swinging back and forth just over Demetrius’ left shoulder. Demetrius continued to explain himself. Mary, rolling her eyes, half listening because she didn't believe him, as she watched the spider fasten one end of his thread to the door frame and set off once again through the air, beginning to build his web.

What does the SPIDER symbolize?

Evan woke early feeling curiously light; the lightest he had felt since Leila’s death. Drawn by the early morning light, he pulled on his boots and set out for a walk. It rained in the night, so he tramped through the mud and strayed off the path to squat down and examine a curl of pale green plant shoving its way up out from under the earth that caught his eye.

What is the SYMBOL in the story?

Evan woke early feeling curiously light; the lightest he had felt since Leila’s death. Drawn by the early morning light, he pulled on his boots and set out for a walk. It rained in the night, so he tramped through the mud and strayed off the path to squat down and examine a curl of pale green plant shoving its way up out from under the earth that caught his eye.

What does the PLANT symbolize?

The chain Marley drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.

“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?”

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?”

What is the SYMBOL in this passage?

The chain Marley drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.

“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?”

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?”

What does the CHAIN symbolize?

"On the outside eggs were boring, but I knew what was happening on the inside!"

What do the EGGS symbolize?

The first day I met Bryce Loski, I flipped. Honestly, one look at him and I became a lunatic. It's his eyes. Something in his eyes. They're blue, and framed in the blackness of his lashes, they're dazzling. Absolutely breathtaking.

What do Bryce's eyes symbolize?

Repeated consonant sounds occurring at the beginning of words or within words.

An exaggerated statement used to heighten effect.

This is language that appeals to the senses and draws an image, or a vivid picture of a scene or experience, in the reader’s mind.

A figure of speech which compares two unlike things by implying that one thing IS something else.

The use of words that mimic sounds.

A figure of speech which gives the qualities of a person to an animal, an object, or an idea.

A figure of speech which involves a direct comparison between two unlike things, using the words like or as.

This is saying something while implying something very different. This is also called sarcasm.

“But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.”

―Rabbit, Run, John Updike

“’I am a shark, Cassie,’ he says slowly, drawing the words out, as if he might be speaking to me for the last time. Looking into my eyes with tears in his, as if he's seeing me for the last time. "A shark who dreamed he was a man.’”

―The Last Star, Rick Yancey

“The very mystery of him excited her curiosity like a door that had neither lock nor key.” — Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

“Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.”

- “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson

"I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking from head to foot, and could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck out so far." Old Times on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.”

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet,

And the river jumps over the mountain

And the salmon sing in the street,

I'll love you till the ocean

Is folded and hung up to dry

And the seven stars go squawking

Like geese about the sky." "As I Walked Out One Evening" by W.H. Auden

“Mr. Neck storms into class, a bull chasing thirty-three red flags."

—Speak, Laurie Anderson

“But now, O Lord, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.”

—Isaiah 64:8

“If wits were pins, the man would be a veritable hedgehog.”

―Fly by Night, Frances Hardinge

“Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East . . .” — Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie.

"The sun was a toddler insistently refusing to go to bed: It was past eight thirty and still light.”

—Fault in Our Stars, John Green

“Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa.” — Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

"At that time Bogota was a remote, lugubrious city where an insomniac rain had been falling since the beginning of the 16th century." Gabriel García Márquez Living to Tell the Tale:

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.” James Joyce’s “The Dead”

“Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I’m nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.” — The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

“The water made a sound like kittens lapping.” — The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

This sentence appeals to which sense: The familiar tang of his grandmother’s cranberry sauce reminded him of his youth.

This sentence appeals to which sense: The sunset was the most gorgeous they’d ever seen; the clouds were edged with pink and gold.

This sentence appeals to which sense: After eating the curry, his breath reeked of garlic.

Which one of the five senses is used in this sentence?

The wolf howled painfully over the loss of his mate.

The tiny red ant climbed up the broken limb.  

Which sense is being appealed to in this description?

What is the purpose of imagery in writing?

Read the following passage:

Treasure Island

by Robert Louis Stevenson

"I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow – a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cover and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards."

What does the IMAGERY used in this passage tell the reader about the captain?