For example, Edwards creates a powerful image figurative language when he says:. The image Edwards creates here is the vivid mental picture of someone crushing a worm. This is true whether the writer is Jonathan Edwards attempting to inspire terror in the hearts of his congregation or a sports writer for a newspaper trying to help his readers experience the excitement of a football game they were not able to see. If writers just throw a surplus of images and figures of speech into their writing, it seems artificial and amateurish, and it can be annoying. Types of Imagery.
Imagery represents the descriptive elements of the poem. The descriptions are not only visual, they can also appeal to all the senses. Imagery makes the reader become emotionally involved with the poem and attached to its subject matter. Imagery is the way the poet uses figures of speech to construct a vivid mental picture or physical sensation in the mind of the reader.
Imagery means to use figurative language to represent objects, actions, and ideas in such a way that it appeals to our physical senses. Usually it is thought that imagery makes use of particular words that create visual representation of ideas in our minds. However, this idea is but partially correct. Imagery, to be realistic, turns out to be more complex than just a picture.
Seeing also includes what in the theater would be called props or properties—the implements employed by the characters in various activities. Such things as the time of day and the consequent amount of light at which an event occurs, the flora and fauna, the sounds described, the smells, and the weather are also part of the setting. Paintbrushes, apples, pitchforks, rafts, six-shooters, watches, automobiles, horses and buggies, and innumerable other items belong to the setting. References to clothing, descriptions of physical appearance, and spatial relationships among the characters are also part of setting.