examples of imagery in creative writing

66 Imagery Examples + 8 Types to Ignite Your Imagination

• Updated: 03/04/24
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Imagery examples can be a powerful tool of communication used in literature, TV, art, music, and other mediums.

It’s used in writing and storytelling to help readers and listeners connect with characters or events on a more personal level.

There are many different types of imagery that we will cover in this article, including examples of imagery for each type.

Different types of imagery come together to create an immersive experience that helps draw people into stories by creating vivid mental pictures in their minds while they read (or listen).

Imagery can also be used in everyday speech and writing to help communicate ideas more effectively and make them easier to remember through the use of memorable visuals.

Using imagery to communicate concepts clearly and effectively makes it easier for readers to understand the point being made without getting lost in the words or distracted.

In this article, we’re going to cover the different types of imagery, the differences between literal and figurative descriptive language, and provide imagery examples every step of the way!

What is Imagery?

Imagery is a literary device that uses vivid descriptions to create pictures and evoke feelings through the use of descriptive language. It’s used to enhance the reader’s experience through powerful and impactful descriptions.

Imagery evokes emotion, helps create a deeper connection to characters and plots, as well as creates an atmosphere that draws readers in and enhances their understanding.

Descriptive imagery allows you to engage with the story by using not only the author’s words but also your own imagination.

The use of imagery can create a certain mood or tone that can further emphasize certain themes in literature.

For example, if an author wants to emphasize loss in a story, they might use imagery of death or desolation that will evoke feelings of sadness and pain in their writing.

Imagery is also important in painting, film, music, and other forms of art where visual elements are key components.

In painting, imagery is important in conveying meaning through color, shape, and other techniques such as perspective and lighting.

When used properly, imagery can tell stories without relying on words or dialogue.

In music, imagery can be used is to create soundscapes—vivid sonic landscapes that evoke different emotional responses from listeners based on what instruments are chosen.

Imagery in Literal and Figurative Language

Imagery can be used in both literal and figurative language, with each having its own distinct purpose and effect.

Literal language is the use of words to mean exactly what they say, while figurative language is the use of words to create a vivid mental image or emotion.

With literal language, you convey your message in a pretty straightforward manner, providing specific details that describe a particular object or situation.

An example of literal imagery would be: “The bark on the tree was rough and brown”.

Literal imagery in writing gives readers an exact picture of what a tree looks like without any abstract interpretation.

Unlike literal language which simply states what something is, figurative imagery paints a picture or expresses something using literary devices such as metaphors, similies, and other comparisons.

For example, you could say that compare someone’s strength to “an army of giants” rather than stating how strong they are in literal terms.

This helps readers connect with characters on an emotional level by creating powerful visual images in their minds.

Types of Figurative Language That Use Imagery

Figurative language is an important tool for authors, artists, and speakers to help their audience feel emotions and create mental pictures from their messages, music, and other creations.

Figurative language can be categorized into 8 main types of literary devices.

1. Metaphors

Metaphors are comparisons made between two unrelated objects or ideas in order to create a deeper understanding of one.

For example, someone might describe their anger as “a roaring fire” or “a storm brewing inside.”

This type of organic imagery in writing helps readers understand the character’s emotional state more deeply and creates a strong mental image that they can relate to.

2. Similies

Similes are similar to metaphors in that they make a comparison between two things but with the added difference of using words such as ‘like’ or ‘as’.

For example, someone might describe their excitement “like a kid on Christmas morning” or “as giddy as a schoolgirl.”

Similes are effective at creating vivid imagery because they compare tangible objects with abstract emotions, making them easier to visualize.

3. Pesonification

Personification is when you give human attributes or characteristics to non-human objects.

An example of olfactory imagery to demonstrate this would be “the wind was singing its mournful song” instead of simply describing it as blowing or breezy.

Personification allows readers to connect with characters on a deeper level by giving them life-like qualities.

4. Hyperbole

A hyperbole is a literary device that uses exaggeration to emphasize a point and create an impact.

For example, “the sun was hot enough to fry an egg” is a hyperbole that helps create a vivid mental image of a scorching hot day.

Hyperboles can be used with imagery to evoke emotions, create mental pictures, or highlight important qualities or characteristics.

5. Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in a phrase or sentence.

For example, “the bubble burst in brilliant blues and greens” is an example of alliteration that creates a pleasing rhythm while also providing a vivid mental image.

It is often used in writing to create a poetic rhythm and make marketing words more memorable, which is an example alliteration in itself!

6. Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is the use of words whose sounds imitate or suggest their meaning.

These words are used to evoke a certain emotion or create a vivid mental image.

For example, “the bee buzzed” evokes a strong mental image of the sound and movement of a bee.

It can be used to create imagery in writing by helping readers hear in their minds what is being described.

Idioms are phrases or expressions that have a figurative meaning different from the literal meanings of their individual words.

For example, “it was raining cats and dogs” is an idiom that helps you visualize heavy rainfall.

They can evoke strong imagery by comparing two unrelated things in a creative way.

8. Symbolism

Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or concepts. For example, a dove can be used to symbolize peace, hope, and freedom.

In literature, symbolism can be used to create powerful imagery that conveys meaning beyond its literal definition.

Types of Imagery + Examples of Imagery

Perhaps one of the best ways to understand how imagery is used is by diving into the different types of imagery and how they impact our senses.

Imagery appeals to the reader’s senses, helping to create vivid mental images in the reader’s mind.

Imagery can be divided into 7 main types: visual imagery, auditory imagery, olfactory imagery, gustatory imagery, tactile imagery, kinesthetic imagery, and mental imagery.

1. Visual Imagery (Sight)

Visual imagery involves descriptions of sight. Writers often use visual metaphors and similes to create an image using descriptive language.

They might describe a person as “a shining star” or a room as “ominous and dark.”

Visual images can also include personification such as describing the wind as having “fingers that brushed against her face like icy talons.”

These descriptions help create a more immersive and meaningful experience when receiving the message (or reading the story).

Examples of Visual Imagery

• The sun was a giant orange orb in the sky.
• The snowflakes glittered like diamonds.
• The trees swayed in the wind, their leaves resembling green flames.
• She had hair as golden as the sunrise.
• The snow covered the ground like a blanket of white velvet.

2. Auditory Imagery (Sound)

As you might guess, auditory imagery involves descriptions of sound.

You could describe a character’s voice as soft or husky or describe birds chirping in the morning sky.

By recreating sounds in words, writers help the reader feel closer to their characters and experience whatever setting they are in more realistically.

Examples of Auditory Imagery

• The wind whistled through the trees.
• The waves crashed against the shore like thunderous drums.
• The sound of laughter echoed off the walls of the room.
• She heard a distant roar on the horizon.
• The clock ticked like a drumbeat in her mind.

3. Olfactory Imagery (Smell)

Olfactory imagery involves descriptions relating to the sense of smell.

An olfactory metaphor can be used to describe someone’s perfume as being like “sweet honeycomb” or evoking a memory with a certain aroma such as “freshly-baked cookies wafting through the air” that triggers nostalgia for one’s childhood home.

Olfactory images can also be used to set the atmosphere by including descriptions of unpleasant smells such as sewage or burning rubber from car tires skidding on asphalt.

Examples of Olfactory Imagery

• She smelled something sweet and familiar, like freshly baked bread.
• The smell of fresh rain on asphalt brought back fond memories for him.
• The salty sea air blew in from the open window.
• The stench of rotting garbage was overwhelming in the alleyway at nightfall.
• She caught a faint, musky aroma coming from his cologne as he passed by her table.

4. Gustatory Imagery (Taste)

Gustatory imagery involves descriptions relating to the sense of taste.

Connecting with the reader’s sense of taste often involves similes or other literary devices such as describing food as being “as sweet as nectar” or comparing one thing to another such as calling someone’s personality “tart.”

Gustatory images help readers get an idea about how things taste without having to actually try them.

Examples of Gustatory Imagery

• His kiss was sweet as honey.
• Her words were as bitter as lemon juice.
• The soup tasted like a warm hug in a bowl.
• She savored the steak, tender and juicy like velvet on her tongue.
• The cake was so rich it felt almost sinful to eat it.

5. Tactile Imagery (Touch)

Tactile imagery involves descriptions relating to the sense of touch and texture.

This connection to the sense of touch allows readers to imagine what something feels like when touched without actually touching it themselves.

You can use tactile imagery to describe fur being soft and luxurious, water feeling cold and refreshing on the skin during a hot day, or rocks being rough and jagged underfoot while hiking up a mountainside.

Tactile imagery allows readers to form their own impressions about the sense of touch without physically touching it.

Examples of Tactile Imagery

• The grass tickled her feet like soft velvet.
• Her skin felt cold and clammy from fear.
• His fingertips were rough against her cheek as he wiped away a tear.
• She shivered in the icy rain, feeling droplets of ice on her skin like tiny needles pricking her flesh.
• He ran his hands over the smooth surface of the marble table top until it felt almost slick under his touch.

6. Kinesthetic Imagery (Movement)

Kinesthetic imagery is a type of sensory imagery that involves descriptions of movement and physical sensations.

It can be used to capture the feeling of a character’s movements, such as running or leaping through the air.

Kinesthetic imagery can also be used to describe how a person feels when they are in motion or how certain objects feel when touched.

Examples of Kinesthetic Imagery

• She felt her heart racing as she ran across the field.
• He jumped through the air, feeling like he was flying.
• Her hands trembled with anticipation when she touched his arm for the first time in months.
• He felt waves of energy radiating from her body as they danced together in rhythm to the music.
• She experienced a rush of adrenaline shooting through her veins when she saw how close they were to winning their basketball match.

7. Organic Imagery (Mental)

Organic imagery is a type of sensory imagery that involves descriptions of mental and emotional states.

It is used to capture the feelings, impressions, or reactions experienced by a character in a story.

This can be done through verbal and non-verbal cues such as facial expressions, body language, and dialogue.

Organic imagery is often used in writing to help the reader understand a character’s inner thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

Examples of Organic Imagery

• She felt a wave of relief wash over her as the weight of the situation finally lifted.
• His fear was palpable as he stepped into the unknown.
• Her eyes burned with anger and hatred when she saw what he had done.
• He felt a sudden surge of joy when he saw his family after being away for so long.
• She felt an overwhelming sense of dread when she heard the news.

Examples of Imagery in Literature

Here are some examples of poetic imagery and imagery in literature.

William Shakespeare

One of the most famous examples of imagery in literature can be found in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet , where he uses powerful imagery to convey the intense emotions between the two protagonists.

He talks of “love being a smoke made with the fume of sighs,” which evokes an image of love as something intangible and beautiful.

He also writes about “lightning being held within love’s soft jail,” which creates an image of love as a prison, showing how it can trap people against their will.

Charles Dickens

In A Christmas Carol, Dickens uses imagery to describe Bob Cratchit’s family home on Christmas Eve:

“The fireplace was so clean that not even a coal was on the hearth; while the bright fire crackled away in cheerful comfort.”

This description creates an image of warmth and joy in a humble home at Christmas time, showing how Dickens powerfully captured the essence of this special holiday period.

The works of renowned poets such as John Keats are full of captivating imagery.

An example of kinesthetic imagery from Ode to a Nightingale is when Keats writes of being “transported beyond the sea of care,” which creates an image of a world where all worries and troubles can be forgotten.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost’s poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, paints a vivid picture of the beauty of nature under the moonlight and snowfall.

He describes the peaceful silence that surrounds him as he stands alone near the woods using olfactory imagery:

“The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake.”

Ernest Hemingway

In Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, imagery is used to portray the sense of disillusionment and aimlessness experienced by the characters. He writes:

“The streets were white in the moonlight. The rain had stopped and it was cold. Everything looked dead as if the life had gone out of it.”

This description using mostly visual imagery creates an image of a cold, lifeless world that reflects the inner states of his characters.

In Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, he uses powerful imagery to convey the atmosphere and mood of small-town Alabama during the 1930s.

She describes how the streets were “hot and breathless” on summer days (tactile imagery) and how the “shadow of a cloud passing across a moonlit night” (visual imagery) created an eerie atmosphere.

She also talks about how “the knotholes in the fence were like mysterious dark eyes staring at the children.”

These descriptions create powerful images that connect with the senses to help readers visualize and experience the setting of this classic novel.

FAQs About Imagery

Imagery examples in literature encompass the use of descriptive language to evoke sensory experiences and paint vivid pictures for the reader. Five notable examples of imagery include:

• Visual Imagery : Describing what one sees, often creating a vivid picture. Example: “The sky was a clear azure, dotted with fluffy, white clouds.”
• Auditory Imagery : Pertaining to sounds, helping readers hear what is being described. Example: “The leaves rustled in the wind, whispering secrets as we passed.”
• Tactile Imagery : Involves the sense of touch, describing textures and sensations. Example: “The sand was hot and coarse under her feet, like walking on tiny coals.”
• Olfactory Imagery : Relates to smells, enabling readers to imagine scents described. Example: “The aroma of freshly baked bread wafted through the air, warming the soul.”
• Gustatory Imagery : Focuses on taste, describing flavors in detail. Example: “The chocolate melted on her tongue, a rich mix of sweet and bitter, like an unspoken promise of joy.”

A good imagery sentence vividly invokes one or more of the five senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste) to paint a detailed picture in the reader’s mind. Here is an example: “The sunset painted the sky in hues of fiery orange and soothing purple, while the gentle breeze carried the calming scent of sea salt and blooming jasmine, creating a serene atmosphere that soothed the soul.”

Visual imagery is the most common type of imagery used in literature. It pertains to the use of descriptive language that appeals to the reader’s sense of sight, enabling them to visualize characters, settings, and events in vivid detail.

Authors often rely on visual imagery to create compelling and immersive narratives that draw readers into the world of the story, making it easier for them to connect with the text on a deeper level.

Through the use of colorful and detailed descriptions, writers can paint a picture in the reader’s mind, helping to convey emotions, set the tone, and enhance the overall reading experience.

Imagery in poetry utilizes descriptive language to appeal to the readers’ senses, painting vivid pictures in their minds and evoking strong emotional responses. Some examples of imagery in poems include:

• “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost : The imagery of two diverging roads in a yellow wood vividly depicts the choices and paths in life, symbolizing decision-making and its impacts.
• “Daffodils” by William Wordsworth : Wordsworth’s portrayal of a crowd of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze uses visual imagery to describe the beauty and joy of nature.
• “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot : The line The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes employs visual and tactile imagery to convey the setting’s mood and atmosphere.
• “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats : Keats uses olfactory and visual imagery to transport the reader to a place where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, evoking a sense of longing and reflection.
• “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou : Angelou’s imagery of I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, employs metaphors and visual imagery to convey strength, resilience, and the vastness of her spirit.

These examples demonstrate the power of imagery in poetry to evoke vivid scenes, emotions, and sensory experiences, drawing readers deeper into the poem’s essence.

Imagery in writing refers to the technique authors use to create vivid descriptions that appeal to the readers’ senses. It involves using detailed and descriptive language to paint pictures in the reader’s mind, making the scenes, characters, or emotions being described more vivid and tangible.

This literary device can involve any of the five senses, including sight (visual), sound (auditory), touch (tactile), smell (olfactory), and taste (gustatory) imagery. Imagery enriches the reading experience by making the narrative more immersive and engaging, allowing readers to feel as though they are part of the story’s world.

Feel imagery, also known as tactile imagery, is a literary device that describes what characters in a story feel with their sense of touch. This type of imagery can include physical sensations such as temperature, textures, pain, or other bodily sensations, enabling readers to experience the same tactile sensations as the characters. Examples of feel imagery include:

• “The cold wind bit into her skin, feeling like thousands of tiny needles piercing her at once.” This sentence evokes the sensation of harsh cold and pain.
• “His hands were rough and calloused, like the bark of an old tree.” Here, the texture of the character’s hands is compared to tree bark, emphasizing roughness.
• “She walked barefoot across the dewy grass, feeling the cool wetness soothe her aching feet.” This example conveys the refreshing sensation of wet grass against skin.
• “Lying in the sun, the warm sand hugged his body, offering a soft, comforting warmth.” The warmth and texture of the sand are highlighted, creating a comforting feeling.
• “The silk dress slid over her skin like a whisper, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake.” This sentence uses tactile imagery to describe the sensation of silk as light and stimulating.

Feel imagery enriches the narrative by allowing readers to vividly imagine the physical sensations experienced by characters, thus deepening their engagement with the text.

Summary of Imagery Examples

Imagery is an important tool for expressing thoughts and feelings in a creative way and helping your audience connect with writing through the senses.

Whether it’s through literature, art, music, or film—the ability to create a strong image using description can be incredibly powerful and impactful when done correctly.

Imagery is an important tool for writers and artists alike because it helps create vivid mental pictures and evokes powerful emotions from readers that can further emphasize certain themes within literature or art pieces.

Using different types of figurative imagery such as similes, hyperboles, and other literary devices makes it easier for readers to understand concepts without getting lost in technical jargon or abstract concepts.

This allows them to connect with characters on deeper levels and experience whatever emotions are happening within the story in full force all at once!

Other Popular Literary Devices

If you’re looking to improve your writing , you can explore these other literary devices:

• Hyperbole Examples
• Alliteration Examples
• Sensory Language Examples
• Tone Examples
• What is a Personal Narrative?

• Literary Terms
• Definition & Examples
• When & How to use Imagery

I. What is Imagery?

Imagery is language used by poets, novelists and other writers to create images in the mind of the reader. Imagery includes figurative and metaphorical language to improve the reader’s experience through their senses.

II. Examples of Imagery

Imagery using  visuals:

The night was black as ever, but bright stars lit up the sky in beautiful and varied constellations which were sprinkled across the astronomical landscape.

In this example, the experience of the night sky is described in depth with color (black as ever, bright), shape (varied constellations), and pattern (sprinkled).

Imagery using sounds:

Silence was broken by the peal of piano keys as Shannon began practicing her concerto .

Here, auditory imagery breaks silence with the beautiful sound of piano keys.

Imagery using scent:

She smelled the scent of sweet hibiscus wafting through the air, its tropical smell a reminder that she was on vacation in a beautiful place.

The scent of hibiscus helps describe a scene which is relaxing, warm, and welcoming.

Imagery using taste:

The candy melted in her mouth and swirls of bittersweet chocolate and slightly sweet but salty caramel blended together on her tongue.

Thanks to an in-depth description of the candy’s various flavors, the reader can almost experience the deliciousness directly.

Imagery using touch:

After the long run, he collapsed in the grass with tired and burning muscles. The grass tickled his skin and sweat cooled on his brow.

In this example, imagery is used to describe the feeling of strained muscles, grass’s tickle, and sweat cooling on skin.

III. Types of Imagery

Here are the five most common types of imagery used in creative writing:

a. Visual Imagery

Visual imagery describes what we see: comic book images, paintings, or images directly experienced through the narrator’s eyes. Visual imagery may include:

• Color, such as: burnt red, bright orange, dull yellow, verdant green, and Robin’s egg blue.
• Shapes, such as: square, circular, tubular, rectangular, and conical.
• Size, such as: miniscule, tiny, small, medium-sized, large, and gigantic.
• Pattern, such as: polka-dotted, striped, zig-zagged, jagged, and straight.

b. Auditory Imagery

Auditory imagery describes what we hear, from music to noise to pure silence. Auditory imagery may include:

• Enjoyable sounds, such as: beautiful music, birdsong, and the voices of a chorus.
• Noises, such as: the bang of a gun, the sound of a broom moving across the floor, and the sound of broken glass shattering on the hard floor.
• The lack of noise, describing a peaceful calm or eerie silence.

c. Olfactory Imagery

Olfactory imagery describes what we smell. Olfactory imagery may include:

• Fragrances, such as perfumes, enticing food and drink, and blooming flowers.
• Odors, such as rotting trash, body odors, or a stinky wet dog.

d. Gustatory Imagery

Gustatory imagery describes what we taste. Gustatory imagery can include:

• Sweetness, such as candies, cookies, and desserts.
• Sourness, bitterness, and tartness, such as lemons and limes.
• Saltiness, such as pretzels, French fries, and pepperonis.
• Spiciness, such as salsas and curries.
• Savoriness, such as a steak dinner or thick soup.

e. Tactile Imagery

Lastly, tactile imagery describes what we feel or touch. Tactile imagery includes:

• Temperature, such as bitter cold, humidity, mildness, and stifling heat.
• Texture, such as rough, ragged, seamless, and smooth.
• Touch, such as hand-holding, one’s in the grass, or the feeling of starched fabric on one’s skin.
• Movement, such as burning muscles from exertion, swimming in cold water, or kicking a soccer ball.

IV. The Importance of Using Imagery

Because we experience life through our senses, a strong composition should appeal to them through the use of imagery. Descriptive imagery launches the reader into the experience of a warm spring day, scorching hot summer, crisp fall, or harsh winter. It allows readers to directly sympathize with characters and narrators as they imagine having the same sense experiences. Imagery commonly helps build compelling poetry, convincing narratives , vivid plays, well-designed film sets, and descriptive songs.

V. Imagery in Literature

Imagery is found throughout literature in poems, plays, stories, novels, and other creative compositions. Here are a few examples of imagery in literature:

Excerpt describing a fish :

his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age .

This excerpt from Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Fish” is brimming with visual imagery. It beautifies and complicates the image of a fish that has just been caught. You can imagine the fish with tattered, dark brown skin “like ancient wallpaper” covered in barnacles, lime deposits, and sea lice. In just a few lines, Bishop mentions many colors including brown, rose, white, and green.

Another example :

A taste for the miniature was one aspect of an orderly spirit. Another was a passion for secrets: in a prized varnished cabinet, a secret drawer was opened by pushing against the grain of a cleverly turned dovetail joint , and here she kept a diary locked by a clasp , and a notebook written in a code of her own invention. … An old tin petty cash box was hidden under a removable floorboard beneath her bed.

In this excerpt from Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement , we can almost feel the cabinet and its varnished texture or the joint that is specifically in a dovetail shape. We can also imagine the clasp detailing on the diary and the tin cash box that’s hidden under a floorboard. Various items are described in-depth, so much so that the reader can easily visualize them.

VI. Imagery in Pop Culture

Imagery can be found throughout pop culture in descriptive songs, colorful plays, and in exciting movie and television scenes.

Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox:

Wes Anderson is known for his colorful, imaginative, and vivid movie making. The imagery in this film is filled with detail, action, and excitement.

Louis Armstrong’s “ What a Wonderful World. ”

Armstrong’s classic song is an example of simple yet beautiful imagery in song. For instance, the colors are emphasized in the green trees, red blooming roses, blue skies, and white clouds from the bright day to the dark night.

VII. Related Terms

(Terms: metaphor,  onomatopoeia and personification)

Metaphor is often used as a type of imagery. Specifically, metaphor is the direct comparison of two distinct things. Here are a few examples of metaphor as imagery:

• Her smiling face is the sun .
• His temper was a hurricane whipping through the school, scaring and amazing his classmates .
• We were penguins standing in our black and white coats in the bitter cold .
• Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is also a common tool used for imagery. Onomatopoeia is a form of auditory imagery in which the word used sounds like the thing it describes. Here are a few examples of onomatopoeia as imagery:

• The fire crackled and popped .
• She rudely slurped and gulped down her soup .
• The pigs happily oinked when the farmer gave them their slop to eat .
• Personification

Personification is another tool used for imagery. Personification provides animals and objects with human-like characteristics. Here are a few examples of personification as imagery:

• The wind whistled and hissed through the stormy night .
• The tired tree’s branches moaned in the gusts of wind.
• The ocean waves slapped the shore and whispered in a fizz as they withdrew again.

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

What is imagery? Take a moment to conceptualize something in your mind: an object, a sound, a scent. Transcribe whatever you think about into language, transmitting to the reader the precise experience you had in your brain. This is imagery in literature​​—a powerful literary device that communicates our everyday sensory experiences.

Literature abounds with imagery examples, as authors have used this device to connect with their readers at a personal level. A precise image can form the basis of a powerful metaphor or symbol, so writers make their work resonate using imagery in poetry and prose.

Why do authors use imagery? In this article, we examine the 5 types of imagery in literature—visual, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and auditory. We’ll also take a look at some imagery examples and writing exercises. But first, let’s properly examine what is imagery in literature.

• Why Do Authors Use Imagery?

Imagery in Poetry

• Visual Imagery (Sight)
• Auditory Imagery (Sound)
• Tactile Imagery (Touch)
• Olfactory Imagery (Smell)
• Gustatory Imagery (Taste)

Kinesthetic Imagery and Organic Imagery

Imagery writing exercises, imagery definition: what is imagery.

Imagery refers to language that stimulates the reader’s senses. By evoking those senses through touch, taste, sound, smell, and sight, the writer imparts a deeper understanding of the human experience, connecting with the reader through a shared sensory experience.

Imagery definition: language that stimulates the reader’s senses.

For the most part, imagery in literature focuses on concrete senses—things you can physically experience. However, internal experiences and emotions also count, and later in this article, we dive into how to properly write organic imagery.

Of course, good imagery examples are not merely descriptive. I could tell you that “the wallpaper is yellow,” and yes, that counts as visual imagery, but it’s hardly describing the experience of that wallpaper . Is the wallpaper bright and cheerful? Does it lift your mood, or darken it?

Here’s a much more interesting description of that yellow wallpaper, from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “ The Yellow Wallpaper ”:

“The color is repellant , almost revolting ; a smouldering unclean yellow , strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight .

It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others . No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.”

Take note of how the visual imagery (bolded) shows you the wallpaper’s various colors and stains. When paired with the narrator’s tone (italicized), we form an image of bleak, depressing paper, far from the cheerful yellowness you might expect.

The best imagery examples will also form other literary devices . You’ll find that many images end up being metaphors, similes, and symbols, and many more images also rely on devices like juxtaposition. The interplay of these devices further strengthens the worldbuilding power of both the image and the author.

Why do Authors Use Imagery?

Authors use imagery to do what Charlotte Perkins Gilman does in “The Yellow Paper”: to create rich, livable experiences using only the senses.

Think of imagery as a doorway into the world of the text. It allows the reader to see, smell, hear, taste, and feel everything that happens in the story.

Moreover, this device highlights the most important sensory descriptions. Consider where you are right now, as you’re reading this article. There are many different sensory experiences vying for your attention, but your brain filters those senses out because they’re not important. You might be ignoring the sounds of your neighbors and passing street cars, or the taste of a meal you just had, or the feeling of your chair pressing into your body.

Imagery in literature performs the same function: it highlights the most important sensory information that the reader needs to step inside the story. Great imagery examples set the stage for great storytelling , goading the reader into the world of the work.

For a more in-depth answer on “why do authors use imagery?”, check out our article on Show, Don’t Tell Writing .

What is imagery in poetry? Is it any different than in prose?

While this device is the same for both poetry and prose, you might notice that imagery in poetry is more economic—it relies on fewer words. Take the following excerpt from Louise Glück’s poem October :

“Daybreak. The low hills shine

ochre and fire, even the fields shine.

I know what I see; sun that could be

the August sun, returning

everything that was taken away —”

The images in this excerpt are stunning, particularly “the low hills shine ochre and fire.” The reader can imagine a roiling green landscape tinged like a flame in the early sunrise, contributing to the speaker’s sense of hope that one often feels at the start of a new day.

In poetry, as in prose, images are often juxtaposed next to feelings, creating a sensory and emotive experience. The language that each form uses to create those experiences is similar, but the poetic form encourages an economy of language, making imagery in poetry more concise .

5 Types of Imagery in Literature

Corresponding with the 5 senses, there are 5 types of imagery at a writer’s disposal. (Actually, there’s 7—but we’ll handle those last two separately.)

Every writer should have all 5 types of imagery in their toolkit. To create a rich, believable experience for the reader, appealing to each of the reader’s senses helps transport them into the world of the story. No, you shouldn’t focus on all 5 senses at the same time—in real life, nobody can pay attention to all of their senses at once. But, you should be able to use all 5 types of imagery when your writing calls for it.

What is imagery in literature? These excerpts will show you. Let’s look at each type and some more imagery examples.

1. Visual Imagery Definition

Visual imagery is description that stimulates the eyes. Specifically, your mind’s eye: when you can visualize the colors, shapes, forms, and aesthetics of something that’s described to you, the writer is employing visual imagery.

When you can visualize the colors, shapes, forms, and aesthetics of something that’s described to you, the writer is employing visual imagery.

This is the most common form of imagery in literature, as the writer relies on visual description to create a setting, describe characters, and show action. Without visual imagery, it is much harder to employ the other types of imagery (though writers have certainly done this in the event that a character is blind or blinded).

Visual Imagery Examples

In each example, the visual imagery examples have been bolded.

“ A field of cotton —

as if the moon 

had flowered .”

—Matsuo Bashō, from Basho: The Complete Haiku , translated by Jane Reichhold.

“While talking to my mother I neaten things. Spines of books by the phone.

in a china dish. Fragments of eraser that dot the desk . She speaks

of death. I begin tilting all the paperclips in the other direction .”

—Anne Carson, from “ Lines ” in Decreation.

2. Auditory Imagery Definition

Auditory imagery is description that stimulates the ears. When you can hear the sounds of nature, machinery, or someone’s voice, it’s because of the description employed in the author’s auditory imagery.

When you can hear sounds like nature, machinery, or someone’s voice, it’s because of the description employed in the author’s auditory imagery.

Do note that, while you might be able to hear dialogue in your head, dialogue alone doesn’t count as auditory imagery. The sounds need to be described using adjectives, adverbs, and especially comparisons to other images.

Additionally, the literary device “ onomatopoeia ” does not count as auditory imagery. Onomatopoeias are wonderful devices that improve the sonic quality of your writing, but as devices, they are words that transliterate sounds into syllables; they don’t describe sounds in interesting or metaphorical ways.

Auditory Imagery Examples

In each example, the auditory imagery examples have been bolded.

“Few believe we’re in the middle of the end

because ruin can happen as slowly as plaque

blocking arteries, and only later feels as true

as your hand resting on my hip, both of us

quiet as roses waiting for the bees to arrive. ”

—Julie Danho, excerpt from “I Want to Eat Bugs With You Underground” in Bennington Review .

“Our ears are stoppered

in the bee-hum . And Charlie,

laughing wonderfully ,

beard stained purple

by the word juice ,

goes to get a bigger pot.”

—Robert Hass, excerpt from “ Picking Blackberries with a Friend Who Has Been Reading Jacques Lacan ” originally published in Praise.

3. Tactile Imagery Definition

Tactile imagery is description that stimulates your sense of touch. Sensations like itching, stickiness, and the warmth of sunlight all count as tactile imagery, which appeals to the way your skin might feel in that moment.

Sensations like itching, stickiness, and the warmth of sunlight all count as tactile imagery, which appeals to the way your skin might feel in that moment.

Tactile experiences only refer to external sensations, primarily on the skin. When a writer describes internal sensations, they’re using organic imagery, which we’ll define later in this article.

Tactile Imagery Examples

In each example, the tactile imagery examples have been bolded.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, excerpt from Journal of My Other Self.

“Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?

If by real you mean as real as a shark tooth stuck

in your heel , the wetness of a finished lollipop stick ,

the surprise of a thumbtack in your purse —

then Yes, every last page is true, every nuance,

bit, and bite .”

—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, excerpt from “Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?” in Poetry Foundation .

4. Olfactory Imagery Definition

Olfactory imagery is description that stimulates the nose. By describing the peculiarities of a scent—its richness, pungence, weight, distinctness, or physical effect—the author transports the reader through the use of olfactory imagery.

By describing the peculiarities of a scent—its richness, pungence, weight, distinctness, or physical effect—the author transports the reader through the use of olfactory imagery.

Olfactory looks like a strange word, but it comes from the Latin for “to smell,” and we have an olfactory bulb in our brains which processes smells. Fun fact: the olfactory bulb is situated just in front of the hippocampus, which processes memory. As a result, smells often stimulate stronger memories than the other senses, so you can use olfactory imagery to arouse both smell and memory.

Olfactory Imagery Examples

In each example, the olfactory imagery examples have been bolded.

—Patricia Hampl, excerpt from The Florist’s Daughter.

“Why is it that the poets tell

So little of the sense of smell?

These are the odors I love well:

The smell of coffee freshly ground;

Or rich plum pudding, holly crowned;

Or onions fried and deeply browned. ”

—Christopher Morley, excerpt from “ Smells ”.

5. Gustatory Imagery Definition

Gustatory imagery is description that stimulates the tongue. If you’ve ever done a wine or coffee tasting, you know exactly how complex a flavor can be. Gustatory imagery captures a flavor’s richness, acidity, earthiness, sweetness, bitterness, harshness, etc.

Gustatory imagery captures a flavor’s richness, acidity, earthiness, sweetness, bitterness, harshness, etc.

This is perhaps the rarest of the 5 types of imagery, as authors don’t seem to dwell on tastes too much, but gustatory imagery can absolutely throw the reader into different cultures, cuisines, and histories.

Gustatory Imagery Examples

In each example, the gustatory imagery examples have been bolded.

—E.M. Forster, excerpt from A Room With a View.

“I have eaten

that were in

you were probably

for breakfast

they were delicious

and so cold .”

—William Carlos Williams, “ This Is Just To Say ”.

Writers have another 2 types of imagery at their disposal: kinesthetic imagery and organic imagery. We include these as separate types of imagery because they describe senses that are more abstract than the other 5.

Kinesthetic Imagery Definition

Kinesthetic imagery, also called kinesthesia, refers to descriptions of motion. The sensations one feels when on the move, like running against the wind or swimming through brisk waters, are examples of kinesthetic imagery.

The sensations one feels when on the move, like running against the wind or swimming through brisk waters, are examples of kinesthetic imagery.

Kinesthesia might seem similar to tactile imagery, but the difference is that kinesthesia always describes movement. So, a bee sting is tactile, but a bee whizzing past your arm is kinesthetic; the coldness of a wall is tactile, but the feeling of a cold wall moving against you is kinesthetic.

Kinesthetic Imagery Examples

—Charles Dickens, excerpt from A Tale of Two Cities.

—Brit Bennett, excerpt from The Mothers .

Organic Imagery Definition

Organic imagery refers to descriptions of internal sensation. When the writer uses concrete description to show an internal landscape of feelings, pains, emotions, and desires, they’re using organic imagery. And what is imagery, if not visceral or deeply felt?

When the writer uses concrete description to show an internal landscape of feelings, pains, emotions, and desires, they’re using organic imagery.

Organic imagery can be physical, like stomach pain or a headache, but it can also be emotional: the feeling of your heart dropping into your gut, or the burn of jealousy in your temples.

Organic Imagery Examples

—S. K. Osborn, excerpt from There’s A Lot of Good Reasons to Go Out West .

“So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It’s when I’m weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood. ”

—Robert Frost, excerpt from “ Birches ”.

The importance of descriptive, concrete imagery to creative writing cannot be understated. To master this literary device, try your hand at the following 5 writing exercises.

1. Show, Don’t Tell

“Show, don’t tell” writing is writing that uses concrete details to transmit an experience to the reader, rather than asserting the experience itself. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, you can learn about it (and find many more imagery examples) at this article .

Here’s an example of showing instead of telling:

• Telling: Mom stomped into the doorway, furious.
• Showing: The only thing chillier than the breeze from outside was mother herself, her bootsteps making the floorboards shake, her brow furrowed so tightly I worried her face might fall off.

In this exercise, rewrite the following phrases into complete “show, don’t tell” statements. The below sentences are “telling” sentences where the writer is chewing the reader’s food—asserting an experience without relying on the senses.

“Telling” statements:

• The girl felt warm.
• The full moon was bright.
• Her heart dropped.
• His dinner wafted through the kitchen.
• The cat chased birds.
• The wind swept the trees.
• Her bike wouldn’t budge.
• The berries tasted fresh.
• Their socks got wet.
• The music echoed down the hall.

The development of precise images is essential to great poetry, storytelling, and “show, don’t tell” writing. While poetry writing can linger in description, story writing is best kept to action. This checklist from Writer’s Digest does a great job of explaining how to make this device action-focused.

2. Look At This Photograph

Find an interesting photograph. It can be a physical photo, it can sit somewhere in your camera roll, it can be a classical painting, or you can simply look for something unique on a site like Unsplash .

Now, describe that photograph using the different types of imagery— except for visual imagery. Try to convey the experience of the photograph without showing the reader what it actually looks like. The challenge of describing something visual without relying on visual images will help you sharpen your descriptive writing.

Here’s an example, using this landscape painting by John Wootton:

• Auditory: The men whistled over the crash of waves reaching the shore, and the horse whinnied along with the work.
• Tactile: Water lapped along the men’s ankles, as cold as a snake’s glistening eyes.
• Olfactory: The salty air perforated each man’s nostrils, punctuating the air with a briny sharpness.
• Gustatory: Salt water waves occasionally crashed into the men’s lips, acrid and mouth-puckering. While they worked they thought about home, the warm taste of dinner satiating a hard day’s work.
• Kinesthetic: The barely moving air graced each man’s legs like a cat brushing past, and all was still.
• Organic: The sun crept below the horizon, and in the dark the forest seemed like it might come to life, like it was harboring a dark and heady tomorrow .

When you have an example for each non-visual image, try to combine them into a singular effective description of the photograph.

Do all of these imagery examples make sense? Do they even come close to describing the painting? Absolutely not. But just the attempt at describing a landscape painting through taste or touch helps juice your creativity, and you might stumble upon some really beautiful writing in the process.

If you enjoyed this exercise, you might be interested in the Ekphrastic Poetry Challenge at Rattle .

3. Think Abstractly

Great imagery relies on the use of great concrete words, particularly nouns and verbs (though some adjectives, too). The opposite of a concrete word is an abstract word: a word which describes an idea, not an image.

Examples of abstract words are “satisfaction,” “mercantilism,” “love,” “envy,” “disgust,” and “bureaucracy.” None of those words have concrete images: they might have symbols (like “heart” for “love”), but no single image defines any of those words.

For this exercise, generate a list of abstract words. If you’re struggling to come up with good words, you can use a list of abstractions like this one . Once you’ve settled on a good list, select a word that particularly excites you.

Use this abstract word as the title of a poem or story. Now, write that poem or story, using concrete description to show the reader exactly how that abstraction feels and looks. Do not use the abstract word, or any synonyms or antonyms, in your writing—try to avoid abstractions altogether.

At the end of your exercise, you might end with a poem like “Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley .

4. Synesthesia

Synesthesia is a literary device in which the writer uses more than one sense to describe something. For example, we often use the phrase “cool colors” for blues and greens, and “warm colors” for reds and oranges. “Cool” and “warm” are tactile, and since a color itself cannot be warm or cold, we’re able to represent the color through synesthesia.

Synesthesia is also a rare psychological condition, in which a person involuntarily experiences something in multiple senses. For example, someone with synesthesia might say that the number 12 is reddish-orange, or that the sound of a guitar tastes like rain.

For this exercise, describe the following items using synesthesia. Describe sounds using colors or tastes, describe smells using memories or movements. Get creative! You don’t need to have synesthesia to write synesthesia, just try to break free from the conventional use of the different types of imagery in literature.

Describe the following using synesthesia:

• The sound of your best friend’s voice. (What color, shape, smell, taste, or feeling does it have?)
• The disaster girl meme .
• The taste of vanilla ice cream.
• The letter J.
• A freezing shower.
• The smell of the rain.
• The feeling of sandpaper against skin.

For example, I might write that the letter J is the color of a forest at dusk, blue-green and pregnant with night.

Does that make sense to anyone else but me? Probably not! But that’s the point: be creative, be weird, be synesthetic.

5. Use Only Metaphors and Similes

For this exercise, you are free to describe whatever you would like. Describe an inanimate object, a food you enjoy, your pet, your archnemesis, the wind, the sea, the sun, or really anything you want to write about.

Whatever you choose, you must only describe that object using metaphors and similes . For a primer on these two literary devices, check out our article Simile Vs Metaphor Vs Analogy .

Do not use adjectives or adverbs, and only use nouns in comparison with your object.

Try to generate a list of metaphors and similes. For example, if your object is a rubber ball, you can say it “moves like a sparrow,” “bounces like children on trampolines,” and “waits to be noticed, a planet in hiding.”

Try to write for 15-20 minutes, and if you’ve generated a long enough list, you might even consider organizing your metaphors and similes into a poem or flash story. As with our other exercises, use compelling imagery, and show us something new about your object!

What is Imagery in Literature? Master the Device at Writers.com

Why do authors use imagery? To transport their readers to new and believable worlds. To learn more about imagery and practice it in your writing, take a look at the upcoming courses at Writers.com .

Sean Glatch

Sean, this is an extremely useful article. Thanks for sharing it. Loved the examples.

My pleasure, Lynne!

Lovely explanation of five senses

I agree!! Thank you so much for this wonderful new tool.

[…] Imagery Definition: 5+ Types of Imagery in Literature […]

I must print this one out.

Great tool. Thanks for sharing

very good website, really made my understanding wayyyyy better

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Definition of Imagery

Imagery is a literary device that refers to the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience or create a picture with words for a reader. By utilizing effective descriptive language and figures of speech , writers appeal to a reader’s senses of sight, taste, smell, touch, and sound, as well as internal emotion and feelings. Therefore, imagery is not limited to visual representations or mental images, but also includes physical sensations and internal emotions.

For example, in his novel   The Scarlet Letter , Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes imagery as a literary device to create a sensation for the reader as a means of understanding the love felt by the protagonist , Hester Prynne.

Love, whether newly born or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.

By using descriptive language in an effective and unique way, Hawthorne evokes feelings and allows the reader an internal emotional response in reaction to his description of love. This image is especially poignant and effective for readers of this novel since Hester’s love, in the story , results in darkness , shame, and isolation–the opposite of sunshine and radiance. However, Hawthorne’s imagery appeals to the reader’s understanding of love and subsequent empathy for Hester’s emotions and actions, despite her transgression of societal norms, morals , and laws.

Common Examples of Imagery in Everyday Speech

People frequently use imagery as a means of communicating feelings, thoughts, and ideas through descriptive language. Here are some common examples of imagery in everyday speech:

• The autumn leaves are a blanket on the ground.
• Her lips tasted as sweet as sugar.
• His words felt like a dagger in my heart.
• My head is pounding like a drum.
• The kitten’s fur is milky.
• The siren turned into a whisper as it ended.
• His coat felt like a velvet curtain.
• The houses look like frosted cakes in winter .
• The light under the door looked buttery.
• I came inside because the house smells like a chocolate brownie.

Types of Poetic Imagery

For poetic imagery, there are seven primary types. These types of imagery often feature figures of speech such as similes and metaphors to make comparisons . Overall, poetic imagery provides sensory details to create clear and vibrant descriptions. This appeals to a reader’s imagination and emotions as well as their senses.

Here are the main types of poetic imagery:

• Visual : appeals to the sense of sight through the description of color, light, size, pattern, etc.
• Auditory : appeals to the sense of hearing or sound by including melodic sounds, silence , harsh noises, and even onomatopoeia .
• Gustatory : appeals to the sense of taste by describing whether something is sweet, salty, savory, spicy, or sour.
• Tactile : appeals to the sense of touch by describing how something physically feels, such as its temperature, texture, or other sensation.
• Olfactory : appeals to the sense of smell by describing something’s fragrance or odor.
• Kinesthetic : appeals to a reader’s sense of motion or movement through describing the sensations of moving or the movements of an object .
• Organic : appeals to and communicates internal sensations, feelings, and emotions, such as fatigue, thirst, fear, love, loneliness, despair, etc.

Famous Examples of Imagery in Shakespearean Works

Writers use imagery to create pictures in the minds of readers, often with words and phrases that are uniquely descriptive and emotionally charged to emphasize an idea. William Shakespeare ’s works feature imagery as a literary device for readers and audiences as a means to enhance their experience of his plays. Shakespeare’s artistic use of language and imagery is considered to be some of the greatest in literature.

Here are some famous examples of imagery in Shakespearean works:

• “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep.”  Romeo and Juliet
• “There’s daggers in men’s smiles.”  Macbeth
• “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever,- One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.”  Much Ado About Nothing
• “If I be waspish, best beware my sting.”  The Taming of the Shrew
• “Good- night , sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”  Hamlet
• “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies , that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends.”  A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”  The Tempest
• “And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.”  Richard III
• “By heaven, me thinks it were an easy leap, To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon”  Henry IV
• “If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.”  Twelfth Night

Writing Imagery

Writers use imagery to evoke emotion in readers. In this way, the reader’s understanding of the poetic subject , setting , plot , characters , etc., is deepened and they have a sense of how to feel about it. Ideally, as a literary device, imagery should enhance a literary work. Unfortunately, some writers try to use this literary device too often, which can lessen the impact of the description and figurative language.

For imagery to be effective and significant, whether, in poetry or a story, it should add depth and meaning to the literary work. Overuse of imagery can feel tedious for readers and limit their access to and understanding of the writer’s purpose. Therefore, it’s essential for writers to balance presenting information in a straightforward manner and using imagery as a literary device.

Difference between Literal Imagery and Figurative Imagery

There is a slight difference in literal and figurative imagery. Literal imagery, as the name applies, is near in meanings and almost the same thing or exactly what the description says. For example, color like the red rose implies the same thing. However, in figurative imagery, a thing is often not what it implies. There is often the use of hyperbole , simile , or metaphors that construct an image that could be different from the actual thing or person. For example, his cries moved the sky is not an example of literal imagery but of figurative imagery as the skies do not move with cries.

Tips to Analyze Imagery

Analysis of imagery is often done in poetry and short stories. However, imagery is present in every literary work where description becomes of some significance. Whenever there is a description in a literary work, a reader first analyses different figures of speech such as metaphors, similes, personifications , images, and hyperbole, etc. There are four major steps in analyzing imagery in a specific description.

• Identify the type of figures of speech, types of images, and their roles in the description.
• Compare and contrast the types of images and their accuracy in the description.
• Compare and contrast the role of the specific figures of speech, their meanings, their roles, and their end product.
• Critique the description and see how it demonstrates its actual meanings in the context and setting.

Use of Imagery in Sentences

• Iwan’s sweaty gym clothes left a stale odor in the locker room; so they had to keep the windows open.
• The tasty, salty broth soothed her sore throat as Simran ate the warm soup.
• Glittering white, the blanket of snow -covered everything in sight and also blocked the street.
• The tree bark was rough against the deer’s skin but it did satisfy its itch.
• Kids could hear the popping and crackling as their mom dropped the bacon into the frying pan, and soon the salty, greasy smell wafted toward me.

Examples of Imagery in Literature

Though imagery is often associated with poetry, it is an effective literary device in all forms of writing. Writers utilize imagery as a means of communicating their thoughts and perceptions on a deeper and more memorable level with readers. Imagery helps a reader formulate a visual picture and sensory impression of what the writer is describing as well as the emotions attached to the description. In addition, imagery is a means of showcasing a writer’s mastery of artistic and figurative language, which also enhances the meaning and enjoyment of a literary work for a reader.

Here are some examples of imagery in literature:

Example 1:  Goblin Market (Christina Rossetti)

Early in the morning When the first cock crow’d his warning, Neat like bees, as sweet and busy, Laura rose with Lizzie: Fetch’d in honey, milk’d the cows, Air’d and set to rights the house, Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat, Cakes for dainty mouths to eat, Next churn’d butter, whipp’d up cream, Fed their poultry, sat and sew’d; Talk’d as modest maidens should: Lizzie with an open heart, Laura in an absent dream, One content, one sick in part; One warbling for the mere bright day’s delight, One longing for the night.

In this passage of her poem , Rossetti uses all forms of poetic imagery to appeal to the reader’s physical senses as well as their experience of motion and internal emotions. The reader can visualize the actions taking place in the poem along with a sense of orderly movement paired with disordered emotion. As the sisters Lizzie and Laura go about their maidenly and pastoral tasks, the poet’s description of their divergent mindsets and feelings creates an imagery of the tension between darkness and light, innocence and temptation. These contrasting images evoke unsettled and contradictory feelings for the reader, undermining the appearance of the sisters’ idyllic lives with a sense of foreboding.

Example 2:  The Yellow Wallpaper  (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)

The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others. No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.

In this passage of Gilman’s short story , the narrator uses poetic imagery to describe the yellow wallpaper which eventually ensnares her mind and body. The narrator’s imagery effectively appeals to the reader’s sense of sight, smell, and touch so that the reader is as repulsed by the wallpaper as the story’s protagonist. By utilizing imagery as a literary device, Gilman is able to evoke the same feelings of sickness, despair, fear, claustrophobia, etc., for the reader as she does for the narrator. In addition to this emotional effect, the artistic language used to describe the yellow wallpaper also enhances its symbolic presence in the story.

Example 3:  The Red Wheelbarrow  (William Carlos Williams)

so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens

This poem by William Carlos Williams features imagery and, in fact, is an example of Imagist poetry. Imagism was a poetic movement of the early twentieth century that veered away from the heavy description that was characteristic of Romantic and Victorian poems. Instead, the purpose of Imagism was to create an accurate image or presentation of a subject that would be visually concrete for the reader. Imagist poets achieved this through succinct, direct, and specific language, favoring precise phrasing over set poetic meter .

In Williams’s poem, the poet uses simple language and clear expression to create imagery for the reader of a red wheelbarrow, lending beauty , and symbolism to an ordinary object. By describing the wheelbarrow with sparse but precise language, the reader can picture an exact visual image of what the poet is trying to convey which, in turn, evokes an emotional response to the image. This imagery enhances the meaning of the poem’s phrasing such that each word becomes essential, and the poem and its imagery are nearly indistinguishable.

Synonyms of Imagery

Imagery has several synonyms with slightly different meanings. They are imagination, picturing, mental imagery, vision, imaging, and dreaming are almost near in meanings but evocation, chimera, pretense, and mind’s eyes.

Related posts:

• Auditory Imagery
• Visual Imagery
• Gustatory Imagery
• Tactile Imagery
• Olfactory Imagery
• Kinesthetic Imagery
• Examples of Imagery in Poetry

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Literary Devices

Literary devices, terms, and elements, definition of imagery.

As a literary device, imagery consists of descriptive language that can function as a way for the reader to better imagine the world of the piece of literature and also add symbolism to the work. Imagery draws on the five senses, namely the details of taste , touch , sight , smell , and sound . Imagery can also pertain to details about movement or a sense of a body in motion (kinesthetic imagery) or the emotions or sensations of a person, such as fear or hunger (organic imagery or subjective imagery). Using imagery helps the reader develop a more fully realized understanding of the imaginary world that the author has created.

Common Examples of Imagery

We use imagery in everyday speech to convey our meaning. Here are some examples of imagery from each of the five senses:

• Taste : The familiar tang of his grandmother’s cranberry sauce reminded him of his youth.
• Sound : The concert was so loud that her ears rang for days afterward.
• Sight : The sunset was the most gorgeous they’d ever seen; the clouds were edged with pink and gold.
• Smell : After eating the curry, his breath reeked of garlic.
• Touch : The tree bark was rough against her skin.

Significance of Imagery in Literature

Imagery examples are prevalent in all types of literature from cultures around the world. Poets, novelists, and playwrights use imagery for many reasons. One of the key usages is that the imagery in a piece can help create mood, such as the clichéd opening “It was a dark and stormy night.” While this line is too hackneyed for any author to actually use it, it is a good example of imagery in that the reader immediately pictures the kind of setting in which the story may take place. This particular imagery also creates a mood of foreboding. Indeed, even Shakespeare used this type of opening for his famous play MacBeth : the three witches in the beginning speak of the “thunder, lightning [and] rain” and the “fog and filthy air.”

While an author may use imagery just to help readers understand the fictive world, details of imagery often can be read symbolically. In the previous example of MacBeth , the thunder and lightning that open the play symbolize both the storm that is already taking place in Scotland and the one that is about to begin once MacBeth takes over the throne. Thus, when analyzing literature it is important to consider the imagery used so as to understand both the mood and the symbolism in the piece.

Examples of Imagery in Literature

Example #1: taste.

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.

( One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez)

This passage from Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude discusses one of the character’s pica eating disorder. There are many examples of imagery using the sense of taste, including “a tear would salt her palate,” “oranges and rhubarb,” and “the taste of primary minerals.” The imagery in this excerpt makes the experience of an eating disorder much more vivid and imaginable to the reader.

Example #2: Sound

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.

(“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost)

When most people think of Robert Frost’s famous poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” the final refrain comes to mind: “And miles to go before I sleep.” Yet the short poem contains many imagery examples that are simple yet set the scene well. In this excerpt, there is a juxtaposition of two sounds: the bright noise of the horse’s harness bells and the nearly silent sound of wind and snowflake. While the reader knows that this is a dark night, the sense of sound makes the scene even more realistic.

Example #3: Sight

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.

( 1984 by George Orwell)

One of the central conceits of George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984 is the all-pervasive surveillance of this society. This is a world that has its eyes constantly open—“Big Brother is watching you” is the motto of the society—yet the world itself is almost colorless. All that the main character, Winston, sees is “whirling dust,” “torn paper,” and posters of a “black mustachioed face” with “dark eyes.” These sensory details contribute to a general feeling of unease and foreshadow the way in which the world appears more chilling as the novel goes on.

Example #4: Smell

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.

( Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind)

Patrick Suskind’s novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer focuses on a character who has a very acute sense of smell. The novel, therefore, has numerous examples of imagery using descriptions of smell. This excerpt comes from the beginning of the novel where Suskind sets up the general palate of smells in eighteenth-century Paris. Using these smells as a backdrop, the reader is better able to understand the importance of the main character’s skill as a perfumer. The reader is forced to imagine the range of smells in this novel’s era and setting that no longer assault us on a daily basis.

Test Your Knowledge of Imagery

1. Choose the best imagery definition:

A. A technique using descriptive details from the five senses. B. A way of seeing things in a new light. C. A way to describe a character’s emotions. [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #1″] Answer: A is the correct answer.[/spoiler]

2. What effect does the imagery produce in this opening passage from George Orwell’s novel 1984 ?

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.

A. Since the opening line is in April, this passage sets up expectations for Winston Smith to better his situation throughout the spring. B. 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. C. 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. [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #2″] Answer: B is the best answer. While it could turn out that Winston is pessimistic, as in answer C , the objective details of the imagery in this passage don’t lead to that conclusion.[/spoiler]

3. Which of the following lines from Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” contains imagery?

A. The woods are lovely, dark and deep B. But I have promises to keep C. And miles to go before I sleep [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #3″] Answer: A is the only line with imagery.[/spoiler]

• Scriptwriting

What is Imagery — Definition & Examples in Literature & Poetry

• Point of View
• Protagonist
• Deus ex Machina
• Foreshadowing
• Iambic Pentameter
• Juxtaposition
• Personification
• Red Herring
• Alliteration
• Connotation
• Onomatopoeia
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D escribing sensory experiences through the medium of writing and text can be difficult. By enlisting the use of imagery, writers are able to vividly describe experiences, actions, characters, and places through written language. What is imagery exactly. How is imagery in poetry and literature used? In this article, we’ll take a look at the imagery definition, seven different types of imagery and how each can be used to further immerse a reader into the work of a writer. 

Imagery definition

First, let’s define imagery.

Although there are several types of imagery, they all generally serve a similar function. To better understand the function of imagery in poetry and literature and how it can be achieved through various other literary devices, let’s take a look at the imagery definition. 

IMAGERY DEFINITION

What is imagery.

Imagery is a literary device used in poetry, novels, and other writing that uses vivid description that appeals to a readers’ senses to create an image or idea in their head. Through language, imagery does not only paint a picture, but aims to portray the sensational and emotional experience within text. 

Imagery can improve a reader’s experience of the text by immersing them more deeply by appealing to their senses. Imagery in writing can aim at a reader’s sense of taste, smell, touch, hearing, or sight through vivid descriptions. Imagery can be created using other literary devices like similes, metaphors, or onomatopoeia. 

What is imagery used for?

• Establishing a world or setting
• Creating empathy for a character’s experience
• Immersing a character into a situation

There are seven different types of imagery that writer’s use. All are in one way or another dependent on the reader’s senses. Let’s take a look at the types of imagery that are most commonly used in literature. 

What is imagery in poetry

1. visual imagery.

Visual imagery is most likely what people think of when they hear the term imagery. It uses qualities of how something looks visually to best create an image in the reader’s head. These visual qualities can be shapes, color, light, shadow, or even patterns. 

It is one of the most common types of imagery as it allows readers to better describe the world and characters of a novel or poem. Visual imagery is often used in screenplays when first introducing characters. Take a look at how Quentin Tarantino uses this type of imagery to introduce characters and places in the Pulp Fiction screenplay .

Pulp Fiction screenplay  •  Imagery examples

Visual imagery is often achieved through the use of other literary devices like metaphors and similes . To say a woman looks like Helen of Troy is both imagery, a simile, and an allusion. 

It can be frequently found in screenplays when a character is first introduced. 

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What’s imagery used for?

2. auditory imagery.

Our next type of imagery is auditory imagery. This type of imagery appeals to a reader’s sense of hearing. Creating an auditory experience through text can be difficult. But it can also be necessary for a story or plot. For example, the sound of war can be necessary to immerse the reader into a war novel. This may be used to describe gunfire, explosions, screams, and helicopters. 

Let’s take a look at William Shakespeare’s Macbeth , auditory imagery is used for a physical action that affects the actions of the characters. 

Macbeth - Imagery examples

Auditory imagery.

“Here’s a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of

hell-gate, he should have old turning the key. Knock

Knock, knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’ the name of

Belzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on th’

expectation of plenty. Come in time! Have napkins

enow about you; here you’ll sweat for’t. Knock

Knock, knock! Who’s there, in th’ other devil’s name?”

As you can see from this example, writers will also enlist the use of onomatopoeia to create the actual sound of an action or effect through text. This can make reading a story more experiential. 

What does imagery mean?

3. gustatory imagery.

Gustatory imagery is a type of imagery that aims at a reader’s sense of taste. This would most commonly be used to describe food as a character eats it. A great example of this can be found in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. As the Queen creates Turkish Delight for Edmund, C.S. Lewis uses gustatory imagery to describe its taste.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - Imagery examples

Gustatory imagery.

“The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable.”

Describing food as sweet, salty, or even spicy can immerse a reader further into a character’s simple action of eating. Gustatory imagery can be incredibly effective when describing unpleasant tastes as well. 

4. Olfactory Imagery

Olfactory imagery is used when writers’ want to appeal to a reader’s sense of smell. Olfactory imagery is a great way to better describe both what a character is experiencing as well as the world of the novel, poem, or other writing. 

The smell of fresh rain, smoke from a fire, or gasoline can be described through olfactory imagery. A great example of this can be found in the novel The Dead Path by Stephen M. Irwin. Note the comparisons Irwin used to create the olfactory imagery and paint a picture of the smell. 

The Death Path - What is imagery in literature?

Olfactory imagery.

“But a smell shivered him awake.

It was a scent as old as the world. It was a hundred aromas of a thousand places. It was the tang of pine needles. It was the musk of sex. It was the muscular rot of mushrooms. It was the spice of oak. Meaty and redolent of soil and bark and herb. It was bats and husks and burrows and moss. It was solid and alive - so alive! And it was close.”

Olfactory imagery can also be used in a screenplay as a plot point and to suggest to actor’s what they are smelling and how they are reacting.

5. Tactile Imagery

To create the sensory experience of touch through text, writers utilize tactile imagery. This type of imagery can be used to describe how something feels such as texture, temperature, wetness, dryness, etc. 

In Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger , Camus uses this type of imagery to describe the heat of the sun pressing down on a man at the beach. 

The Stranger - What is imagery in literature?

Tactile imagery.

“Seeing the rows of cypress trees leading up to the hills next to the sky, and the houses standing out here and there against that red and green earth, I was able to understand Maman better. Evenings in that part of the country must have been a kind of sad relief. But today, with the sun bearing down, making the whole landscape shimmer with heat, it was inhuman and oppressive.”

As you can see from this example, this can be tremendously effective when characters are undergoing some type of turmoil. Tactile imagery appeals to a reader’s sense of touch and allows them to better empathize with a character. 

• Read More: Ultimate guide to Literary Devices →
• Read More: What is a Motif? Definition and Examples →

Kinesthetic imagery definition

6. kinesthetic imagery.

Kinesthetic imagery is used to describe the sensory experience of motion. Speed, slowness, falling, or even fighting can be written with kinesthetic imagery. 

In the world of screenwriting, kinesthetic imagery is perhaps most important in the genre of action films. How else can you write an epic fight scene other than by using kinesthetic imagery to paint the picture? 

In our breakdown of one of the many epic fight scenes in John Wick , we take a look at how kinesthetic imagery can tell the story of action on the page. Using words like “slam” and “snap” create the imagery of the fight scene. 

What is Imagery in Fight scenes?  •   Subscribe on YouTube

Kinesthetic imagery is also great when writing about topics like sports, driving, and other intense action. 

Organic imagery meaning

7. organic imagery.

Last, but not least on our list is organic imagery. Organic imagery appeals to the most primitive sensations in the human experience such as hunger, fatigue, fear and even emotion. 

It can be quite difficult to describe the emotions of a sorrowful character or desperate character. But organic imagery aims to do just that. When done effectively, organic imagery can be the best tool to move a reader to tears of either joy or sadness. 

Explore more literary devices

Imagery is just one of many literary devices and types of figurative language , including metaphor , juxtaposition , and symbolism . If you're a writer and want to develop your craft fully, do yourself a favor and continue this exploration. The next article on literary devices is a gateway to many of these tools that help add substance and style to any type of written work.

Up Next: Literary Devices Index →

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What is imagery?

Ok, writers. Let’s go back to basics. Voltaire famously said, “Writing is the painting of the voice,” meaning it is the task of the writer to show the reader something—a scene, an object, a view, a character, anything that can be described. We do that describing through imagery.

Imagery is one of the most important literary devices or tools in the writer’s tool box.  Because literature (stories, poems, memoirs) is the written expression of a human condition, we as writers must draw on what makes us human to convey these experiences in the hopes of making a connection with the reader.

According to Literary Devices,

“Imagery is a literary device that refers to the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience or create a picture with words for a reader. By utilizing effective descriptive language and figures of speech, writers appeal to a reader’s senses of sight, taste, smell, touch, and sound, as well as internal emotion and feelings. Therefore, imagery is not limited to visual representations or mental images, but also includes physical sensations and internal emotions.”

To break that down: descriptive language + senses and emotions = imagery.

Now, I’m no math expert, but I like knowing what parts make up the whole. We probably know about senses and emotions, but what do we mean by figures of speech? 

At its core, a figure of speech is usually a simile, metaphor, or hyperbole, and can be literal or figurative.

Examples of figures of speech

An example: 

Literal Simile: Her hair was like the color of burnished copper.

Figurative Simile: Her hair was like a sunset on a desert.

In the previous examples, we have a figure of speech and senses, but what about emotion? 

Literal Simile: Her hair, like her Grandma Ruth’s, was like the color of this copper kettle, the one Mary would take with her whether Mom liked it or not. (emotion is nostalgia)

Figurative Simile: Her hair shimmered like a sunset in Death Valley, but he was sure she was just a mirage. (emotion is certainty, perhaps sadness or longing that she isn’t real or present)

Here are some more examples from one of the reigning champions of literary device, Shakespeare:

“There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” Macbeth

“And thus I clothe my naked villainy

With odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ;

And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.” Richard III

“If I be waspish, best beware my sting.” The Taming of the Shrew

An imagery writing exercise

Choose a sentence below and add senses and emotion plus a figure of speech of your choice. Use that sentence to kickstart a poem or short story.

Jacob’s room smelled bad. 

My grandmother’s locket is old. 

I found a cat in the lane. 

She wished she could visit the ocean.

He would never get on a plane and no one could make him. 

They walked a mile together, then parted ways. 

I was late to work again. 

She forgot to catch fireflies. 

What did you think of this little lesson on imagery? Will you try the writing exercise? Share with us in the comments.

Related reading: What is a prose poem?

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Teneice Durrant is a proud graduate of Spalding University’s MFA program, and The University of Toledo’s MA in English Literature program. She has published four chapbooks and one full-length poetry collection,  Glass Corset (2019). 

Copyright 2020 ~ Center for Creative Writing

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General Education

A literary device is a technique a writer uses to convey ideas and messages to their readers. That means that as readers, we need to understand and use literary devices to fully understand a work’s major themes!

Today, we’re going to take a closer look at how to use imagery to analyze a text. We’ll start by giving you the imagery definition before talking about why it’s an important tool for analyzing a text. Then we’ll walk you through some imagery examples in poetry and fiction and show you exactly how to analyze the imagery in each.

By the end of this article, you’ll be able to talk about imagery in literature like a pro, so let’s get started.

What Is Imagery? Definition and Explanation

Have you ever read a book that makes you feel like you’re seeing, feeling, smelling, or tasting the same thing as the character you’re reading about? (We had that experience the first time Harry Potter tries butterbeer in Hogsmeade .) If you have, you can thank imagery for that experience!

Imagery is the act of using language to create images in the reader’s mind . Writers use descriptive words and phrases to help the reader feel like they’re...well, wherever the writer wants them to be! Basically, the writer is trying to create a “mental image” for the reader through the words they choose. Here’s how one of the greatest horror writers of all time, Stephen King , describes imagery :

Imagery does not occur on the writer’s page; it occurs in the reader’s mind. To describe everything is to supply a photograph in words; to indicate the points which seem the most vivid and important to you, the writer, is to allow the reader to flesh out your sketch into a portrait.

In other words: you can think of imagery as painting with words in order to fuel the reader’s imagination!

An easy way to spot imagery in a text is to pay attention to words, phrases, and sentences that connect with your five senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound). That’s because writers know that in order to capture a reader’s attention, they need to engage with them mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Since imagery is designed to connect a reader to a text, it’s one of the most powerful tools a writer has to communicate their themes and messages.

The 2 Types of Imagery

Any time a writer engages a reader’s senses, they’re using imagery...which means imagery is a really broad literary device. In general, however , imagery fits into two big categories: literal and figurative.

Literal Imagery: Examples and Explanation

With literal imagery, a writer is literally describing things to the reader. (Pretty straightforward, huh?)

Writers often use literal imagery to describe the setting, characters, and situation for a reader. Literal imagery helps the reader picture where characters are, understand what characters are doing, and even foreshadow what might happen next. (For example, if the character is in a dark, dirty alley, they’re probably in a more dangerous situation than if the character is skipping through a field of daisies.)

Let’s take a look at an example of literal imagery from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park so you can see what we mean. In this scene, Dr. Alan Grant, Lex Murphy, and Tim Murphy are trying to hide from a tyrannosaurus rex:

The tyrannosaur was still looking downstream, its back turned to them. They hurried along the path to the waterfall, and had almost moved behind the sheet of falling water when Grant saw the tyrannosaur turn. Then they were completely behind the waterfall, and Grant was unable to see out through the silver sheet.

Now that you’ve read this passage, close your eyes and picture the scene. You’re probably picturing a giant waterfall, a hungry tyrannosaurus rex, and a lot of danger, right? That’s because the literal imagery in this passage paints a very specific, literal picture that helps you imagine what’s happening in this moment!

Magic, right? Not quite. Imagery works because the writer uses descriptive words and phrases to help paint a picture. Let’s take a look at the first few lines again and pick out some of the descriptive language that helps shape the scene:  

They were closer to the waterfall now, the roar much louder. The rocks became slippery, the path muddy. There was a constant hanging mist. It was like moving through a cloud.

These lines are almost exclusively description, and Crichton uses phrases like “rocks became slippery” and “constant hanging mist” to help you imagine exactly what’s happening. A good way to pick out literal imagery is to look for nouns, then see how they’re described. For example, the noun “waterfall” is described as having a “roar” that gets “louder” the closer the characters get!

From an analysis perspective, these literal images all work together to help build the mood , or tone , of the scene. In this case, the imagery of the scene contributes to its tense and suspenseful tone. The environment is treacherous--not only are the rocks slick, but the characters have trouble seeing through the mist and water. One false move, and they’ll be a tasty snack for a hungry dinosaur!

  Use this picture as inspiration for finding connotation! (This will all make sense in a second.)

Figurative Imagery: Examples and Explanation  

Unlike literal imagery, figurative imagery uses on the non-literal--or metaphorical--meaning of words to paint a picture for the reader. Almost all words have two meanings: their denotation and connotation. The denotation of a word is its literal, dictionary definition. Figurative imagery, on the other hand, relies on the connotation —or implied meaning—of words and phrases to help shape a text’s themes and ideas.

To see how figurative imagery works, let’s look at the first line of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130,” where the speaker is describing his lady love:  

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Okay. Let’s zero in on the word “sun” here. According to Merriam-Webster, the literal definition of the word “sun” is “the luminous celestial body around which the earth and other planets revolve, from which they receive heat and light, which is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium.” But the speaker doesn’t literally mean that his mistress’ eyes aren’t like a ball of gas!

So what does he mean? To figure this out, let’s look at the figurative imagery here. Take a minute and think of some of the implied or metaphorical meanings of the word “sun.” The word might make you think of warmth and happiness. It also might make you think of other images like burning, blazing, or fiery brightness.

With this figurative imagery in mind, this line is better read as “my mistress’s eyes aren’t bright, warm, or happy.” Not only does figurative imagery help this line make more sense, it also clues readers into the message of the poem: that you can recognize someone’s faults and still love them and find them beautiful.

One more quick note: because you’re a savvy reader , you’ve probably realized that this line from Shakespeare is also a metaphor , which is a comparison between two seemingly unrelated objects (in this case, “eyes” and “sun”). Writers often use other literary devices like metaphor, simile, and personification to help create vivid imagery for the reader. So don’t be surprised if you see imagery overlapping with other literary techniques!

Can an Example of Imagery be Both Literal and Figurative at the Same Time?

Absolutely! In fact, it’s quite common to see writers use literal and figurative imagery simultaneously. Take the first stanza of William Wordsworth’s poem, “Daffodils” :

That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

This stanza combines literal and figurative imagery. Literally, the images in this stanza help us see the speaker wandering around alone until he stumbles upon a patch of daffodils that are growing by a lake. This imagery is important to understanding Wordsworth’s poetry, which often explores the relationship between nature and man.  

The figurative imagery helps us learn a little more about the speaker, who’s an outsider. We can infer this because of the imagery he gives us; he imagines himself as a cloud floating over everything, able to see what’s going on but unable to participate. The daffodils, on the other hand, represent society. The imagery here is happy (the daffodils are “golden” and “dancing”), which is how the speaker views society as someone on the outside looking in.

 Imagery in Poetry: “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson

Now that you know more about imagery, let’s look at a poem that uses imagery to portray its major themes:

That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.

Imagery can make something abstract, like an emotion or theory, seem more concrete and tangible to the reader. By using imagery, writers can evoke the feeling they want to talk about in their readers...and by making their readers feel, writers can also help readers connect to the messages in their work.

In this example, Emily Dickinson takes the abstract idea of “hope” and compares it to a bird. Dickinson paints images of hope doing all the same things a bird does: it “perches,” “sings,” and keeps “so many warm” with its feathers. And despite all these gifts, hope never “asked a crumb” of anything in return. By using imagery to take an abstract idea (hope) and make it concrete (a bird), Dickinson helps readers understand the nature of hope. For Dickinson, hope is something that costs little to have and yet offers us comfort in all of life’s toughest situations.

Imagery in Fiction: Dracula by Bram Stoker

Imagery can be an equally powerful tool for fiction writers, too. In Dracula, Bram Stoker uses imagery to drive home the horror of the novel. Let’s take a look at one particularly stand-out scene, where Arthur Holmwood has to kill his former fiancee, Lucy Westenra, who has been turned into a vampire:

Remember how we talked about how imagery can set a tone or mood? That’s certainly the case here. Lucy is visually described not as a woman but as a “thing,” and the “blood-curdling screech” she lets out is a great example of how auditory imagery--or the sound of a scene--can contribute to its overall effect. (In this case, it amps up the horror of a once-delicate Englishwoman being transformed into a bloodthirsty beast.) It's the imagery associated with Lucy that shows readers how vicious and animalistic she’s become, which is no surprise: she’s joined Dracula’s army of the undead.

Now, take a look at the imagery surrounding Arthur, Lucy’s former fiancee, and see how it compares to Lucy’s description. Even as he’s killing Lucy, Arthur is described as “a figure of Thor”--meaning he’s strong, heroic, and good with a hammer. Stoker specifically says Arthur is “untrembling” in his task; despite its grisly nature, his steadiness showcases his commitment to protecting his country from the vampire threat...even when it means driving a stake in his lover’s heart. Additionally, his face has the “shine” of duty, which is a nod to the glowing, angelic halos of angels. Arthur’s bravery and light stands in contrast to Lucy’s dark, demonic nature, and Stoker specifically uses imagery to show readers how good can triumph over evil.

3 Questions to Ask When Analyzing Imagery

These examples have shown you how to find and analyze imagery, but you’ll have to do this all by yourself when you take the AP Literature exam. But don’t worry--now that you’re an expert, finding and analyzing imagery will be a breeze! But just in case you get stuck, here are three questions you can ask yourself to help you better analyze imagery in literature and poetry.

Question 1: What Did I Imagine While I Was Reading?  

The hardest part about analyzing imagery is finding it in the first place. Like we mentioned earlier, a good way to do this is to look for nouns and search for words that describe them. Then you can start asking yourself if those descriptions are figurative imagery (i.e., do those words have any implied or metaphorical meaning).

But when you’re crunched for time, you can go back to the tried-and-true method of using your imagination. Which parts of the text made you picture something in your mind? Since imagery is designed to spark your imagination, there’s a great chance that section contains some sort of imagery!

Question 2: What Does the Imagery Reveal About the Situation?

This question helps you get to the meat-and-potatoes of your analysis really quickly. Once you find a piece of imagery, ask yourself what it’s showing you . It could be describing an important setting, plot point, or character. Make sure you’re asking yourself if there’s figurative imagery at work, too.

If you’re struggling here, you can always go back to the “mental picture” we talked about with the first question. What do you see in that image? There’s a good chance that whatever you’re imagining matters in some way. Once you have that image in your mind, you can start to ask yourself why that particular image is important.

Here’s what we mean: think about the Jurassic Park example we talked about earlier. The imagery there tells us some literal things about what’s happening in the scene, but it also adds to the danger and suspense of the main characters’ predicament. The same can be said for the excerpt from “Daffodils,” only instead of revealing a plot point, the imagery gives readers important insight into the narrator of the poem.

Question 3: How Does the Imagery Affect the Mood of the Text?

Once you find a good piece of imagery, ask yourself how it makes you feel. Is it hopeful? Scary? Depressed? Angry? The feelings associated with the imagery in a work can often reveal the theme of a text.

Take Emily Dickinson’s poem. What feelings are associated with the imagery surrounding “hope”? Well, birds are tame and delicate, and the bird Dickinson describes sings sweetly through life’s fierce storms. Hope is clearly a reassuring, gentle, uplifting thing. By asking yourself why Dickinson thinks hope is good, you can start to figure out some of the messages of the poem!

What's Next?

Test out your new-found imagery chops by analyzing a poem on your own! We think that Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night” is a great place to start. Y ou can find the full text of the poem, as well as additional analysis, here .

There’s more to literary analysis than just knowing your way around imagery! Make sure you’re familiar with the most important literary devices, like personification, before you head into your AP test.

There are two parts to the AP Literature test: the multiple choice section and the essay section. Some students worry about the written portion of the test so much that they forget to study for the multiple choice questions! Don’t let this be your situation. Make sure you’re preparing for the whole test by reading through this guide to mastering the AP Literature exam’s multiple choice portion, too .

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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What is Imagery in Literature? Definition and Examples

by Fija Callaghan

What pulls readers into a story? Is it strong, relatable characters? Fantastic settings? Or is it a deep, universal theme that hits your readers on a visceral level?

These literary devices are all super important for creating a work that people love to read, but often what really draws in readers is imagery ; the vivid way in which we show them the world of our story. Imagery is what brings your story from the distant somewhere else into the here and now .

We’ll look at how to use vivid descriptions and figurative language to engage your reader’s senses, along with some examples of imagery that show you how to create a sensory experience in the reader’s mind.

What is imagery in creative writing?

Imagery is a literary device that uses descriptive language to create mental images for the reader. This can be used to give context to the events of your story, to immerse your reader in an unfamiliar setting, to communicate mood and tone for a particular scene, or to create an emotional response in your reader.

You can create imagery that activates all of the reader’s senses, not just the visual sense. Sound, smell, taste, touch, and movement all help to create vibrant scenes that make them feel as if they were there.

When your reader begins to feel like they’re a part of the world of your story, that’s when they start to invest in the characters , events, and big-picture themes that you’re working to communicate through your writing.

How is imagery different from symbolism?

Imagery and symbolism are two literary devices that sound kind of similar because they both use images to communicate with readers. But they’re not quite the same. The biggest difference is that imagery engages readers on a sensory, emotional level, and symbolism engages the reader on a more intellectual level.

Descriptive imagery uses all of our senses to create a vivid picture of a person, place, object, or moment for the reader. For example, consider this use of imagery to describe a box:

The box full of letters is made of metal that’s painted bright red, heavier than it looks and cold to the touch. The metal is smooth except for one place near the lock, which is rough with scratches where someone once tried to pry it open. There’s a handle on top that squeaks when you try to lift it because of the rust that’s starting to form where the handle joins the lid.

Can you see the box clearly in your mind? That’s imagery at work.

Compare that to symbolism, which is when a writer attributes an underlying meaning to a person, place, or object. This brings depth to your story and helps communicate underlying themes and ideas.

If you’re using symbolism, you might say that the letter box is a symbol of a couple’s growing resentment to each other—the vivid color makes it impossible to ignore, it weighs them down more than they’d like to admit, and their relationship is beginning to corrode because of it.

Using imagery and symbolism together like that is very effectively for create strong, emotional connections for your readers.

Literal vs. figurative imagery

When we talk about imagery, we’re really talking about two distinct devices: literal imagery and figurative imagery. Let’s look a little closer at each one.

Literal imagery

This type of imagery uses descriptive language to show something exactly the way it is, using ideas that we can see, hear, and touch. When we described the box above as red, cold, heavy, smooth, and squeaking, we were using literal imagery—straightforward, unadorned words to create a realistic idea in the reader’s head.

This technique can be very powerful because it uses language that we already have a clear reference for. This makes the scene more real and tangible for the reader.

Figurative imagery

Figurative or poetic imagery uses descriptive literary devices like similes, metaphors, and hyperbole to create a vivid picture for the reader. Rather than telling them exactly what they’re seeing in the world of your story, this type of imagery allows them to create their own image out of your words. Using poetic imagery, we could describe the box as “red as a gaping wound,” or “heavy as an elephant,” or say that holding it is like “reaching into icy water.”

This kind of language can create a strong emotional response in the reader.

Many authors favor one type of imagery over the other—what type of imagery you most resonate with is an important part of your writer’s voice . Finding a comfortable balance of both literal and figurative imagery in your writing is ultimately one of the things that makes a great writer.

Types of imagery to use in your story

Effective imagery uses all of the senses to create a detailed world for your story. Most of us rely mainly on our eyes to take in information, but as a writer, you have a whole range of physical sensations to explore. Every one of them can be used to bring your reader deeper and deeper into your story world.

1. Visual imagery

Visual imagery encompasses everything that we can see. Colors, shapes, sizes, proportions, angles, edges, textures, and contrast are all different things you can communicate through the readers’ senses.

Saying that a man stood half-in and half-out of shadow, his wool collar turned up against his face and his hair tipped golden by the lamplight, is an example of using different aspects of visual imagery to create a clear scene.

2. Auditory imagery

Auditory imagery is everything that we hear. After our eyes, our ears tell us the most about our environment. Your characters might hear the sounds of other voices, nearby traffic, music coming from a neighbor’s apartment, water dripping through pipes, the knocking of an air conditioner, branches rustling, distant machinery, a keyboard clattering, or the soft rustle of the turning pages of a book.

Using auditory imagery can reveal surprising things about your story and convey new information to your characters, as well as immersing your readers deeper into the scene.

3. Gustatory imagery

Gustatory imagery is the imagery of taste. What and how we taste is one of the most important ways in which we define culture, and often one of the first things people become aware of when immersing themselves in cultures outside of their own.

You can use sensory details to describe the way food tastes, of course, but also the way the air tastes in a new environment, the way blood tastes if you accidentally bite your tongue, the flavour of plastic and ink as you chew the end of your pen in thought.

You can also use gustatory imagery in a metaphorical way, as well as in a literal one; for example, the way a new love affair might taste sweet but an argument might taste bitter and acidic.

4. Olfactory imagery

Olfactory imagery is the imagery of scent. More than any other sense, our sense of smell is deeply linked to the way we form and perceive memory. In your story, using olfactory imagery is an easy way to link different times and places.

Olfactory memories can be pleasant, or they can be less so; your characters memories might be triggered by the smell of lavender like they had their childhood garden, by the smell of hot concrete in the sun as they remember the events of a particularly hot day, by the smell of burning toast that brings them back to a traumatic event, or by the fragrance that a loved one used to wear, even if your character hasn’t thought about them in decades.

5. Tactile imagery

Tactile imagery encompasses our sense of physical contact. For many people, touch is the sense we subconsciously trust the most; it’s easy to doubt the things you see and hear, but if it can be tangibly felt by your bare skin, it becomes real in an unequivocal way.

Things like a baby’s skin, a man’s unshaven face, the rough fabric of a tweed coat, slimy cough medicine, a warm teacup, or the cold surface of a window are all ways to use this type of imagery to create an emotional impact. How do different textures bring back memories and elicit feelings?

6. Kinesthetic imagery

Kinesthetic imagery is related to tactile imagery, but it specifically refers to the feeling of movement. These can be things like hair blowing across your face in the wind, a rope slipping slowly from your grasp, the discomfort of shifting an aching muscle, the feeling of bread dough being kneaded in your hands, or the feeling of shoes beginning to drag across the sidewalk after a very long walk.

This type of imagery reflects one state changing to another, and is often used in moments where something is being created, broken, found, or lost.

7. Composite imagery

Composite imagery is a device that uses contradictory senses to create an image or feeling. These are always figurative , rather than literal . For example, you could say, “kissing her tasted like sunlight,” mixing gustatory imagery with tactile and visual imagery; or, “his voice sounded like splintered wood,” mixing auditory imagery with tactile imagery.

Using poetic imagery in this way uses metaphors to create surprising connections and shows your reader what’s happening in a fresh way.

Evocative examples of imagery in literature

1. stardust , by neil gaiman.

Something stung his left hand. He slapped at it, expecting to see an insect. He looked down to see a pale yellow leaf. It fell to the ground with a rustle. On the back of his hand, a veining of red, wet blood welled up. The wood whispered about them.

This moment opens with tactile sensations in the feeling of being stung and then the slapping of skin on skin. Then Gaiman shows us, through visual images, the conflict between what the character expected to see and what he really saw. The verbs “rustle” and “whispered” add a powerful auditory experience to this vibrant scene.

2. The Strawberry Thief , by Joanne Harris

The dry reek of cigarettes has become the scent of burning leaves; the sweet and simple bonfire scent of autumn nights by the fireside. The chocolate is cooler now: the silky consistency has returned. I return the pan to the burner. Tiny petals of steam lift from the glossy surface.

This author uses olfactory imagery to marvelous effect as she shows the subtle change from one moment to another. Then the moment moves uses sight to explore the contrasting textures of the chocolate and the steam, taking us effectively from the negative “reek of cigarettes” to the more pleasant-sounding “tiny petals of steam.”

3. The Little Sister , by Raymond Chandler

I smelled Los Angeles before I got to it. It smelled stale and old like a living room that had been closed too long. But the colored lights fooled you. The lights were wonderful. There ought to be a monument to the man who invented neon lights.

This is another example of a literary work that effectively uses imagery in juxtaposition, showing the city’s worst and best qualities side by side. He uses olfactory imagery to express the negative in a poetic and imaginative way, and then lays down the positive aspect through visually focusing on the brightness of the lights around him.

4. An Irish Country Girl , by Patrick Taylor

She smiled, but her smile soon fled when she heard a very different noise. It was wind howling through bare-branched trees. The walls of the kitchen became blurred, the range and stove vanished, there were no cooking smells, only a chill in her nostrils. Maureen saw flakes, whirling and flying, and small sheep huddled against a gale.

Here Taylor uses auditory imagery to take the character and the reader from a lighthearted moment into a much darker one. He uses olfactory imagery very powerfully by describing an lack of smells, rather than ones that are present, and visual imagery to pick out just a few poignant details that make the scene come to life.

5. The Wild Swans , by Jackie Morris

The lower floors were warm from the kitchen fires and rich with the scent of baking and roasting, bright with the bustle of busy working. The higher floors danced with the light that flooded in through the casement windows.

Morris blends different examples of imagery to create pictures of a single moment full of light and life. She uses tactile imagery in showing us that the rooms are warm, olfactory imagery in the foods that are being prepared, kinesthetic imagery in the bustle of workers and the dancing light, and visual imagery in describing the fires and the way light falls through the windows. In this example, several types of imagery are effortlessly entwined at once.

Exercise: increasing your sensory awareness

Here’s a fun, easy exercise to help you develop your writer’s muscles and create stronger imagery for your story.

Go sit somewhere away from home like a park, shopping mall, or café. Bring a notebook with you so you can record your observations. Get settled and make six headings in your notebook, one for each of the imagery types we looked at above. What you’re going to do is try to focus on your environment using only one sense at a time.

Begin with any sense you feel like, except visual—because human beings are so reliant on their visual sense, it’s best to leave that one for the very end and challenge yourself to experience the world through your other five senses first.

Close your eyes and use the sense you picked to pay attention to the world around you.

What do you hear? Are there people talking close by, fountains bubbling, harsh noises of espresso machines grinding, dogs barking, wind rustling the treetops, old pipes whispering behind walls?

What do you smell? Grass being cut, aromatics in soil released by the rain, hairspray straggling in the air, somebody’s greasy takeout?

What do you feel? The weight of your scarf around your neck, smooth wood from a park bench under your hands, a gentle breeze blowing stray hair across your forehead, vibrations under your feet from someone running nearby?

Go through every sense and after each one, open your eyes and record al the concrete details you remember.

You’ll be amazed at how much information there is around us all the time that our bodies are taking in without even realizing it. Every single one of these experiences can be used in your writing. Little details like these ones will make your stories more real and present for the reader as they immerse themselves in your world.

Imagery gives life and color to your writing

Imagery is around us all the time in the things we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. Using this sensual language in your writing is a great way to communicate new information with the reader, create a shift in tone from one moment to another, add depth to a particular scene, and bring new life to your story.

Once you begin experimenting with different types of imagery in your writing, you’ll find yourself looking at the world of your story—and the world around you—in a whole new way.

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A How-to blog for Writers

300+ Sensory Imagery Examples to Master Creative Writing

As writers, we all struggle the most with bringing out how a character sees, perceives, smells, or feels. New writers often lag due to too much telling and too little showing. The rich imagery, the true essence, and a three-dimensional physical presence of everything around a character are what we find ourselves most entwined in.

‘Show, don’t tell’ isn’t just a phrase to embellish your writing. It’s a way for readers to connect with your characters and the story. It’s a way for the readers to be around them and in the midst of the story. It’s a way for the readers to live the story your characters are living and you lived as the author of it.

Now, we often find ourselves in the dilemma of how to show more and tell less, or at least maintain a balance between the two. Each writer writes to improve and weave the stories for the world to get lost into and come out as if it lived them.

I have prepared a list of more than 300 example sentences that are going to come handy when you find yourselves struggling with how to write about someone and something.

Before I begin, understand that there are different types of imagery in literature.

Types of Sensory imagery in literature:

• Kinesthetic
• Organic 

1. Visual Imagery in Literature

The visual imagery appeals to our sense of sight. The author uses similes, metaphor, and personification in the descriptions to narrate what he wants his readers to see. 

Visual Imagery Literary Examples:

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills , When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils ; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze . I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth’s (1804)

Learn More about Visual Imagery:

Get Free Access to Visual Imagery Examples & Descriptions to Inspire Creative Writing

2. Auditory Imagery in Literature

The auditory imagery appeals to our sense of sound. It may include pleasant and unpleasant descriptions of sounds. Some authors also use words that imitate sounds to create the auditory experience for readers. 

Auditory Imagery Examples:

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. To Autumn, John Keats (1820)

Learn More about Auditory Imagery:

Get Free Access to 30+ Auditory Imagery Examples & Descriptions to Inspire Creative Writing

3. Olfactory Imagery in Literature

The olfactory imagery appeals to our sense of smell by describing something the narrator or protagonist inhales. It may include off-putting odours, pleasant fragrances, and other familiar scents. 

Olfactory Imagery Literary Examples

They silently inhale the clover-scented gale, And the vapors that arise From the well-watered and smoking soil Rain in Summer, H.W. Longfellow

Learn More about Olfactory Imagery:

Get Free Access to 50+ Olfactory Imagery Examples & Descriptions to Inspire Creative Writing

4. Gustatory Imagery in Literature

The Gustatory imagery appeals to our sense of taste by describing something the narrator or protagonist tastes. It’s most effective when the author describes a taste a reader might have experienced before so they can recall it from their memory. 

Gustatory Imagery Literary Examples

O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken? How can you be alive you growths of spring? How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you? Is not every continent work’d over and over with sour dead? Where have you disposed of their carcasses? Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations? Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv’d, I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through the sod and turn it up underneath, I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. This Compost, Walt Whitman (1856)

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5. Tactile Imagery in Literature

The tactile imagery appeals to our sense of touch by describing something the protagonist feels on their body. It may include the feel of different physical sensations, temperatures, and textures. 

Tactile Imagery Literary Examples:

When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm Porphyria’s Lover, Robert Browning (1836)

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6. Kinesthetic Imagery in Literature

Kinesthesia is used as a poetic device that gives a feeling of natural, or physical bodily movement or action (like breathing, heartbeat, and a pulse).

Kinesthetic imagery Literary Examples

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. Leda and the Swan, W.B. Yeats (1923)

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Get Free Access to 50+ Kinesthetic Imagery Examples & Descriptions to Inspire Creative Writing

7. Organic Imagery in Literature

Organic imagery pertains to personal experiences of a character’s body, including emotion and the senses of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and pain.

Organic is essentially the hardest of all the types of imagery. Depicting the feelings through the actions is what Organic imagery deals with. Writers often feel daunted by how to project emotions on the page to the reader. Don’t Worry, I have got the Samples to help you with. I am going to go feeling by feeling (the important ones) and show you how you can show your readers what your character feels:

Organic imagery Literary Examples:

So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It’s when I’m weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Birches, Robert Frost’s (1916)

Learn More about Organic Imagery:

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Winding Up:

I understand there is also a thing called ‘too much showing’. And to maintain a balance between too much showing and too much telling, we, the writers, need to know the scenes where showing is required and how much we should show. The above-given examples are completely at your disposal. Do make their use and your writing impressive!

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Imagery Definition

What is imagery? Here’s a quick and simple definition:

Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After Apple-Picking" contain imagery that engages the senses of touch, movement, and hearing: "I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. / And I keep hearing from the cellar bin / The rumbling sound / Of load on load of apples coming in."

Some additional key details about imagery:

• Though imagery contains the word "image," it does not only refer to descriptive language that appeals to the sense of sight. Imagery includes language that appeals to all of the human senses, including sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell.
• While imagery can and often does benefit from the use of figurative language such as metaphors and similes, imagery can also be written without using any figurative language at all.

Imagery Pronunciation

Here's how to pronounce imagery: im -ij-ree

Types of Imagery

There are five main types of imagery, each related to one of the human senses:

• Visual imagery (sight)
• Auditory imagery (hearing)
• Olfactory imagery (smell)
• Gustatory imagery (taste)
• Tactile imagery (touch)

Some people may also argue that imagery can be kinesthetic (related to movement) or organic (related to sensations within the body). Writers may focus descriptions in a particular passage on primarily one type of imagery, or multiple types of imagery.

Imagery and Figurative Language

Many people (and websites) confuse the relationship between imagery and figurative language. Usually this confusion involves one of two things:

• Describing imagery as a type of figurative language.
• Describing imagery as the use of figurative language to create descriptions that engage the physical senses.

Both are wrong.

A Quick Definition of Figurative Language

Figurative language is language that creates a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation of the words. For instance, the phrase "you are my sunshine" is figurative language (a metaphor , to be precise). It's not literally saying that you are a beam of light from the sun, but rather is creating an association between "you" and "sunshine" to say that you make the speaker feel warm and happy and also give the speaker life in the same way sunshine does.

Imagery can be Literal or Figurative

Imagery is neither a type of figurative language nor does it solely involve the use of figurative language to create descriptions for one simple reason: imagery can be totally literal. Take the lines from Robert Frost's "After-Apple Picking:"

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in.

These lines contain powerful imagery: you can feel the swaying ladder, see the bending boughs, and hear the rumbling of the apples going into the cellar bin. But it is also completely literal: every word means exactly what it typically means. So this imagery involves no figurative language at all.

Now, that doesn't mean imagery can't use figurative language. It can! You could write, for instance, "The apples rumbled into the cellar bin like a stampede of buffalo," using a simile to create a non-literal comparison that emphasizes just how loudly those apples were rumbling. To sum up, then: imagery can involve the use of figurative language, but it doesn't have to.

Imagery Examples

Imagery is found in all sorts of writing, from fiction to non-fiction to poetry to drama to essays.

Example of Imagery in Romeo and Juliet

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet , Romeo describes his first sight of Juliet with rich visual imagery:

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night, Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear

This imagery does involve the use of figurative language, as Romeo describes Juliet's beauty in the nighttime by using a simile that compares her to a jewel shining against dark skin.

Example of Imagery in "Birches"

In the early lines of his poem "Birches," Robert Frost describes the birches that give his poem it's title. The language he uses in the description involves imagery of sight, movement, and sound.

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Example of Imagery in The Road

The novelist Cormac McCarthy is known, among other things, for his powerful imagery. In this passage from his novel The Road , note how he uses imagery to describe the fire on the distant ridge, the feel of the air, and even the feeling inside that the man experiences.

A forest fire was making its way along the tinderbox ridges above them, flaring and shimmering against the overcast like the northern lights. Cold as it was he stood there a long time. The color of it moved something in him long forgotten.

Example of Imagery in Moby-Dick

The passage ago appears at the very end of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and describes the ocean in the moments after a destroyed ship has sunk into it. Notice how Melville combines visual, auditory, and kinesthetic imagery ("small fowls flew"; "white surf beat"), and how the imagery allows you to almost feel the vortex created by the sinking ship and then the silence left behind when it closes.

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.

Example of Imagery in Song of Solomon

In this passage from Song of Solomon , Toni Morrison uses visual imagery to capture the color and motion of the table cloth as it settles over the table. She also uses figurative language ("like a lighthouse keeper...") to describe the way that Ruth in the passage looks at the water stain on the table. The figurative language doesn't just describe the color or sound or smell of the scene, it captures the obsessive way that Ruth glances at the water stain, and the way that seeing it gives her a sense of ease. Here the figurative language deepens the imagery of the scene.

As she unfolded the white linen and let it billow over the fine mahogany table, she would look once more at the large water mark. 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 water mark several times during the day.

Example of Imagery in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

The main character of Patrick Suskind's novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer has a supernaturally powerful sense of smell. In this passage, which describes the smells of an 18th century city, the narrator captures the nature of 18th century cities—their grittiness and griminess—through the smell of their refuse, and how in such a world perfume might be not just a luxury but a necessity. Further, he makes readers aware of a world of smell of which they normally are only slightly aware, and how a super-sensitive sense of smell could both be powerful but also be overwhelmingly unpleasant. And finally, through smell the narrator is able to describe just how gross humans can be, how they are in some ways just another kind of animal, and how their bodies are always failing or dying. Through descriptions of smell, in other words, the novel also describes an overlooked aspect of the human condition.

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.

Why Do Writers Use Imagery?

Imagery is essential to nearly every form of writing, and writers use imagery for a wide variety of reasons:

• It engages readers: Imagery allows readers to see and feel what's going on in a story. It fully engages the reader's imagination, and brings them into the story.
• It's interesting: Writing without imagery would be dry and dull, while writing with imagery can be vibrant and gripping.
• It can set the scene and communicate character: The description of how a person or place looks, moves, sounds, smells, does as much to tell you about that person or place as any explanation can. Imagery is not just "window dressing," it is the necessary sensory detail that allows a reader to understand the world and people being described, from their fundamental traits to their mood.
• It can be symbolic: Imagery can both describe the world and establish symbolic meanings that deepen the impact of the text. Such symbolism can range from the weather (rain occurring in moments of sadness) to symbolism that is even deeper or more complex, such as the way that Moby-Dick layers multiple meanings through his descriptions of the whiteness of the whale.

Other Helpful Imagery Resources

• Wikipedia entry on imagery : A concise, no nonsense entry on imagery.
• Imagery in Robert Frost's poetry : A page that picks out different kinds of imagery in poems by Robert Frost.
• Imagery in John Keats's poetry : A page that identifies imagery in poems by John Keats.

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3.30: Imagery in Creative Writing

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• Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
• City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

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How to Create Beautiful Imagery in Fiction

By Georgina Roy

Creating beautiful imagery in fiction is not difficult, and it can catapult a good story into a masterpiece. These days, every writer has heard the rule “show, don’t tell”, especially when it comes to describing the emotions and actions of characters. Creating beautiful imagery means showing more than just emotions and actions. It means painting the world around your characters with words, similes, and even metaphors, in order to evoke the readers’ senses, and to bring the world itself alive in their minds.

Beautiful imagery is what makes a secondary character extremely important, it’s what makes objects, places and weather sentient beings the readers will care about. Using creative words and descriptive language to paint the world around your characters allows you to convey emotions, not only by showing those emotions with their actions, but also through their eyes and the things they see when they look upon the world. Below, we have shown a few ways this can be achieved, and we hope it helps you create beautiful stories that will touch anyone who reads them.

1. Seek beautiful imagery

One of the most common advice given to aspiring authors is to read everything. We will elaborate a bit on it, and add: read looking for beautiful imagery, for descriptive writing, and look upon what you read with a critical eye. Novels, poems, short stories, they are all different, unique, but when it comes to descriptive language and writing style, some are better than others. Seek descriptive writing and beautiful imagery, and read them with a critical eye – it is necessary, because that way you will not only learn how to use descriptive language better, you will also discover how not to do it. Remember, there is a difference between purple prose and beautiful imagery – beautiful imagery evokes the senses and makes stories come alive, while purple prose draws attention to itself and can be difficult to read, like eating a cake that’s too sweet.

2. Use the character’s voice

When it comes to descriptive writing, the point of view is very important. If you’re using omnipresent third point of view, the use of descriptive language to create beautiful imagery can feel a little detached, because the characters are not actually seeing and thinking the words you’re writing on the page. This detachment is not present in third person limited point of view or first person point of view. What you need to pay attention to is wording – the characters’ thoughts, the words they use to describe their emotions and surroundings need to match the words they would use when speaking to other people, or speaking to themselves. Do not make the characters sound too eloquent in their minds, when that is not in their nature. Use the characters’ personalities and voice instead, and the conveyance will be much more powerful.

3. A mixture of senses

When it comes to creating beautiful imagery, it is very important to include the senses. Depending on the scene, and of what you are trying to convey, you can include only one or two, for example, the sense of smell and touch, or you can evoke more senses by including taste, sight and hearing. When it comes to evoking senses, sometimes, two or three will have a bigger impact than every sense, and an additional method would be to have a dominant sense. For example, what the character sees can be conveyed more elaborately, while using the auditory and olfactory sense to aid the imagery. Any sense can be a dominant sense, because scent, sight, taste, and feel can have equal impact on your characters and readers.

4. Convey moods

We can convey everything with the right words, but atmosphere and overall mood of both your story and characters, can be conveyed best with beautiful imagery. Instead of plowing through your scenes fast, take the time to find the right descriptive words, and use them to convey the mood of the scene. Remember, every scene has a mood, and with descriptive words you can amplify the tension, or relieve it. In this manner, you will pull your readers into your world completely, not only through the emotions of your characters but through the atmosphere of the scenes as well. Before attempting to do this in a story or a novel, you can practice writing scenes, especially scenes where your character feels happy despite bleak surroundings, like clouds, rain, or derelict places, or scenes where your characters are feeling profoundly sad, despite being surrounded by beauty.

5. Avoiding clichés

Often, eyes are as blue as a summer sky, or shine like diamonds, or are compared to other beautiful sparkly things. When it comes to creating beautiful imagery, originality is highly appreciated and admired. Abandon all clichés , all metaphors and similes you’ve read before, and come up with new ones. This is the most difficult aspect of crafting beautiful imagery, and the most challenging too, but it also allows you to be very creative. You will need a lot of practice to avoid clichés, especially since we absorb common metaphors and similes without being aware of it. However, with diligent practice and determination, you can face the challenge and embrace it, until creating original metaphors and similes becomes second nature.

Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As an art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.