Power of Imagery: Chopin, Komunyakaa, Essay

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Well-placed imagery is like a snapshot into what the author is saying. They are essentially painting a picture and the images they give us are important to the overall message. Kate Chopin wants us to experience the thrill that Louise does when she realizes that her husband's death is not the end of the world but the beginning of a new one. Her life, once shadowed but that man, is now open, free, and refreshing. Her future looks exciting and she is ready to receive it. Nothing makes this more clear to us than the images from nature. Similarly, Yusef Komunyakaa takes us to the Vietnam War Memorial and demonstrates the power of the imagination. The images in this poem are significant because they represent different things. The wall represents the weight of the memory of war. The names engraved on the wall represent the lives that live on within the memories of others. The poet experiences difficulty seeing the wall for what it actually is because of the emotions attached to the war. The big black stone is like the dark cloud of memory that never goes away. The images reflected in the stone represent the difficulty involved with separating the past and the present with something as painful as war. One does not simply come home from war and pick up where he or she left off. The images of life frozen in this stone represent the flood of emotions associated with the war. In "The Bride," Akhmadulina also experiences her own kind of angst.

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Her angst comes from her wedding, which has marked a new direction in her life. While weddings are generally happy occasions, the poet finds herself facing fear as well as joy on this day. Through images that we associate with weddings, Akhmadulina communicates a certain amount of despair that the bride feels as she contemplates her future. These pieces reveal the importance of imagery in literature. We often here the phrase that writers should show and not tell and imagery is a literary device that allows them to do just that. These authors have successfully conveyed the emotions they wanted to by placing images in the right places to interject the right emotions. They have shown readers what they are attempting to say rather than simply telling them. As a result, readers will remember their stories much longer because a powerful image is attached to it. The freshness of spring is linked to a new life, a black wall is associated with a haunting memory and a white wedding dress stained with wine is connected to apprehension. These examples represent the power of imagery.

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