Dickens tends to present places with a wealth of visual imagery. Imagery refers to language that describes sensory experience. Take, for example, the following description of Victorian London:
The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
Here, we get a clear visual mental picture of a dark afternoon, candles burning in the windows, smudged by dirty windowpanes. The air is thick with fog (and possible pollution—it is "brown" and seemingly "palpable"), making it difficult to see even as far as across the street. This darkened and murky setting really helps to establish the mood of this chapter of the text.
The description of Scrooge's home also reflects on him as well. The narrator says,
The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.
Again, the visual imagery contained in this description of this place creates a clear mental picture and is characteristic of Dickens.
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