To start things off, The Chrysanthemums by John Steinbeck has quite a bit of imagery to reinforce his theme of confinement and isolation. In the very beginning of the story he is already using imagery to let the readers get an image of what the valley looks like and the area around it. Steinbeck says “The high-gray flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot. On the broad, level land floor the gang plows bit deep and left the black earth shining like metal where the shares had cut”. In this quote Steinbeck is talking about how the valley can be compared to a closed pot because it is so foggy that …show more content…
They were getting ready to go and have a nice dinner and then go and see a movie. Steinbeck states, “After a while she began to dress slowly. She put on her newest underclothing and her nicest stockings and the dress which was the symbol of her prettiness. She worked carefully on her hair, penciled her eyebrows and rouged her lips”. Steinbeck goes into a really detailed description of how Elisa was getting ready and this gives every reader their own little picture or movie of what she is doing. Steinbeck uses this imagery to give the reader a good picture of Elisa breaking out of her “manly work clothes” into something a little nicer. One last great example of imagery used by Steinbeck was when Henry and Elisa were going down the street to head into town. Steinbeck explains, “The little roadster bounced along the dirt road by the river, raising the birds and driving the rabbits into the brush. Two cranes flapped heavily over the willow-line and dropped into the river bed”. In this part Steinbeck gives the reader a great picture of the area around them by using imagery. He lets the readers know that the area around them has all types of wildlife and a river. In conclusion, using imagery is a great way of getting the readers to feel like they’re actually in the stories they are reading. John Steinbeck uses imagery in many ways to