The Subtle Knife Imagery

The Subtle Knife Imagery

Description of Lyra

Will on his first meeting with Lyra described her as, 'And all the time he was in­tense­ly aware of the girl. She was small and slight, but wiry, and she’d fought like a tiger; his fist had raised a bruise on her cheek, and she was ig­nor­ing it. Her ex­pres­sion was a mix­ture of the very young­when she first tast­ed the co­laand a kind of deep, sad wari­ness. Her eyes were pale blue, and her hair would be a dark­ish blond once it was washed; be­cause she was filthy, and she smelled as if she hadn’t bathed for days. '

The description contains imagery because Will has used adjectives like small and pale blue to describe Lyra. The adjectives help in forming a mental image in the minds of the readers of Lyra's appearance.

Will's description of the world of the specters

When Will crossed over to the world of the specters, he described it as, 'She was nowhere in sight. No doubt she was al­ready ex­plor­ing those nar­row streets and gar­dens be­yond the cafes whose lights were so in­vit­ing. Will lift­ed up his tat­tered tote bag and walked slow­ly across the road to­ward them, mov­ing very care­ful­ly in case it all dis­ap­peared. The air of the place had some­thing Mediter­ranean or maybe Caribbean about it. Will had nev­er been out of Eng­land, so he couldn’t com­pare it with any­where he knew, but it was the kind of place where peo­ple came out late at night to eat and drink, to dance and en­joy mu­sic. Ex­cept that there was no one here, and the si­lence was im­mense.'

The description contains imagery because the city can be formed it the minds of the readers since Will's description is very vivid and detailed.

Will's house

The narrator's description of Will's house is as follows, 'He was look­ing for a bat­tered green leather writ­ing case. There are a sur­pris­ing num­ber of places to hide some­thing that size even in any or­di­nary mod­ern house; you don’t need se­cret pan­els and ex­ten­sive cel­lars in or­der to make some­thing hard to find. Will searched his moth­er’s bed­room first, ashamed to be look­ing through the draw­ers where she kept her un­der­clothes, and then he worked sys­tem­at­ical­ly through the rest of the rooms up­stairs, even his own. Mox­ie came to see what he was do­ing and sat and cleaned her­self near­by,... '

The description contains imagery because the narrator has detailed the architecture of the house for it had panels and extensive cellars.

Mrs. Cooper's description of Will and his mother

Mrs. Cooper observed them as follows, 'The un­tidy hair and the dis­tract­ed half­smile, and at the boy with the fierce, un­hap­py glare in his eyes, the tight­set lips, the jut­ting jaw. And then she saw that Mrs. Par­ry, Will’s moth­er, had put make­up on one eye but not on the oth­er. And she hadn’t no­ticed. And nei­ther had Will. Some­thing was wrong.'

The narration contains imagery because Mrs. Cooper used descriptive words such as unhappy, juuting, set and untidy hair. These words help achieve imagery for a reader is able to image them based on the qualities.

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