A Summary Of The Use Of Imagery In 'The Raven' By Joseph Larson

“Within the hotel chemical odors ebbed and flowed like an atmospheric tide. Some days the halls were suffused with a caustic scent, as of a cleanser applied too liberally, other days with a silvery medicinal odor, as if a dentist were at work somewhere in the building easing a customer into a deep sleep” (Larson 254).
Larson uses imagery to strengthen the reader’s understanding of the density of the scents in the hotel. By appealing to the reader’s sense of smell, Larson causes the reader to imagine smelling the scents so intensely that the reader feels that they are experiencing it themselves. Larson uses the phrases “ebbed and flowed” and “atmospheric tide” to emphasize the continuous cycle of the chemicals’ burning scent. The word “suffused” exhibits a gradual yet thorough dispersal of the odors. Larson uses the connotation of this to make the reader imagine the

The phrase “hog after hog” emphasizes an image of a continuous line of death, the incessant line of body after body spilling blood and guts onto the floor. This emphasizes the massacre of the hogs as they are efficiently being killed by the butchers. The word “screaming” causes the reader to imagine a piercing sound caused by terror and pain. This makes the reader feel the terror that the hogs are experiencing from the butchers slitting their throats. The “blood-caked knifes” emphasize the extensive amount of time that the bloody murder of the hogs has occurred, and Larson emphasizes the number of hogs that have been killed for the reader. “Some still alive were dipped” emphasizes the horror that the hogs experience and their callous treatment. The phrase “each steaming hog” emphasizes for the reader the putrid stench caused by the blood, decay, and gore that suffused in the slaughterhouse. Larson then uses “thudding wetly” to describe the bloody end product freshly being tossed onto the table, producing a thudding, wet