Imagery- Page 3- “I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer “and what trees and seasons smelled like “how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich.””.
By starting the text with a vivid description of the scenery and life in the Salinas valley Steinbeck captures the audience’s attention with his use of imagery. By making the reader interpret the setting and allowing them to smell the trees and the seasons, he enhances the beginning of the book by making the reader join into the text.
Imagery- Page 5- “Then June came the grasses headed out and turned brown, and the hills turned a brown which was not brown but a gold and saffron and red – an indescribable color.””.
Another example of imagery in the first chapter of the book, which shows how Steinbeck enjoys the use of imagery to start his book. The use of imagery in the beginning of the book enhances the reader’s mood, and allows them to enjoy the writing, which is most likely, the reason why it is used as a hook in this text. Also, when Steinbeck says “an indescribable color,”” he lets the mind wonder and think what that color might be.
Simile- Page 9- “It was an unlikely place for a man from a green country to come to, but he came about thirty years before the turn of the century and he brought with him his tiny Irish wife, a tight hard little woman humor-less as a chicken. .
This example of a simile makes the text more meaningful by giving a reference when describing Hamilton’s wife. Without having the reference it would be hard to understand what Hamilton’s wife is really like, but with the reference we can interpret that she is strict and humor-less, without reading any further into the text.
Personification- Page 54- “A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy “that’s the time that seems long in memory.
