"Imagery is images, pictures, or sensory content, which we find in a poem.

Images are fanciful or

imaginative descriptions of people or objects stated in terms of our senses. "(Reaske, 1966, pp. 34-
35) .According to Abrams (1999), imagery includes visual sense qualities and qualities that are
auditory, tactile (touch), thermal (heat and cold), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), and kinesthetic
(sensations of movement). the readers can experience visual images of the literal objects refer to the
poem and visual images of the of the metaphor and of the simile in the second stanza.

A symbol is the use of a concrete object to represent an abstract idea. In a literary work, it may
appear in the form of a word, a figure of speech, an event, the total action, or a character in which
the object a person, object or situation represents something beyond the literal meaning.

The followings are some conventional symbols summarized from Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1996)
and Hancock (1972) cited in Louis (n.d.)

a. Nature and time

1) Seasons

Spring: birth, new beginning

Summer: maturity, knowledge

Autumn: decline, nearing death, growing old

Winter: death, sleep, stagnation

2) Weather

Rain: sadness, despair, new life, divine influence on earth

Wind and storms: violent human emotions

Fog/mist: prevents clear vision or thinking, isolation, a development phase when shapes have not
been formed (mist),

Lightning: the spark of life, power or strength

Rainbows: pathways between earth and heaven, cycles of rebirth, prologue to disturbance

Thunder: the voice of God or gods

3) Time

Morning: purity, the beginning, the time of God‘s blessings

Day/light: hope, sanity, clarity

Night/dark: despair, madness, unknown

Sunrise: new beginning

Sunset: ending

4) Plants

Tree: life, family, nature, origins

Flower: beauty, youth, gentleness

 Weeds: evil, wildness, outcast of society

Thorn: pain

5) Water: washes away guilt, origin of life, regeneration, vehicle of cleansing

6) River: fluidity of life, stream of life and death

7) Moon: changing and returning shape, feminine symbol

8) Sun: source of life, masculinity

9) Mountain: stability, safety, human pride, places where heaven and earth meet

10) Silver: object or harms of desires, female principle

11) Gold: wealth, the reflection of heavenly light, male principle

12) Pearl: knowledge, wealth

b. Animals

1) Dove: peace, purity, simplicity

2) Fox: slyness, cleverness

3) Lion: power, pride

4) Snake: temptation, evil

5) Mouse: shyness, meeknees

6) Lamb: sacrificial element

7) Owl: wisdom, messenger of death

8) Cats: cunning, forethought, ingenuity

c. Human body parts

1) Blood: qualities of fire, vital and bodily heat

2) Bones: strength and virtue (because bones contain marrow)

3) Hands: strength or weakness

4) Eyes: windows to the soul or emotions

5) Mouth: indicates character traits

d. Objects

1) Chain: ties two beings or extremes

2) Mirror: separation (a broken mirror), a happy marriage (unbroken)

3) Key: having the power and authority of letting in and shutting out

4) Ladder: ascension and realization of potential

5) Tower of Babel: confusion, human pride

e. Setting

1) The forest: a place of evil or mystery

2) A garden: paradise

3) Window: freedom (or lack of thereof)

4) Bed: consummation of marriage