Use of Imagery in Annie Dillards Book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Use of images is an important style that authors capitalize in writing texts, especially novels and short stories among other texts. Elliot Eisner (2011) asserts that images are at the core of education. Eisner argues that students learn better with the use of images by claiming that verbal learning can only be meaningful by the creation or incorporation of images in the text (Eisner 31). One of the authors that have capitalized on the use of imagery is Annie Dillards in her book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, where she uses images to a large extent. In fact, at the very instance that readers start reading the text, they are stunned by the way the author imaginatively transports them into her experience. The author creates images in her text that evoke a strong sensory, mental, and emotional responses to the readers. In effect, readers can sense the world they are immersed in. For this reason, Annie Dillard is an artist who capitalizes on words to paint strong and powerful sensual and emotional charges that canvas into the minds of the reader. The images portrayed remain even after reading the text and the potency of the mental images used evokes a sense of wonder and imagination. The images enable us to better to gain a real sense and extend our grasp about the world (Egan 62).

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For instance, in Annie Dillard clearly uses imagery on page 87 when she writes, This sycamore is old; its lower bark.The creek reflects the speckled surface of this limb, pale even against the highest clouds, and that image pales whiter and thins as it crosses the creek (Dillard 87). As such, even though the reader is not at the great sycamore tree to which she leans against for support or at Tinker Creek, they can feel and visually see the images she incorporates in her text. For this reason, the images used evoke a strong sense of imagination and emotion. In essence, from the above quotation, it is clear that a reader sees the Sycamore bending when he refers the Sycamore to list over the creek at a dizzying angle. It evokes an emotion that

Annie Dillard in her book, also writes that He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag (Dillard, 7). As such, the reader can see the small frog, its eyes, as well as its movement when the writer says when he looks at it. For this reason, the use of images helps the writer to create a sensory connection and image with the frog. As such, the writer is capable of using images to evoke a sensory image with the frog, which is induced by the words, as well as the fact that both species will try and avoid each other.

Annie Dillard also portrays and evokes a feeling that nature is beautiful as well as the care showcased by animals in interacting with the ecology. For instance, in her description of the diving off a mockingbird, it elicits a feeling of the beauty of nature. The author writes, the mockingbird took a single step into the air and droppedaccelerating thirty-two feet per second per second, through empty airhe unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant, white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass (Dillard 10). For this reason, the author capitalizes on the motion of the bird to highlight how viewing the descend, and the uncurling of the birds wings is all beautiful, and therefore, readers in their imagination see how beautiful the diving was. Also, the diving of the bird also highlights the inherent care espoused by earthly species as they interact with the environment. In essence, from reading the quotation, it is clear that the bird was careful in the dive, if it had not extended its wings as it neared the ground, then it would have crashed and died. For this reason, through the image, Annie Dillard reveals that species have inbuilt senses on how to safely interact with nature.

In addition, Annie Dillard also showcases the horror in environmental and climate change, and thus, highlights our responsibility in protecting the environment. She writes, the great glaciers are calving. Ice that shifted to earth as snow in the time of Christ shears from the pack with a roar and crumbles to water (Dillard 71). As such, she uses images to highlight and evoke a feeling of horror with the use of words, such as roar and crumbles that elicit a feeling that something is in danger, which is our ecosystem and environment. The ices melting away highlights the dangers of climate change and global warming. By using the image, Dillard presents the bigger picture that it is, in fact, the responsibility of humans to take care of the environment unless we want to destroy our ecosystem and ecology.

Annie Dillard also uses images to highlight the quest of individuals to acquire their spiritual ideologies and bases. In essence, she uses nature images as symbols of mystery, and thus, bringing about the veil of chaos. The story, in itself, is framed using a description of an old fighting tom cat that bloodies the authors nightgown with red prints (Dillard 1). Dullard goes ahead and asserts that it was not blood by asserting that she looked as though she had been painted with red roses (Dillard 1). As such, she succeeds in creating a mystery by evoking an emotion of questioning whether that was blood or not. Further, she writes that was it the keys to the kingdom or a mark of Cain? (Dillard 2). As such, this elicits an imagination as there was no way to know because she had woken up with it, which in itself is part of life. She further writes that seems like we are just set down there,.and nobody knows why (Dillard 2). As such, the images creates the mystery of life, which is a major theme in her book, as well as presenting her general philosophy. In essence, the deeper meaning that Dillard presents is that the mystery is the symbol of our existence, meaning that the universe is inherently unknowable. The images help her present the fact even science is a subjective matter, that physicists are in most instances, wild-eyed raving mystics (Dillard 205). In essence, she alludes to the principle of indeterminacy, which says that a person cannot know both the position and velocity of particles, which means that particles are not bound by the laws that determine their movement by asserting that, they seem to be as free as dragonflies (Dillard 205). As such, the use of images in the book presents the argument that through time, people have created mythologies that can subsequently lead to chaos and disorder.

As such, the use of images enables her to highlight and give a bigger picture why the disorderly nature of humans is unintelligible to humans, which forms the epitome of the inseparability of life or creation and death. In essence, she succeeds in presenting the fact that humans cannot understand death, and in most instances, the natural universe is the point at which humans question about these aspects of life and death, as well as presenting potential solutions and answers because there are only three directions, the self, the universe, and God. As such, the questions of who we are, why we die and whom we remain mysteries, which has led to the disagreement over the answers of which have found based on environmental interactions and the experience we derive from it.

Also, she succeeds in evoking an emotion that sight is one of the greatest inlets of understanding and perceptions, and thus, she presents the deeper meaning that the world is shaped by our capacity to see it. She writes about an image of, the tree in the lights with it (Dillard 31) as the first image that a girl saw after regaining her eyesight. While it is symbolic of beauty, and she further writes to refer the tree as great door, by definition, opens on eternity (Dillard 81). She also succeeds expressing and highlighting the feeling of beauty in nature, as well as highlighting eternity as a primary ideology in her philosophy. In essence, she presents a bigger picture that eternity is the foundation and infrastructure of the universe, where the environment and nature are just superstructures.

As such, it can be concluded that Annie Dillard in her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, successfully capitalizes on imagery in creating and evoking a readers imagination and attention on nature and the environment. In essence, through images, she imaginatively transports readers into her experience, which evoke a strong sensory, mental, and emotional responses to the readers.

Works CitedEisner, Elliot. Images at the core of education. The Journal of the Imagination in Language Learning, 9, 3034 (2011). Print.

Egan, Kieran. "An imaginative approach to teaching." San Francisco (2005). Print