IMAGERY

When one does not have the luxury of preparing grandiose sets and using cutting-edge effects one must seek a more affordable means of conveying to the audience or readers the image that one is trying to make known. Moreover, out of necessity play-writers such as Shakespeare had to use figurative and descriptive speech at times in order to create an image for the audience that is not apart of the actual setting. therefore in this case language supplants setting. Take for instance Queen Gertrude's description of how Ophelia dies in Act 4 of Shakespeare's Hamlet. This is an excellent example of how an actual setting had been supplanted by descriptive and figurative language that created the image for reader/audience in the mind's eye. Ophelia uses a variety of different poetic tools to describe the horrific scene, ranging from personification to simple description. "There is a willow grows askant the brook/ That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream"(4.165-166). Here willow is personified for it represents the forsaken love that Ophelia is experiencing. The second line describes the scene of Ophelia's death through figurative phrases such as the "glassy stream". Gertrude also makes use of a variety of metaphors such as "mermaid-like" to further develop the image for the reader. Another example of imagery and figurative language being used to create a setting can be found in King Hamlets description of how he died. For though Shakespeare did not ever have an actual scene in a garden, the father's death by poison in the garden is in fact on of the most memorable settings in the entire play and is often referred to throughout the play.