The description of the family of Martin Arrowsmith as they traveled
The narrator describes the family of Martin Arrowsmith as,“...driver of the wagon swaying through forest and swamp of the Ohio wilderness was a ragged girl of fourteen. Her mother they had buried near the Monongahela the girl herself had heaped with torn sods the grave beside the river of the beautiful name. Her father lay shrinking with fever on the floor of the wagon-box, and about him played her brothers and sisters, dirty brats, tattered brats, hilarious brats.”
This description contains imagery because the author has used adjectives that describe the characters such as ‘ragged’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘dirty’ which aid in the vivid description of the family. The description creates mental pictures in the mind of the reader of the situation of Martin Arrowsmith’s family as they traveled through America.
Description of the town of Elk Mills
The narrator employs the use of adjectives such as ‘red-brick’ and ‘brown leather’ to achieve imagery in his description of the town of Elk Mills. The description is as follows,‘Elk Mills now, in 1897, a dowdy red-brick village, smelling of apples that this brown-leather adjustable seat which Doc Vickerson used for minor operations, for the infrequent pulling of teeth and for highly frequent naps, had begun life as a barber's chair. There was also a belief that its proprietor must once have been called Doctor Vickerson, but for years he had been...”
The description of Martin Arrowsmith when he went to intern for the Dr.Vickerson
The narrator heavily uses adjectives to describe Martin Arrowsmith to the readers. The imagery created by the use of those adjectives creates a mental image in the reader’s mind of the looks of Martin. The description was, “He was a slender boy, not very tall; his hair and restless eyes were black, his skin unusually white, and the contrast gave him an air of passionate variability. The squareness of his head and a reasonable’. The adjectives include, ‘slender’, ‘tall’ and ‘black’ which describe Martin Arrowsmith.
The Description of Dr. Vickerson’s house and office
The narrator uses imagery which is achieved by the use of adjectives that describe various items in the doctor’s house to bring to the mind of the readers the state of the doctor's house which was also his office. The description is as follows, ‘ the wall was a home-stuffed pickerel on a home-varnished board. Beside the rusty stove, a sawdust-box cuspidor rested on a slimy oilcloth worn through to the threads. On the senile table was a pile of memoranda of debts which the Doc was always swearing he would "collect from those dead-beats right now”...’
