Mortmains' First Encounter with the Castle
I Capture the Castle is rich on imagery throughout the book. Dodie Smith was herself a huge lover of English surroundings and that is perhaps one way to make it so beautifully described. Certainly, when the Mortmains first meet the Castle we are able to see more than we read. Seems to me that Smith perfectly captured the momentum and brilliantly transcends these images into a picture. This is perfectly vivid in some of the lines:
“How strange and beautiful it looked in the late afternoon light! I can still recapture that first glimpse – see the sheer grey stone walls and towers against the pale yellow sky, the reflected castle stretching towards us on the brimming moat, the floating patches of emerald-green water-weed. No breath of wind ruffled the looking-glass water, no sound of any kind came to us. Our excited voices only made the castle seem more silent.”
Dodie Smith through the eyes of her main protagonist, Cassandra, manages to vividly describe this beautiful sight on encountering the Castle for a first time. The reader is able to put into action all of their senses and participate together with Cassandra and her family and witness this pure stillness and beauty of the sight. This great imagery keeps on and becomes even stronger when they are entering into the bailey of the Castle itself:
"How well I remember that run through the stillness, the smell of wet stone and wet weeds..."
And when the Mortmains enter into the Castle the images are also quite intriguing and living again. The bricks are described to be "herring - boned veined by weather-bleached wood". The lattice windows are "bright - gold from the sunset" and the attic is as if falling any minute. Anything here talks to us directly and we imagine what Smith had put into words.
The London Store
When Aunt Millicent dies, she leaves some clothes for the Mortmains and Cassandra and Rose have to go to London to collect them. When they find their way to the store some of those clothes, coats in particular are stored in one of those shops that keep them safe. Through Cassandra, we see some really fascinating imagery, and scent seems to play a huge role in Smith's book. When they are into the shop on their way through the departments we see that "bottles of scent and a little glass tree with cherries on it and a piece of white branched coral on a sea - chiffon scarf." And not only but also "The pale grey carpets were as springy as moss and the air was scented; it smelt a bit like bluebells but richer, deeper." And as if that is not enough immediately after Cassandra asks Rose of the particular smell that is into this beauty, Rose says "Heaven." The use of figurative language to describe things into such details gives us the picture and not only but smell as well.
Cassandra and Simon's Walk
This is perhaps the most descriptive imagery that Smith provides us with. It's May 1 and it is the season of new beginnings, of nature coming to life. This is what Smith is trying to imply here - should we shut our senses to the surroundings we might lose a lot. We sometimes take certain things for granted and we tend to mute the nature. But what we see in the following lines is just the opposite and the reader is yet to become aware of these:
'Can you hear any bird obliging with those noises?' I said.
"Let's listen," said Simon.
We listened. We heard:
Somebody hammering,
A hen announcing an egg,
A cottage wireless saying it was the British
Broadcasting Corporation,
The pump on the village green clanking
[...]
"And how many things can you smell? I asked Simon.
We counted up:
Wood smoke,
A farm smell coming on puffs of breeze (we subdivided into:
Straw, hay, horses, clean cows: good.
Manure, pigs, hens, old cabbages: bad - but not too awful if only in little whiffs,
A wonderful pie cooking somewhere,
The sweet fresh smell which isn't quite flowers or grass or scent of any kind...
Midsummer rites - The Mist
Cassandra and Rose used to perform certain rites every Midsummer and so it's always been special for the sisters. But for a first year now Cassandra will celebrate this with Simon and Smith is once again amazing at enriching us with sensual imagery:
"[Mist's] first rolling rush was over and it was creeping thinly - and suddenly the memory of that colossal shape came back so terrifyingly that I very nearly screamed"
Personification along with the detailed imagery and metaphors make it to a really fantastic description and what we also see in a bit further when Cassandra refers to the mist as a "carpet" and then again on the way back of the Belmotte tower and describing the same mist as it was as if "being drowned in the ghost of water."
Cassandra and Stephen into the larch wood
Even though Stephen would be probably the last to inspire Cassandra and make her see the things she does in the presence of Simon, Smith once again makes it to some amazing plain visual elements to appeal to the senses and so upon entering the wood Cassandra notices that:
"The tree trunks glowed redly. There was a hot, resinous smell instead of the scent of bluebells - the only ones left were shrivelled and going to seed."
Notice the use of "glowed redly" - almost fiery like. This is just one of the many great examples Smith makes placing certain words to create the visual representation
