The Greshams
The Gresham family is considered aristocratic. The novel is in part social commentary on the divide between aristocratic and democratic ideologies. "The Greshams from time immemorial had been handsome. They were broad browed, blue eyed, fair haired, born with dimples in their chins, and that pleasant, aristocratic dangerous curl of the upper lip." The story takes place in a world dominated by the expectation that character derives from bloodlines. This imagery of the physical attributes of the Greshams is an expression of the idea that bloodlines will separate the superior from the inferior.
Roger Scatcherd
Roger Scatcherd is described as having taught himself what five, twenty, or two thousand men might accomplish if working together and that "this, also, he did with very little aid from pen and paper, with which he was not, and never became, very conversant." This one simple little addition to the characterization of the rough-hewn stonemason who goes on to become a member of Parliament is especially efficient. Life experience has been his classroom.
Barsetshire
This novel is one of a series known collectively as the Chronicles of Barsetshire. Imagery is a literary tool ideally utilized for bringing location to life. "Its green pastures, its waving wheat, its deep and shady and—let us add—dirty lanes, its paths and stiles, its tawny-coloured, well-built rural churches, its avenues of beeches, and frequent Tudor mansions." This portrait of an almost impossibly perfect typical little British village is important. Eventually, it will be revealed that the village is a bit more corrupted than this bucolic image would suggest.
Thorne Pride
The narrator gives an important description of an essential core component of Dr. Thorne's character using imagery in an unusual way. "He had a pride in being a poor man of a high family; he had a pride in repudiating the very family of which he was proud; and he had a special pride in keeping his pride silently to himself." The repetition of the concept of pride here—five words out of forty—turns the emotional state itself into imagery. Thorne's sense of pride—and not just his—will become the fuel that drives the narrative through its twists and turns.
