The imagery of Hearing
The news about the death of Charlie Palmieri appeals the sense of hearing to the reader. When the grandfather learns about his death, he shares the news with the Narrator who joins him in the morning. She answers, “I’m sorry to hear that," baffled by his grandfather's capability to condole for an unfamiliar person. She asks to confirm if it is Chali her uncle, but her grandfather confirms that he is not the one. The one who has died is the musician who is a stranger to her. However, grandfather had played some of his Salsa songs for her before. Charlie is among the best musicians whose grandfather is fond of. His demise brings sorrow and silence in his face. When Amina learns this, she comforts him and joins him moaning.
The imagery of Hurricane Gilbert
The sense of sight is appealed to the reader when the Narrator's grandmother, mother, and uncles are watching the news about Hurricane Gilbert in Jamaica, which is a tropical storm that has been whipping for the previous two days. There are rumors that the hurricane is on its way to New York. She writes:
“I turned away from the footage of Gilbert’s wreckage — destroyed crops, homes, buildings, and aircraft — to look down at my books open on the kitchen table, at my pencils next to the roll of paper towels and the canister of salt. “He’s in a better place now.”
The imagery of Hurricane Gilbert helps the reader to paint a picture in his mind to see how devastating it is and possible outcomes.
The Imagery of the Plane
When the narrator is 12 years old, she is ready for a long trip from New York to Puerto Rico to visit her grandfather. Her family wants to send her to take their gift to the grandfather. She boards a plane for the first time and the experience is awesome because she has never felt this way before. The extraordinary feeling and experience for boarding the plane for the first time appeal the sense of touch to the reader. The reader can precisely understand the experience of boarding the plane for the first is like. She writes:
“For me, it was a summer of firsts. I had never met my grandfather and I had never been on a plane. Between the two, meeting my grandfather frightened me most. The little I knew of flying had come from watching Airplane!, so I expected it would be all in good fun and — secretly — I hoped for a seat beside Kareem Abdul- Jabbar.”
The imagery of sight
The author provides a vivid description of what is happening when the Narrator together with her aunt arrives at the San Juan Airport to meet her grandfather. She is not happy because the man she was looking forward to meeting does not meet her expectations. For instance, as soon as they meet him, he ignores her as he hugs her daughter. To make matters worse, the shift to speaking Spanish a language the narrator knows nothing about. She says: “
He’d been waiting outside the San Juan airport in a dusty green station wagon. As soon as he and Titi Inez saw each other they hugged and lapsed into Spanish, completely ignoring me, uncaring that I couldn’t understand a word they said. I watched him while he ignored me, taking him in.”
