Imagery of Smell
Katherine Anne Porter uses dead things and medicated cigarettes to appeal to the sense of smell to the reader. The girls are not sure why everyone is calling their grandmother beautiful. When they look around her house, her clothes are not romantic and in fact, they say that the clothes are old fashioned. Her room smells like dead things. Medicated cigarettes also smell like beeswax. The author writes:
"The clothes were not even romantic looking, but merely most terribly out of fashion, and the whole affair was associated, in the minds of the little girls, with dead things; the smell of grandmother's medicated cigarettes and her furniture that smelled of beeswax, and her old-fashioned perfume. "
Imagery of Hearing
The narrator to appeal the sense of hearing to the reader uses the crying of the grandmother. The little girls, Maria and Miranda are trying to uncover what their minds have been made to consume and the reality on the ground. They have heard poetic and good stories regarding their ancestry by the father, grandmother and the people around them. For instance, they are trying to analyze the pictures on portraits and the real faces of people around them. They have discovered that there is something amiss. Having a close look at their grandmother, they discover that once she looks at those portraits and garments she starts to cry. The narrator says:
"Grandmother, twice a year compelled in her blood by the change of seasons, would seat nearly all of one day besides old trunks and the boxes in the lumber-room, unfolding the layers of garments and small keepsakes; she spread them out on sheets on the floor around her, crying of certain things, nearly always the same things, looking again at the pictures in velvet cases, unwrapping locks of hair dried flowers, goody and easily as if tears were the only pleasure she had left.”
The Imagery of Touch
The sense of touch is appealed to the reader when the narrator says that Miranda and her sister never touch any of their grandmother’s items unless authorized to do so. They are very cautious when around her because at times she remains quiet for a reason. Sometimes she can grief when silently and the little girls can notice. The imagery becomes prevalent when the narrator says:
“If Maria and Miranda were very quiet, and touched nothing until they were offered, they might sit by her at these times, or come and go.”
The Imagery of Hearing
The sense of hearing is depicted from the listening of music and eager minds. The young girls are doing everything possible to reflect on what they have heard from their elders and comparing with reality. The listening described by the narrator is a recollection of the stories they have heard before. Unfortunately, they are disappointed by reality because there is a sharp contradiction from what they have heard regarding the beauty of grandmother’s girls. The narrator writes:
“They listened, al cars and eager minds, picking here and there among the floating ends of narrative, patching together as well they could fragment of tales that were like bits of poetry or music, indeed were associated with the poetry they heard or read, with music, with the theater.”
