Character
Mena is nothing less than a brilliant tactician when it comes to using imagery to delineate character. The figurative language flows through these descriptions like magic through a wand as she transforms through simple sleight of hand what might otherwise be a flat and uninvolving portrait of a young woman. The key phrase in this example is “even in a land of wonderful eyes.”
“She grew tall and slender, as strong as wire, with a small head and extremely delicate features, and her skin was the color of new leather. Her eyes were wonderful, even in a land of wonderful eyes. They were large and mysterious, heavily shaded with lashes which had a trick of quivering nervously, half lowered in an evasive, fixed, sidelong look when anyone spoke to her.”
Through the Eyes of Another
This power of description becomes a gift that the author hands over to her characters. In the above example, simple third-person objective narration does all the work. This example of character description must do double duty, providing a physical description of one character while providing insight into another by making that description part of their character construct. In an instant one understands what Alicia Cherry looks like. A slight delay is all that is required to gain some footing on the complicated psyche of the titular character of “The Education of Popo.”
“Never before had he seen a living woman with hair like daffodils, eyes like violets, and a complexion of coral and porcelain. It seemed to him that some precious image of the Virgin had been changed in to a creature of sweet flesh and capricious impulses, animate with a fearless urbanity far beyond the dreams of the dark-eyed, demure and now despised damsels of his race.”
Cosmetic Appearance
Imagery related to the appearance that women present to the world runs rampant throughout the body of Mena’s work. It is a recurring theme; in fact, it is one of the overarching themes unifying her short stories as a collective entity. One could choose an example from any of six to ten stories simply by randomly opening to a page, but one of the most effective occurs at a climactic moment in “Marriage by Miracle.”
“Not only had every wrinkled and blemish disappeared, not only had a nose of ridicule become a nose of dignity, not only had the sagging redundancies of jaw and neck given place to the precise contours of youth, but the eyes, once like two fleas, now actually represented eyes, and the whole face, by some new trick in the angle of the brows, had acquired a look of noble spirituality which would be highly creditable to a virgin martyr.”
Imagery as Building Blocks
An essential element in the construction of the story “The Vine-Leaf” is the situating of Dr. Malsufrido. In order for the story to be effective, the reader must understand a few things about him above and beyond any other information. One is that he sees his profession as being partially about the trust of being a keeper of secrets. Two, only the wealthy have secrets worth keeping. Lastly, he is so good at this calling that, hyperbolically speaking, disease turns and runs at the sight of his very presence. He is, in other words, a men far above men. Imagery early on cements this conceptualization:
“The doctor’s hat is, appropriately enough, uncommonly capacious, rising very high, and sinking so low that it seems to be supported by his ears and eyebrows, and it has a furry look , as if it had been brushed the wrong way, which is perhaps what happens to it if it is ever brushed at all. When the doctor takes it off, the family secrets do not fly out like a flock of parrots, but remain nicely bottled up beneath a dome of old and highly polished ivory, which, with its unbroken fringe of dyed black hair, has the effect of a tonsure; and then Dr. Malsufrido looks like one of the early saints.”
