Imagery How are Jimmy and sea related? The Sea Imagery How are Jimmy and sea related?

What is imagery? Remember, “imagery” means: Imagery that is literal / concrete – things we actually “see” in the text but convey emotions or other ideas through connotation

Questions to ask and answer What is the point of this text? Why did the author write about this idea? Is he challenging our thoughts? How? Which poetic devices lend themselves to the authors purpose?

CHAPTER 2, 6 and 15 A good friend Jimmy Sullivan recalls the place where he grew up, Raggelton. He recalls all the bad things and things that he loved, especially the sea. He is homesick, lonely and longs for the sea. What was the sea to Jimmy? A good friend

“Don’t mistake me about myself though “Don’t mistake me about myself though. A lot of good things happened to me and they are what God could use in his defence. Raggleton was a nice place, down there by the sea which roared quietly into your ear all the time, like a cat purring.” Discuss how onomatopoeia is used to signify how Jimmy feels about the sea. Contrast the above with how he feels when he is separated from the sea: “Not living by the sea is just the same as living underground and not being able to see the sky. The sea is just as important as the sky, and now I often want to hear it and yet I cannot except from memory.”

Priest compared the sea to hell: “…hell was like an ocean of fire… every wave being red hot…” Jimmy knows better. What was the sea to Jimmy? A place where his own personal hell was calmed, a place where he could feel softness, “blur – blur – blurring away…” What did the sea offer Jimmy? No expectations, friendship to Bloody Jack, sailors with stories and peace that he could not fine elsewhere

The sea showed how some human beings have no regard for the environment and their fellow humans: “… near where the freezing works discharged the old blood and guts, (you could smell it, as well as see it in the water)…” What does the old blood do to the water and to the community? What is the symbolism of the blood? The sea was a challenge to Jimmy: “the sea itself, there, was no place for sissies, as the breakers came in like rows of steam rollers and would flatten you if you didn’t dive under or go with them.” Discuss this quote as a symbol of the relationship with Jimmy’s parents, family life and society

The sea condemns him or telling on his parents: “… that the sea and the wind and the sky were God shaking his finger at me for telling on my mother and father…” BUT then the sea and God realise how important it is that he talk to somebody: “…the wind was keeping down, and the splattering of the sea had stopped, and that even a seagull was hanging over the water, wing way out and not moving, and the wharf was steady as a rock, as if everything was keeping quiet to hear me talk.”

The day after his trouble, the day after his father brought him a bike: “I reached the intersection and looked up the road to home. The house looked silent and unfriendly away at the far end of the road, the lupines and marram grass were flat and dead-looking about and even the sound of the sea was heavy and numb, as though my ears were blocked.” This is the point in which he goes berserk. What does he do? What is the significance of this quote in relation to his actions he is about to take?