synesthesia in writing

Imagery can be much more complex than ‘the red car’. Using synesthesia, writers can combine senses to create a much more powerful and thought-provoking image, e.g. “To his ex’s wedding, he wore a deafening suit”. While a suit cannot literally be deafening, we, as readers, understand that the suit would be flashy, colorful, or have a busy pattern on it.

In general, imagery typically affects the mood of the overall piece. For example, one would have different emotional reactions to “sunlight glimmered off of the dew that had collected on the roses bushes” versus “rain battered against the shoddy roof as thunder shook the house”.

In Phillis Wheatley’s poem To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works she uses ethereal imagery to comment on the work of a fellow African American in 18th century America: “And may the charms of each seraphic theme/Conduct thy footsteps to immortal fame!/High to the blissful wonders of the skies/Elate thy soul, and raise thy wishful eyes”. For context, Wheatley writes “Some view our sable race with scornful eye, /‘Their colour is a diabolic die.’/Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,/May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train” in her poem On Being Brought from Africa to America.

While Wheatley is subversive in the latter text, the former is honest and directly contrasts with attitudes about African Americans. The attitude of Black people as lesser contrasted against her treatment as heavenly is not only lovely but powerful. Again, Wheatley plays with juxtaposition by likening the physical world with darkness (does darkness represent the treatment of Blacks in America? Or something else) and asks S.M about their time in Heaven. She clearly has no doubt of the existence of their souls, nor their capacity to go to Heaven and joining the “angelic train”: “May peace with balmy wings your soul invest!/But when these shades of time are chas'd away,/And darkness ends in everlasting day,/On what seraphic pinions shall we move,/And view the landscapes in the realms above?”

N’Dea Ferguson is currently half-way through receiving her M.A. in English, and plans on pursuing a Ph.D in 19th century British literature. She has had creative work appear in The Mangrove Review at Florida Gulf Coast University, and she has had an academic paper presented at The Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Other than reading/writing/studying, she enjoys knitting ugly scarves for friends and family.