Using Sense Impressions Effectively

One of the most important techniques in descri ptive writing is the inclusion of sense impressions. Good writers don`t just tell us what is there, they tell us what it looks, sounds, feels, tastes or smells like. I believe that the best way to learn how to use a technique effectively is to look at how great writers have done so. One writer who uses sense impressions to good effect is the English writer George Orwell. Here`s how he starts the first chapter of his book, `The Road to Wigan Pier`:

The first sound in the mornings was the clumping of the mill-girl`s clogs down the cobbled street. Earlier than that, I suppose, there were factory whistles which I was never awake to hear. Orwell starts with a sound that sets the scene of his book, the industrial north of England. There is a hint of alliteration here in those `clogs` `clumping` on `cobbled` streets which helps us to imagine the sound. Notice how he makes the sound the subject of the sentence: he doesn`t start `I heard the clumping of clogs.` or `I was woken by.` - he`s not the subject of the book after all. He starts `The first sound in the mornings was`. The second sound he mentions is significant in a different way, as something he doesn`t hear - the factory whistle. Why is this important? Orwell is signaling his difference from the workers, his status as an outsider. This is a good example of something that can be significant by its absence, what Sherlock Holmes would call `the dog that didn`t bark`. The Road to Wigan Pier is Orwell`s account of life in the northern industrial towns in the 1930s. In his travels he goes down mines and talks to miners, explores the condition of slum housing and its tenants and surveys life in what is a harsh, depressed environment. The first chapter is somewhat lighter in tone, however, if not any more cheerful. It describes the lodging house where he stays, a filthy converted house run by a rather gloomy middle-aged couple, the Brookers. Orwell lists glumly the features of his room, a drawing room that has been half-heartedly converted into a bedroom for four or five men:

[C]overing most of one wall there was a huge hideous piece of junk, something between a sideboard and a hall-stand, with lots of carving and little drawers and strips of looking-glass, and there was a once-gaudy carpet ringed by the slop-pails of years, and two gilt chairs with burs seats, and one of those old-fashioned horsehair armchairs which you slide off when you try to sit on them.

The long listing sentence seems to reflect the tediousness of the place, but some of the visual details tell a story, of the conversion of the room and its descent from respectability to squalor. For example, the `once-gaudy` carpet has been dulled and dirtied by years of careless use. Orwell`s eye for disgusting detail does not spare Mrs Brooker, who `lay permanently ill, festooned in grimy blankets`. Orwell describes the texture of some things as well as their appearance, such as in this sentence, in which he describes the layers of table cloth used on the breakfast table:

At the bottom there was a layer of old newspapers stained by Worcester Sauce; above that a sheet of sticky white oil-cloth; above that a green serge cloth; above that a coarse linen cloth, never changed and seldom taken off.

He goes on, with some humour, to describe its crumbs: I used to get to know individual crumbs by sight and watch their progress up and down the table every day. Some teachers might call this `zooming in`, as if the writer`s eye were a camera focusing on this detail for a long time. Another humorous detail that Orwell focusses on is the way the dirty-handed Mr Brooker leaves a black thumb print on each piece of bread and butter he hands out, though for Orwell this may have been less amusing in the experiencing than the remembering! Some details, of course, are best left to the reader`s imagination:

On the day when there was a full chamber-pot under the breakfast table, I decided to leave.

Orwell doesn`t describe in detail what this looks and smells like - we can imagine well enough, if we want to - but it is a fitting image to leave with. He goes on to describe his feelings at leaving:

The place was beginning to depress me. It was not only the dirt, the smells and the vile food, but the feeling of stagnant meaningless decay, of having got down into some subterranean place where people go creeping round and round, just like black beetles, in an endless muddle of slovened jobs and mean grievances.

Although this is not quite the end of the descri ption of the Brookers` lodging house, it is an effective sentence to reinforce Orwell`s overall impression of the place before he moves on.

Now that you`ve had a good look at how Orwell uses sense impressions in his writing, you can go off and try for yourself. This will help you reach the level of writing that qualifies you for the highest bands, what AQA, for instance, call `sophisticated and impressive`. Reading and analysing good writers really is one of the best ways to improve your own writing. The Road to Wigan Pier should be available at your local library or school library - or you can always buy it! Orwell`s other non-fiction works, Down and Out in Paris and London and Homage to Catalonia, are also well worth reading.

Challenge

Now it`s your turn. Describe a dirty, disgusting place that you must venture into (perhaps a sibling`s room?). Try to do the following in your work: 1)Start with a significant sound, smell, sight or feeling 2)Sometimes make the sense itself the subject of your sentence 3)Note an absence that you sense that may be significant (a dog that doesn`t bark) 4)Try to `tell a story` about the place through its details 5)Zoom in on a few small details 6)Use humour 7)Leave something to the reader`s imagination 8)Finish with a sentence that encapsulates your impression of the place