Based on the excerpt from Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," how has the author used imagery to create the theme of hopelessness?

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The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each other's

faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke; but Piney, accepting the position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm around the Duchess's waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of the day. That night the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the protecting pines, invaded the very hut.

Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, which gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours: "Piney, can you pray?" "No, dear," said Piney, simply. The Duchess, without knowing exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon Piney's shoulder, spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and purer pillowing the head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they fell asleep.

Based on the excerpt from Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," how has the author used imagery to create the theme of hopelessness?

The author uses imagery to show how silence represents hopelessness among the characters.

Explanation:

Imagery is a figure of speech that aims to use words to sharpen one of the five senses of the reader, who can literally feel a strong element of the narrative that is essential for the narrated moment to be understandable. In the excerpt shown in the question above, we can see how the author used silence to express the hopelessness between the characters. The silence in the story is very punctual and even clarified by the characters, making the reader feel it.

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