Description

In the novel Les Mis the setting so far is the castle. The author spends pages describing the beautiful castle but I am only going to choose a small portion to focus on.

"The fireplace, its wooden surround painted to resemble marble, was normally without a fire; it contained instead two ornamental fire-dogs, a form of episcopal; luxury, embellished with flower vases and foliations that had once been silver-gilt; and above the mantelpiece, where ordinarily against a square of threadbare black velvet in a wooden frame that had lost its gliding."(Hugo 37)

This quote may seem intimidating for obvious reasons but when you break it down you can see all of the beautiful description used in this sentence. I am going to go part by part and give pictures for each line so people can visualize what is being told in the passage.

"The fireplace, its wooden surround painted to resemble marble, was normally without a fire;"

This would be what the interior part of the fireplace could look like

"it contained instead two ornamental fire-dogs, a form of episcopal; luxury,"

This is what a "fire-dog" is referring to

"embellished with flower vases and foliations that had once been silver-gilt;"

This is a silver gilt flower vase from the proper time period

"and above the mantelpiece, where ordinarily against a square of threadbare black velvet in a wooden frame that had lost its gliding."

This is what the frame may have looked like

Overall the author uses a lot of description but it is easily understood and visualized with some work. This allows the reader to get a better understanding of what the author is trying to get across. The book was written in the 1800's making some of the terminology used throughout the novel hard to understand. The method of going through and getting visuals for the confusing parts in the novel is really helping me get a full grasp of what is happening in the novel.