How does Li Bai use imagery in Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon?

The imagery is linked with Anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is the literary practice of giving human characteristics to animals or inanimate objects, as Li Po does here when he talks of the moon and his shadow as drinking companions. Usually, it is done in order to shed more light on the subject, by explaining its behavior in terms of human behaviors with which the reader is familiar. For instance, chemists might say that an atom that is missing two electrons "wants to bond" with one that has two extra ones to form a molecule: neither electron really has a desire, but phrasing their purely physical process in this way makes sense to humans, as if the two atoms were characters in a story. In this poem, anthropomorphism works in two ways. First, it shows how drinking wine can break down mental barriers, so that the speaker realizes all that he has in common with the moon and his shadow. In addition, it works psychologically: just as the speaker is talking about being alone, these two elements of nature show up, as if they are friends of his, to join him in his solitary drinking. Giving them human characteristics makes him feel less alone, until, like three friends who drink too much, they "scatter away into our own directions."