Imagination

Throughout the novel, Robinson plays with the idea of imagination to call into question the concept of reality as a whole. Jack spends so much time in his imagination that the reader often finds herself wondering if the events that he describes are real. His daydreams are so powerful that they often almost supplant reality, even when he knows that they are just daydreams. At one point in the novel, for example, the text describes that “this quiet, smiling woman had had that place in his thoughts for weeks. And now he was reminded that the places he went and the things he saw, few as they were, were nothing in common with her” (124). Jack’s thoughts here suggest that he imagines Della so often and so powerfully that he has created an image of her in his mind that is actually quite different from reality...