Descriptive Essay Examples, Definition, Characteristics, and Functions

Descriptive Essay Examples: Do you need some good descriptive essay examples to understand how it works? If yes, then note. This article is for you. Thus, continue reading to learn the basics of writing a descriptive essay. Also, this will come with some great descriptive essay examples. However, let’s begin by defining a descriptive essay.

What is Descriptive Essay?

Before introducing some descriptive essay examples, please note. A descriptive essay is an essay that describes a person, place, event, or a thing. And it does this in an in-depth and detailed manner.

Also, the aim of writing such an essay is to make the reader feel and see a certain thing, place, or person from your perspective. Furthermore, this type of descriptions are often found in literature. Also, they’re found in novels and dramas.

Characteristics of a Descriptive Essay

Before introducing some descriptive essay examples, please note. Below are some of the features of a descriptive essay:

• It is clear and concise.
• Also, it makes use of images.
• Additionally, it makes use of five senses.

Also, please note. As far as clear and concise language is concerned, it is necessary to describe things precisely.

Furthermore, imagery is used to make things seem real and remarkable. While the use of the five senses creates the imagery, or a mental picture, for each reader.

What Your Description Essay Could Be About

Before introducing some descriptive essay examples, please note. Here’s a list of what your descriptive essay could be about:

• It could be about people.
• Also, it be about places.
• Furthermore, it could about memories.
• Additionally, it could be about your experiences.
• More so, it could be about objects.

Some Functions of Descriptive Essay

Before introducing to some descriptive essay examples, please note. A descriptive essay presents a picture of a person, place, or thing. And it does this in a way that readers feel as if it is in front of their eyes.

Also, it presents things in a way that readers feel they are tasting it. Or that they can hear it, or that they can smell it.

Some Few Descriptive Essay Examples

Below are some Descriptive Essay examples in Literature:

Example 1

The Corner Store (by Eudora Welty)

“Our Little Store rose right up from the sidewalk; standing in a street of family houses, it alone hadn’t any yard in front, any tree or flower bed. It was a plain frame building covered over with brick.

Above the door, a little railed porch ran across on an upstairs level and four windows with shades were looking out. But I didn’t catch on to those. Running in out of the sun, you met what seemed total obscurity inside.

There were almost tangible smells. Licorice recently sucked in a child’s cheek, dill pickle brine1. That had leaked through a paper sack in a fresh trail across the wooden floor.

Ammonia-loaded ice that had been hoisted from wet croker sacks and slammed into the icebox with its sweet butter at the door. And perhaps the smell of still untrapped mice.”

This description of the “Little Store” is not only clear and concise, but also has images and sensory information about the store building.

Example 2

And the Orchestra Played On (by Joanne Lipman)

“The hinges creaked when I opened the decrepit case. I was greeted by a cascade of loose horsehair — my bow a victim of mites, the repairman later explained. It was pure agony to twist my fingers into position.

But to my astonishment and that of my teenage children — who had never heard me play — I could still manage a sound. It turned out, a few days later, that there were 100 people just like me.

When I showed up at a local school for rehearsal, there they were: five decades worth of former students. There were doctors and accountants, engineers and college professors.

There were people who hadn’t played in decades, sitting alongside professionals like Mr. K.’s daughter Melanie, now a violinist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. There were generations of music teachers.”

In the first paragraph of this descriptive excerpt, the author clearly describes the decrepit nature of the violin case, as well as the damage time has done to the bow.

The second paragraph is a description of the characters, and their similarities.  Both use sensory information for effective descriptions.

Example 3

Yarn (by Koyoko Mori)

“The yellow mittens I made in seventh-grade home economics proved that I dreamed in color. For the unit on knitting, we were 1 supposed to turn in a pair of mittens.

The two hands had to be precisely the same size so that when we held them together, palm to palm, no extra stitches would stick out from the thumb, the tip of the fingers, or the cuff.

Somewhere between making the fourth and the fifth mitten to fulfill this requirement, I dreamed that the ball of yellow yarn in my bag had turned green. Chartreuse, leaf, Granny Smith, lime, neon, acid green. The brightness was electric.

I woke up knowing that I was, once again, doomed for a D in home ec.”

See the use of colors in this paragraph by Koyoko Mori. This is called “pure description,” in that the description appeals to the senses. The use of word “brightness” in the last line is striking one.

Example 4

The Taj Mahal (by Salman Rushdie)

“And this, finally, is why the Taj Mahal must be seen: to remind us that the world is real, that the sound is truer than the echo, the original more forceful than its image in a mirror. The beauty of beautiful things is still able, in these image-saturated times, to transcend imitations.

And the Taj Mahal is, beyond the power of words to say it, a lovely thing, perhaps the loveliest of things.”

Check this short description of the Taj Mahal by Salman Rushdie. This description presents a different picture of the Taj Mahal.

The above are some of the basic information you need to know about descriptive essay. However, as you practice writing this essay, note. You can learn from the descriptive essay examples shown above.

CSN Team.