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Definition of Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations intended to emphasize a point... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements... read full definition
Key Examples in Absalom, Absalom!
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—A Thousand Homicides :
When Mr. Compson hands Quentin a letter, written from Charles Bon to Judith Sutpen, he uses a metaphor and hyperbole when comparing those who lived in the 19th century to those in the present day:
Yes, for them: of that day and time, of a dead time; people too as we are and victims too as we are, but victims of a different circumstance [...] not dwarfed and involved but distinct, uncomplex who had the gift of loving once or dying once instead of being diffused and scattered creatures drawn blindly limb from limb from a grab bag and assembled, author and victim too of a thousand homicides and a thousand copulations and divorcements. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps any more light than this would be too much for it.”
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—The Lightless Womb:
While discussing her own difficult childhood, Rosa uses an extended metaphor that imagines her adolescent years as a protracted state of being in the womb of her mother:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I was fourteen then, fourteen in years if they could have been called years while in that unpaced corridor which I called childhood, which was not living but rather some projection of the lightless womb itself; I gestate and complete, not aged, just overdue because of some caesarean lack, some cold head-nuzzling forceps of the savage time which should have torn me free, I waited not for light but for that doom which we call female victory which is: endure and then endure, without rhyme or reason or hope of reward—and then endure; I like that blind subterranean fish [...]
