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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
Book 1, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Mr Wopsle Says Grace:
Dickens makes an allusion employing a parody of the stereotypical English churchman in Chapter 4, when Pip describes how the officious Mr. Wopsle says grace at his family's table:
It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with theatrical declamation — as it now appears to me, something like a religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third — and ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful.
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Book 1, Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—A Complete Ruin!:
Miss Havisham is a particularly selfish, dramatic, and intense character, and Dickens often uses hyperbole to make her self-importance and love of melodrama apparent to his readers. In Chapter 11, Pip doesn't satisfactorily press her to explain why she hates her birthday when she brings it up. Annoyed, and poking flamboyantly at the cobwebs on a decorated table, she utters the following hyperbolic monologue:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of decay [...] was brought here. It and I have worn away together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me." [...] "When the ruin is complete,” said she, with a ghastly look, “and when they lay me dead, in my bride’s dress on the bride’s table—which shall be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him—so much the better if it is done on this day!”
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Toadies :
Although Miss Havisham herself is already quite ghoulish company, Dickens employs one of his most corrosive satires to describe her unpleasant and sycophantic family members. When Pip visits Miss Havisham in Chapter 11, he immediately dislikes her relatives, implying that they are disingenuous and false:
Unlock with LitCharts A+There were three ladies in the room and one gentleman. Before I had been standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not to know that the others were toadies and humbugs: because the admission that he or she did know it, would have made him or her out to be a toady and humbug.
Related Themes:
