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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
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Mr. Tanaka:
When Mrs. Sakamoto falls terminally ill, Chiyo and her older sister, Satsu, are forced to take care of themselves and maintain their household. Chiyo, who has unusual gray-blue eyes, catches the attention of Mr. Tanaka, the wealthiest man in Yoroido, who approaches Chiyo as she swims with other children at a pond. Deeply impressed by his refined appearance and manner of speech, Chiyo uses hyperbole in her description of Mr. Tanaka, exaggerating his wealth and wisdom:
I looked for a moment at Mr. Tanaka’s gray hair and at the creases in his brow like ruts in the bark of a tree. He seemed to me the wisest and most knowledgeable man on earth. I believed he knew things I would never know; and that he had an elegance I would never have; and that his blue kimono was finer than anything I would ever have occasion to wear. I sat before him naked, on my haunches in the dirt, with my hair tangled and my face dirty, with the smell of pond water on my skin.
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Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Bodhisattva:
As Chiyo reflects on her brief but transformative encounter with the Chairman, she alludes to the buddhist concept of a bodhisattva, an individual who, in Buddhist thought, delays their own achievement of nirvana, or enlightenment, in order to help others along their own path:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Some nights when I went to bed, I took the handkerchief the Chairman had given me and lay on my futon smelling its rich talc scent. I cleared my mind of everything but the image of him and the feeling of warm sun on my face and the hard stone wall where I’d sat that day when I met him. He was my bodhisattva with a thousand arms who would help me. I couldn’t imagine how his help would come to me, but I prayed that it would.
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Chapter 24
Explanation and Analysis—Like an Abacus:
In a passage that satirizes the greed of the okiya owners, who often exploit geisha, Sayuri uses a simile that compares the mind of Mother, owner of the Nitta okiya, to an abacus, a calculating tool:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She was the sort of person, I’m sure you realize, who noticed things only if they had price tags on them. When she walked down the street, her mind was probably working like an abacus [...] If Mother were to walk alongside the Shirakawa Stream on a lovely spring day, when you could almost see beauty itself dripping into the water from the tendrils of the cherry trees, she probably wouldn’t even notice any of it—unless . . . I don’t know . . . she had a plan to make money from selling the trees, or some such thing.
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