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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 1
Explanation and Analysis—Claws Its Way Out:
At the beginning of The Kite Runner, Hosseini uses a metaphor comparing the past to an animal that “claws its way out” of things and a hyperbole describing a lifetime of “peeking” to show how Amir’s guilt dominates his life:
[...] but it's wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.
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Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Black and White:
When Amir reflects on his complicated feelings toward Baba, Khaled Hosseini uses hyperbole to show Baba’s control over Amir’s moral world:
Unlock with LitCharts A+With me as the glaring exception, my father molded the world around him to his liking. The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You can’t love a person who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little.
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Explanation and Analysis—Thundering Baba:
When he is first describing his father, Amir uses hyperbole and a simile comparing people to sunflowers to show Baba’s overwhelming strength and authority:
Unlock with LitCharts A+My father was a force of nature, a towering Pashtun specimen with a thick beard, a wayward crop of curly brown hair as unruly as the man himself, hands that looked capable of uprooting a willow tree, and a black glare that would “drop the devil to his knees begging for mercy,” as Rahim Khan used to say. At parties, when all six-foot-five of him thundered into the room, attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun.
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Explanation and Analysis—Only One Sin:
Baba is a man of extreme and unbending moral ideas. When he explains how serious he thinks the sin of theft is to a young Amir, Baba uses pathos to appeal to Amir’s emotions and hyperbole to stress just how unforgivable theft is:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[T]here is only one sin, only one [...]. When you kill a man, you steal a life,” Baba said. “You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. Do you see?
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