When Mr. Grancy returns with his new wife at the beginning of the story, the narrator and his friends are skeptical of his choice to remarry and wait to see his “latest mistake.” Because of Grancy's harmful previous marriage, they are hesitant to welcome his new wife. However, when they see her beauty, they change their minds. Wharton employs hyperbole to describe this:
Then Mrs. Grancy came—and we understood. She was the most beautiful and the most complete of explanations. We shuffled our defeated omniscience out of sight and gave it hasty burial.
The narrator describes Mrs. Grancy as “the most beautiful and the most complete of explanations.” This hyperbolic statement grandly proclaims Mrs. Grancy’s beauty and asserts that her very presence is the best possible explanation for why Mr. Grancy would remarry. This use of hyperbole by the narrator effectively reduces Mrs. Grancy to just her beauty and physical appearance. From her first introduction, the men only comment on her beauty, never her personality. Her beauty is enough of an explanation for them as to why Mr. Grancy chose to remarry. Wharton uses this initial hyperbole to establish how Mrs. Grancy is continually objectified throughout the story. She is frequently referred to with figurative language, such as hyperbole and metaphors, which serve to objectify her in the eyes of the men in the story.
