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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 The Rainbow
Chapter 1: How Brangwen Married a Polish Lady
Explanation and Analysis—A New Birth:
When Tom marries Lydia, their first days and weeks in the Marsh Farm are marked by tension, passion, and feelings of distance. In his description of Tom's feelings as he adjusts to his new life, Lawrence employs a series of hyperbolic metaphors and similes:
It was as if a strong light were burning there, and he was blind within it, unable to know anything, except that this transfiguration burned between him and her, connecting them, like a secret power. Since she had come to the house he went about in a daze, scarcely seeing even the things he handled, drifting, quiescent, in a state of metamorphosis. He submitted to that which was happening to him, letting go his will, suffering the loss of himself, dormant always on the brink of ecstasy, like a creature evolving to a new birth.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2: They Live at the Marsh
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Broken Arch:
Among other reasons, Tom is drawn to Lydia for her status as a foreigner whose manner of speech and dress attest to the broader world that Tom has never seen. However, Tom also suffers due to the emotional distance between himself and Lydia, a distance that stems both from cultural differences and from Lydia's unresolved trauma. In his description of Tom's despair, Lawrence uses a simile that compares their marriage to a "broken arch":
Unlock with LitCharts A+She sank away again. The strange leaves beating in the wind on the wood had come nearer than she. The tension in the room was overpowering, it was difficult for him to move his head. He sat with every nerve, every vein, every fibre of muscle in his body stretched on a tension. He felt like a broken arch thrust sickeningly out from support. For her response was gone, he thrust at nothing. And he remained himself, he saved himself from crashing down into nothingness, from being squandered into fragments, by sheer tension, sheer backward resistance.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Fire-Eating:
Lawrence employs hyperbole, metaphor, and simile in a passage in which Lydia reflects upon the early days of her marriage to Lensky, a doctor who became an important leader in the fight for Polish independence from Russia:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Lensky was something of a fire-eater also. Lydia, tempered by her German blood, coming of a different family, was obliterated, carried along in her husband’s emphasis of declaration, and his whirl of patriotism. He was indeed a brave man, but no bravery could quite have equalled the vividness of his talk. He worked very hard, till nothing lived in him but his eyes. And Lydia, as if drugged, followed him like a shadow, serving, echoing. Sometimes she had her two children, sometimes they were left behind.
Related Themes:
Chapter 4: Girlhood of Anna Brangwen
Explanation and Analysis—Life and Fire :
Anna falls quickly for Will Brangwen, her cousin, when they meet at the Marsh Farm. In his depiction of Anna's growing attraction to Will, Lawrence employs both metaphor and hyperbole:
Unlock with LitCharts A+For his body was so keen and wonderful, it was the only reality in her world. In her world, there was this one tense, vivid body of a man, and then many other shadowy men, all unreal. In him, she touched the centre of reality [...] Out of the rock of his form the very fountain of life flowed. But to him, she was a flame that consumed him. The flame flowed up his limbs, flowed through him, till he was consumed, till he existed only as an unconscious, dark transit of flame, deriving from her.
Related Themes:
