In a conversation between Milicent and Ralph Hattersley at Grassdale Manor, Ralph complains about Milicent’s kind nature, using a hyperbole in the process:
“I thought you always liked to be yielded to; and I can’t alter now.”
“I do like it,” replied [Hattersley], bringing her to him by another tug at her hair. “You mustn’t mind my talk Milly. A man must have something to grumble about; and if he can’t complain that his wife harries him to death with her perversity and ill-humour, he must complain that she wears him out with her kindness and gentleness.”
Hattersley’s description of how a wife either “harries [her husband] to death with her perversity and ill-humor” or “wears him out with her kindness and gentleness” is clearly hyperbolic—men do not die from nagging wives, nor are they harmed by their kindness.
This quote captures the contradictory expectations put onto the women in the novel (and, Brontë is arguing, women in general in her society)—if they are too forceful they are not performing their wifely duties well, and if they are too passive the same argument could be made. Due to the double standards for men and women, men can be exactly as forceful or gentle as they want to be with their wives without worrying about any repercussions, as seen in the fact that Hattersley is comfortable pulling his wife over to him by the hair.
After Hargrave tries to force himself on Helen sexually and she refuses him, he expresses his anger using a hyperbole, as seen in the following passage:
His face grew blanched with anger.
“I am satisfied,” he replied with bitter emphasis, “that you are the most cold-hearted, unnatural, ungrateful woman I ever yet beheld!”
“Ungrateful sir?”
“Ungrateful.”
“No, Mr Hargrave; I am not. For all the good you ever did me, or ever wished to do, I most sincerely thank you: for all the evil you have done me, and all you would have done, I pray God to pardon you, and make you of a better mind.”
Calling Helen “the most cold-hearted, unnatural, ungrateful woman” he has ever met is clearly an exaggeration stemming from his wounded pride. This hyperbolic language communicates how entitled Hargrave feels to Helen, despite the fact that she is married and has not expressed interest in being with him. Brontë trusts that readers will understand Hargrave’s words to be an overreaction that has more to do with his sexism than Helen’s true character—she has not done “evil” to Hargrave and does not need pardoning. Hargrave, in fact, is the one who needs pardoning due to his harmful behavior.
