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Hyperbole
Explanation and Analysis—"You're a Woman!":
When Orlando meets Shel in Chapter Five of Orlando, Woolf utilizes hyperbole to demonstrate the importance of their unorthodox attitudes towards sex and gender:
“You’re a woman, Shel!” she cried. “You’re a man, Orlando!” he cried. Never was there such a scene of protestation and demonstration as then took place since the world began.
The claim that Orlando and Shel's exclamations cause the largest scene of "protest and demonstration [...] since the world began" is a hyperbolic exaggeration from Woolf. However, the humor of excessive statements in this passage underscores a key point that Woolf makes throughout Orlando: the most important qualities within people—especially within those who pursue relationships with others—are not social status, wealth, or even traditional markers of gender and sexuality. Orlando feels attracted to Shel because he exhibits traditionally feminine characteristics despite inhabiting a male body, whereas Shel feels the exact opposite about Orlando.
Unconcerned with what society determines masculine or feminine, Shel and Orlando embrace each other and their abilities to vacillate between sexes. Woolf's hyperbole is perhaps sarcastic in nature—because she likely believes that queer attraction should not be "news" to the world. However, knowing her audience and her time period, Woolf still playfully establishes the assumption that Shel and Orlando's epiphanies cause an immense scene of protestation.
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