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Hyperbole
Explanation and Analysis—Mary Offending Everyone:
When Mary is describing to Edmund her struggle in finding a farmer who would lend her their horse and cart during harvest season (so she could transport her harp from the city), she uses a hyperbole to describe their reaction:
“To want a horse and cart in the country seemed impossible, so I told my maid to speak for one directly; and as I cannot look out of my dressing-closet without seeing one farm yard, nor walk in the shrubbery without passing another, I thought it would be only ask and have, and was rather grieved that I could not give the advantage to all. Guess my surprise, when I found that I had been asking the most unreasonable, most impossible thing in the world, had offended all the farmers, all the labourers, all the hay in the parish.”
Mary’s assertion that she “had offended all the farmers, all the labourers, all the hay in the parish” is obviously untrue, but communicates two important qualities of Mary’s. First, she is out of touch with the ways of working class people and country folk generally (as she should know that working farmers all rely on their horses and carts during harvest season). And second, she is prone to entitlement and melodrama. These characteristics of hers prove to be one of the reasons Edmund ultimately ends their courtship and marries Fanny—who is more caring and moral—instead.
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