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Hyperbole
Explanation and Analysis—Andrew Jackson’s Grip:
When Wheeler is describing the fighting tactics of Smiley’s bulldog (named after the United States president Andrew Jackson), he uses a hyperbole, as seen in the following passage:
“And a dog might tackle him and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson […] would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn’t expected nothing else […] and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j’int of his hind leg and freeze to it—not chaw, you understand, but only just grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year.”
Wheeler explains how, during a dog fight, Andrew Jackson would let his opponent dominate him before gripping onto the other dog’s leg with his mouth in a winning maneuver. The hyperbolic language comes into play with Wheeler’s description of how Andrew Jackson would hold onto his opponent’s leg for however long he needed to win, even “if it was a year.” Given that dog fights only last a few hours (at most), Wheeler is clearly using exaggerated language in order to help the narrator understand just how well Smiley trained his bulldog.
This is one of the many moments in which Wheeler highlights how looks can be deceiving—while Andrew Jackson makes it seem like he is being dominated in his fights, he is actually skillfully waiting for his opponents to underestimate him before he attacks (as Smiley trained him to do).
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