| Hyperbole |
Study Guide
At the end of this unit you will be able to:
- define hyperbole
- point to examples in selected writings
- write your own hyperbole
Hyperbole is exaggeration. It puts a picture into the "reader"
mind. Hyperbole is frequently used in humorous writing.Example: You could have knocked me over with a feather.
Hyperbole in Prose. Hyperbole is used for emphasis or humorous effect. With hyperbole, an author makes a point by overstatingting it.Hyperbole is common in tall tales. Here is an example:
At three weeks, Paul Bunyan got his family into a bit of trouble kicking around his little tootsies and knocking down something like four miles of standing timber
.Hyperbole is often used in descriptions. It emphasizes some qualities of a person or thing by exaggerating them, as in this selection
The skin on her face was as thin and drawn as tight as the skin of onion and her eyes were gray and sharp like the points of two picks
. —Flannery O’Connor, "Parker’s Back"
Hyperbole can also be used to describe a person’s emotions. In the following selection, a boy is pulling a man up from a deep hole. See how hyperbole is used to describe the boy’s thoughts as he struggles.
It was not a mere man he was holding, but a giant; or a block of granite. The pull was unendurable. The pain unendurable.
—James Ramsey Ullman, "A Boy and a Man"
What is exaggerated in the following examples?
There did not seem to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so to speak, to bait a fishhook with.
—Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
People moved slowly then. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County
.—
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird Hyperbole in Poetry. Hyperbole is common in humorous poetry. Hyperbole can make a point in a light-hearted way. It can be used to poke fun at someone or something. For example, read this description of a dull town.It's a slow burg—I spent a couple of weeks there one day.
—Carl Sandburg, "The People, Yes"
This poem uses hyperbole in a description of a young boy.
Why does a boy who’s fast as a jet
Take all day—and sometimes two—
To get to school?
—John Ciardi, "Speed Adjustments"
Hyperbole can emphasize a truth by exaggerating it.
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Concord Hymn"
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