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Definition of Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations intended to emphasize a point... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Worst City in the World:
Throughout American Pastoral, the characters repeatedly use hyperbole to capture their feelings about Newark. In these hyperbolic statements, what the city has become is often nostalgically juxtaposed with their conceptions of what it once was.
In the novel, it's particularly the Swede and his father who fixate on Newark's ruin. This perspective is informed by their experience as owners of the Newark Maid glove factory. While Lou Levov remembers Newark in its heyday, the Swede faces the challenge of sustaining the factory amid the city's increasing urban blight. He may not be as nostalgic as his father, but the Swede still hyperbolically laments Newark's decline when he meets Nathan Zuckerman for dinner early in Part 1:
"It's the worst city in the world, Skip," the Swede was telling me. "Used to be the city where they manufactured everything. Now it's the car-theft capital of the world."
Here, the Swede uses hyperbole to express his strong feelings about the city he and Nathan Zuckerman come from. First claiming it's the world's "worst city," he then draws on a designation the city notoriously took on in the 90s: the "car-theft capital of the world." While neither of these exaggerated descriptions are literal or verifiable, they give insight into how people like the Swede felt about Newark in the late 20th century.
More than the Swede, however, it's Lou Levov who voices the novel's most hyperbolic rants about Newark. In one instance, he refers to it as "A great city turned into a total nowhere!" In another, he warns the Swede that "this city isn't a city—it's a carcass! Get out!" And when he hears that people have stolen the cobblestones from the street in front of the factory, he again gives his son a hyperbolic warning: "Newark can't even hold on to its street? Seymour, get the hell out!" In the next-to-last chapter, during the dinner party, Lou gives vent to his hyperbolic tirades with full force. He calls it "the late city of Newark" and claims that there are dropouts "on every street corner." Describing Newark as "finished," he proclaims that it "will be the city that never comes back."
On the narrative level, Nathan Zuckerman occasionally echoes the hyperbolic way in which the Swede and Lou describe Newark. When he arrives at the country club where his high school reunion is held, for instance, he mentions that it's hosted in "a Jewish suburb far from the futility prevailing in the streets of our crime-ridden, drug-infested childhood home." And in his account of the Swede's experience hunkering down at the factory during the Newark riots, he echoes the Swede's own words when he describes him "sitting alone in the last factory left in the worst city in the world." He then gives voice to the outlook the Swede assumes while sitting there: After this, there will be "Nothing in Newark ever again."
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Cheer:
Early in the novel, the narrator captures the community's collective adoration for the Swede by describing the special cheer the Weequahic cheerleaders have for him. The imagery, simile, and hyperbole in this description contribute to the character's expositional characterization.
While the cheerleaders' other cheers are "meant to inspire the whole team or to galvanize the spectators," this cheer is "a rhythmic, foot-stomping tribute to the Swede alone, enthusiasm for his perfection undiluted and unabashed." In this sentence, imagery and hyperbole come together to evoke the multisensory intensity of the cheer as an experience all while emphasizing the Swede's exalted position in the community.
As the description continues, the narrator develops the cheer's almost physical force: "The cheer rocked the gym at the basketball games every time he took a rebound or scored a point, swept through our side of City Stadium at football games any time he gained a yard or intercepted a pass." The verbs in this sentence—"rocked" and "swept—give the sense that the cheer isn't merely a sound that can be heard but also a sort of tangible phenomenon one can feel.
The imagery and hyperbole in the rest of the paragraph reinforce the cheer's similarity to hero worship.
It was a cheer that consisted of eight syllables, three of them his name, and it went, Bah bah-bah! Bah bah bah ... bah-bah! and the tempo, at football games particularly, accelerated with each repetition until, at the peak of frenzied adoration, an explosion of skirt-billowing cartwheels was ecstatically discharged and the orange gym bloomers of ten sturdy little cheerleaders flickered like fireworks before our marveling eyes ... and not for love of you or me but of the wonderful Swede.
In this sentence, Roth manages to merge content with form. The tempo and intensity he describes within the sentence are simultaneously expressed by the tempo and intensity of the sentence on a rhetorical level. While the auditory imagery of the cheer, the visual imagery of the "skirt-billowing cartwheels," and the firework simile conjure up the figurative image of an explosion, the prose itself has an explosive effect. Unsurprisingly, this explosion culminates with "the wonderful Swede."
Besides contributing important characterization in the novel's exposition, the Swede's cheer also gives the reader an indication of what to expect from Roth's prose. To describe the exuberant scene, he makes the most of his exuberant style. The intense yet delightful descriptions show what Roth can achieve when he lets himself have fun with language—something he continually does throughout the novel.
Related Themes:
