Another Country: Hyperbole 4 key examples

The bathroom of this bar is, to Rufus, the most unpleasant place he could ever imagine. The hyperbole in this passage is clear; the bathroom might be revolting, but it doesn’t actually contain the “tons of bile and vomit” from “thousands of travelers.” Rufus feels this way because he’s miserably unhappy and is under the impression that there’s no way out of being overwhelmed by his life in New York.  He is ashamed of having animal requirements and urges and that he has to “add his own stream” to the stinking ocean of refuse the city produces. He’s begun to hate himself totally, and he expresses that hatred toward his own penis here, the “most hated part of himself.”

Vivaldo is absolutely emotionally destroyed by Rufus’s death, and Baldwin hammers this home by describing Rufus's body as dying in sympathy. The simile in this passage—where bones poke through flesh when a corpse decomposes—is intended to show the depth of Vivaldo’s sorrow. Cass observes that Vivaldo's pain has literally stripped the flesh from his body, leaving nothing but his raw, exposed self. His usual composure has vanished and he's visibly diminished by the weight of his loss. The change is not entirely a bad one, however: Cass also muses that “sorrow became him.” This phrase has a double meaning. He has both “become sorrow” entirely, as it has totally consumed him, and he has had his physical appearance improved by sorrow. His “reduction” has exposed the bones in his face in a way that makes them look elegant and beautiful.

In this passage, Eric and Yves have just gotten into bed together, and Eric is trying to make sense of the rush of feelings he's experiencing. The moonlight, which streams in through the window and illuminates every centimeter of the scene, is so bright that it seems "violent," almost as though it had a malicious will of its own. Because Eric is nervous about what's about to happen, the lack of darkness to hide in feels aggressive and exciting. He only has his brief and little-discussed encounter with LeRoy to compare this moment with Yves to.  

When he reaches down and feels Yves's penis, the narrator describes it as "dominating" the "landscape" of his life, in the same way that the cathedral towers of the town they are staying in "dominate" the flat plains around them. With Yves, Eric feels something he has never felt before. The hyperbole in this simile emphasizes this, as Yves's presence—and the sexual chemistry between them—seem bigger and more important than anything else Eric has experienced. Of course, Yves's erection is not really the size of a cathedral, but to Eric it feels almost as sacred and important.

Ida metaphorically turns all White people in America into a monolith here, telling Cass that they “keep” her in Black neighborhoods to control and subjugate her. The hyperbole she uses compares White America's self-satisfied, ignorant ideas about “freedom” to masturbation. In Ida’s mind, White people self-congratulate themselves about “freedom” while still subjugating their Black neighbors. What’s worse is that they expect Black people to do the same, but simultaneously want them to stay far away from White spaces. Whiteness, as she perceives it, exploits Black creativity and innovation while refusing any actual inclusion. This makes her so furious that she employs another hyperbolic metaphor, saying she wishes she could “grind this miserable country to powder” by turning into a “big fist.” Of course, this isn’t actually possible, but Ida is so angry that all she wants to do is destroy the systems that limit and hurt her.