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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
Troubled About My Soul
Explanation and Analysis—Absolutely Misshapen:
While Sharon searches for Victoria Rogers in Puerto Rico, back in New York, Tish's pregnancy begins to wear on her. Much to Tish's dismay, both she and the baby get bigger and bigger and her body changes rapidly and unpredictably. At one point Tish bursts out in hyperbolic complaints over the shape of her body:
I do not recognize my body at all, it is becoming absolutely misshapen. I try not to look at it, because I simply do not recognize it. [...] I have never had breasts, or a behind, but I am beginning to have them now. It seems to me that I am gaining weight at the rate of about three hundred pounds an hour, and I do not dare speculate on what I will probably look like when this thing inside of me finally kicks itself out. Lord.
Tish's tone here is encapsulated by her sarcastic remark that she is "gaining weight at the rate of about three hundred pounds an hour." She uses hyperbole—she is gaining weight very quickly, to be sure, but not 300 pounds an hour—to express her exasperation with the unexpected changes to her body. It is important to remember that Tish is only 19, so her frustrations about her appearance are typical for teenage girls like her. On a deeper level, the changes to her body are profoundly disorienting.
This reflects a larger theme in the novel. Tish focuses on Fonny's body as something she must attempt to understand over time. She calls her lover's body "the changing envelope that contains the greatest mystery of one's life," characterizing her love as an attempt to solve that mystery. But Fonny's body is separated from her when he goes to prison, which Tish describes as the most saddening aspect of the ordeal. At this point in the novel, Tish's hyperbole shows that she feels like even her body is unrecognizable to her. Both Fonny's and her own body are mysteries to her now, reflecting the strain of Fonny's unjust imprisonment and the distance it creates.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Bigger than the World:
Following an awkward goodnight kiss, Fonny and Tish do not speak for a long time. But, when they meet again after a few weeks, Tish is still utterly in love with Fonny. As they ride the subway to Fonny's apartment in Greenwich Village, Tish looks into his face with adoration verging on hyperbole and struggles even to describe it, settling for absurd metaphors:
He was the most beautiful person I had seen in all my life.
[...] I suddenly looked up into his face. No one can describe this, I really shouldn't try. His face was bigger than the world, his eyes deeper than the sun, more vast than the desert, all that had ever happened since time began was in his face.
Despite his "old" clothes, scuffed shoes, and the fact that "he smelled of fatigue," Tish is still infatuated with him, calling him the most beautiful person she has ever seen. Because of this, she thinks "no one can describe" what his face looks like, so she can only use metaphorical terms that are dramatically hyperbolic: his eyes are "deeper than the sun" and so on. These metaphors do not actually attempt to describe Fonny's face; instead, Tish uses them to show just how difficult it is to describe it.
Then, the train rocks and Fonny holds Tish closer. She becomes aware of his body as a real, physical thing, of a normal size, as it presses against her. She finds this development very important to her relationship and to her own life:
It's astounding the first time you realize that a stranger has a body—the realization that he has a body makes him a stranger. It means that you have a body, too. You will live with this forever, and it will spell out the language of your life.
The hyperbole in the first passage—that his face is "more vast than the desert," etc.—in fact only reinforces how Tish loves Fonny's real, physical self, with his normal body. This focus makes it yet more tragic, then, that Fonny's unjust imprisonment takes his body away from Tish.
Related Themes:
