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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
Part 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Every Particle:
Throughout the novel, Humbert Humbert is often a highly unreliable narrator, describing events in a way that reflects his own perception, biases, and delusions. Often, he employs obvious hyperbole in his narration. When describing his adolescent relationship to a girl named Annabel Leigh, for example, Humbert writes:
All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other’s soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do.
Here, Humbert’s dramatic and exaggerated language reflects his own lingering fixation, as an adult, with the young girl with whom he had his first sexual experiences. He and Annabel were, he claims, “madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other,” both trapped in a “frenzy of mutual possession” that could only have “been assuaged by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other’s soul and flesh.” His language is highly hyperbolic, as he claims that he and Annabel desired to be fully merged into one being, both physically and spiritually. Humbert’s recollections of the past are often unreliable due to his characteristic tendency to exaggerate, particularly when describing the adolescent girls with whom he is obsessed.
Related Themes:
Part 1, Chapter 29
Explanation and Analysis—Nothing Louder:
Humbert employs hyperbole when recounting an evening spent at the Enchanted Hunters motor lodge, where he intended to drug and sexually assault his stepdaughter Lolita after abducting her from summer camp:
There is nothing louder than an American hotel; and, mind you, this was supposed to be a quiet, cozy, old-fashioned, homey place—“gracious living” and all that stuff. The clatter of the elevator’s gate—some twenty yards northeast of my head but as clearly perceived as if it were inside my left temple—alternated with the banging and booming of the machine’s various evolutions and lasted well beyond midnight.
Here, he hyperbolically claims that there is “nothing louder than an American hotel.” Lying in bed after his failed attempt to render Lolita unconscious with sleeping pills, a frustrated Humbert notes the “clatter of the elevator’s gate,” which he claims, in an exaggerated fashion, he could hear “as if it were inside” his own head. Describing the “banging and booming” of the elevator through the night, Humbert presents the hotel as being extremely loud and unpleasant, a claim that reflects his own state of extreme agitation following the failure of his plans. Indeed, the pills obtained from a local doctor make Lolita drowsy, but she wakes up throughout the night, halting Humbert’s attempts to abuse her.
Related Themes:
