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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—Poor Child!:
The narrator, expressing the thoughts of Mrs. Spragg in Chapter 1, frets that Undine isn't making anything of herself in New York and has received no "social benefit" from the city:
[Undine] seemed as yet––poor child!––too small for New York: actually imperceptible to its heedless multitudes, and her mother trembled for the day when her invisibility should be born in on her. [...] [Mrs. Spragg] had noticed lately that Undine was beginning to be nervous, and there was nothing that Undine's parents dreaded so much as her being nervous.
This worry is in response to the fact that the Spraggs moved out of the Midwest explicitly to improve Undine's social prospects: "They had left Apex because Undine was too big for the place." But now Mrs. Spragg is worried that Undine is invisible and small and nervous—to a hyperbolic degree. Note the certainty in Mrs. Spragg's concern: Undine is "actually imperceptible." There is also great hyperbole in her concern for Undine's "nervousness." It is quite the overreaction to "dread nothing so much" as nervousness, a relatively normal feeling to have. "Nervousness" often had a stronger connotation at the time, referring to a more serious mental health problem, but Mrs. Spragg's worry is still excessive. Mrs. Spragg's worry about Undine is a hyperbole that helps depict the mother's character. Her overreaction shows how fully Mrs. Spragg lives vicariously through her daughter.
This overreaction is also an ironic foreshadowing of the rest of the novel. Far from "invisibility," Undine, at every turn in the novel, works to make herself more visible, always wanting to be in the presence of adoring onlookers. Mrs. Spragg, ironically, worries about the precise opposite of what she ought to be worrying about. This irony serves to further characterize Mrs. Spragg as vapid and as an inaccurate judge of her daughter's character.
Related Themes:
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Social Orders:
In Chapter 4, Ralph Marvell visits the Spragg residence in the Stentorian without calling beforehand, asking to see Mrs. Spragg. This is rather unusual according to the social conventions of Gilded Age society. Undine reacts hyperbolically to the event:
The social order seemed to be falling in ruins at Undine's feet. A visitor who asked for a girl's mother!––she stared at Mrs. Spragg with a cold incredulity.
Undine doesn't fully understand the situation here. Ralph came to the apartment, and when Mrs. Spragg told Ralph that Undine was out, he still came up and made conversation, though Mrs. Spragg "couldn't make out what he was after." Ralph even leaves a letter for Undine, but she hardly reads it and interprets it negatively, thinking that "he did not wish to continue their acquaintance." And on top of this rebuff from Ralph, Undine feels that the entire "social order" is at risk because of Ralph's transgressions.
Undine's reaction is quite hyperbolic. Ralph's conversation with Mrs. Spragg is hardly destructive to the social order. But Undine is extremely interested in both Ralph's affections and the social structures of high society. Undine's hyperbolic reaction shows how important both are to her. This hyperbole also speaks to what Undine understands the social order to be: a system in which people come to ask her, specifically, to dinners and functions, and men show interest directly to her, with no one getting in the way. She sees the social order as a tool to support her desires and affections. When she cannot have Ralph, it seems like the social order, hyperbolically, collapses.
Related Themes:
