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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
Time Passes, 2
Explanation and Analysis—The Dark Tide:
When the Ramsays leave the house in the beginning of "Time Passes," the rooms are plunged into darkness. In the beginning of Chapter 2, Woolf describes the steady onslaught of darkness using a potent combination of hyperbole, metaphor, and personification:
...with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming on the roof a downpouring of immense darkness began. Nothing, it seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which, creeping at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers. Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely anything left of body or mind by which one could say 'This is he' or 'This is she.'
First, the darkness gains the liquid qualities of water: when the "thin rain" drums on the roof, the darkness begins to "downpour" and begins a great "flood." Then, Woolf personifies darkness and it becomes a burglar sneaking through the house unseen: stealing "round window blinds" and creeping into bedrooms. Finally, darkness becomes something else entirely—something primordial, suffocating, and sinister. It "swallows up" everything it touches, consuming the house until "there was scarcely anything left of body or mind."
This passage rests on a bit of hyperbole—darkness is an immaterial thing, a lack of light, that does not in fact possess any such destructive qualities. This characterization fits with the shift in focus that occurs in "Time Passes," away from the thoughts and relationships of the Ramsay family and their friends that dominate the first and third sections of the book and toward the environment of the house, the land around it, and the passing of time itself. Abandoned by the Ramsay's, the house begins to deteriorate—and darkness and shadow may reign supreme.
The Lighthouse, 11
Explanation and Analysis—Mrs. Ramsay's Infinitudes:
To say Mrs. Ramsay is simply "beautiful" would be an understatement. Throughout To the Lighthouse, it becomes increasingly clear that Mrs. Ramsay has an indefinable, infinite sort of beauty—particularly in the eyes of Lily Briscoe, the artist tasked with capturing Mrs. Ramsay on canvas. Lily uses hyperbole to suggest as much in Chapter 11 of "The Lighthouse":
One wanted fifty pairs of eyes to see with, [Lily] reflected. Fifty pairs of eyes were not enough to get round that one woman with, she thought. Among them, must be one that was stone blind to [Mrs. Ramsay's] beauty.
Mrs. Ramsay's beauty is so great, Lily finds, that even with 50 pairs of eyes one could not fully comprehend it. She even goes one step further—one wants to have some "secret," sixth sense to be able to properly absorb all that is Mrs. Ramsay.
Lily Briscoe as artist is, at least partially, a reflection of Virginia Woolf as writer; when Lily wrestles with how to understand and depict humanity in her paintings, Woolf implicitly wrestles with the very same challenges in the context of writing. Lily's attempt to properly apprehend Mrs. Ramsay thus parallels Woolf's literary explorations of how to write the un-writable: how can one try to understand the infinite complexity of human life in art? How can one capture in language things that cannot even be understood by one's own eyes?
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