the hyperbole is a figure of thought characterized by the purposeful exaggeration in a statement. It can be identified in everyday speeches, in literary or artistic texts and also in advertising. This figure of speech has an emotional character and search emphasize a certain fact or situation through the deformation of reality, since it extrapolates the original meaning of the text.
Read too: Thought figure: lithot
Hyperbole Characteristics
THE hyperbole is thought figure, since the figurative sense resides in the suggested idea. Thus, it consists of the purposeful exaggeration in a statement. Hence the adjective “hyperbolic”, that is, exaggerated, excessive. Hyperbole is characterized by the dramatic tone of statement, therefore it is emotional and emphatic, and for its character of reality distortion.
This way, it can be used in speechesof daily, for greater expressiveness of the enunciator's idea, as well as in the advertising, with mercantilist or ideological purposes, in addition to being used
in literary or artistic texts in general, fantastic or not, to emphasize, belittle, criticize or delight, among other goals.examples of hyperbole
At the daily, we use hyperbole such as:
Does one hour I'm waiting for this bus.
When, in fact, the utterer of that sentence has only been at the bus stop for five minutes.
I already told you a million times I don't want you to do this, my son!
In fact, this is the second time the mother or father has warned the child.
I will die from studying so much!
Thus, the enunciator wants to emphasize the fact that he is studying hard.
To illustrate the use of hyperbole in a literary text, we will read some excerpts from the lyrics of the song “Exagerado”, by Cazuza, Leoni and Ezequiel Neves, from the album Exaggerated, 1985:
Exaggerated
Love of my life
From here to eternity
our destinations
were traced in the maternity
Cruel, unbridled passion
I bring you a thousand stolen roses
to excuse my lies
my blunders
[...]
Me I will never breathe again
if you don't notice me
I can even starve
if you don't love me
[...]
So, we can point out the hyperbole: “a thousand stolen roses”, “I'll never breathe again” and “starvation”, which are expressions exaggerated consistent with the title of the song, which describes an exaggerated person when it comes to love.
In the context of advertising, see this campaign by the city of Belo Horizonteagainst dengue[1]:
In this advertisement, hyperbole is non-verbal, because it is not in the written text, but in the image of the dengue mosquito, which has grown to the point of being bigger than bottles and tires. Of course, the objective is to show, in an emphatic way, the magnitude of the danger if citizens do not take due care.
See too: Most common vicious pleonasms in the Portuguese language
solved exercises
Question 1 - (UFJF)
Text: “Self-portrait”, by Manuel Maria du Bocage.
Thin, blue-eyed, brown-faced,
Well served by feet, half in height,
Sad in the face, the same as in the figure,
High nose in the middle, not small:
Unable to watch on one plot,
More prone to fury than tenderness;
Drinking in level hands from a dark cup
Of infernal zeals lethal poison:
Incenser devotee of a thousand deities
(I mean, a thousand girls) in a single moment,
And only at the altar, loving the friars:
Here is Bocage, in whom he shines some talent;
These truths came out of him
On a day when he found himself more relaxed.
BOCAGE, Manuel Maria Barbosa du. poems. Rio de Janeiro: New Frontier, 2015. P. 130.
O text makes use of some stylistic resources, such as:
a) Metonymy — “Those truths came out of him”.
b) Metaphor — “Sad in face, the same as in figure”.
c) Antithesis — “Well served with feet, mid-at height”.
d) Prosopopeia — “Drinking in snowy hands from a dark cup”.
e) Hyperbole — “(I mean, of a thousand girls) in a single moment”.
Resolution
Alternative E.
The expression “thousand young women” becomes hyperbole.
Question 2 - (Unimontes)
my literary glory
Rubem Braga
“When the soul vibrates, tormented..."
I shivered with emotion at seeing these printed words. And there was my name, which for the first time I saw in block letters. The newspaper was Itapemirim, official organ of the Grêmio Domingos Martins, of the students of Colégio Pedro Palácios, from Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, State of Espírito Santo.
The Portuguese teacher will pass a composition: the tear. I had no doubts: I took the quill and began to say sublime things. I won 10, and on top of that the composition was published in the school's newspaper. No wonder:
“When the soul vibrates, tormented, to the pulsations of a heart embittered by the weight of misfortune, this one, in an irremediable explosion, in an outburst sincere of misfortunes, anguishes and indefinable sorrows, he expresses himself, oppressed, by a drop of water burning like desire and consoling like the hope; and this pearl of bitterness snatched by pain from the tumultuous ocean of the torn soul is the very essence of suffering: it is the tear.”
Of course I didn't stop there. Then come other beauties; I call the tear an "unconscious traitor to the secrets of the soul", I find that it "softens the hardest hearts" and also (strangely) "hardens the softest hearts". And I end up, with some exaggeration, saying that she was "always, through History, the director of the greatest undertakings, the miraculous savior of cities and nations, enchanted talisman of revenge and crime, of mildness and forgiveness".
Yes, I was a bit over the top; today I would not risk affirming so many things. But the important thing is that my composition was so muted that there was no lack of a spiteful colleague who questioned its authorship: I must have copied that from some almanac.
Suspicion had its reasons: shy and poorly spoken, half sullen in conversation, I didn't seem capable of such eloquence. The fact is that the suspicion did not hurt me, rather it made me proud; and I received it with disdain, without even denying the accusation. See, I knew how to write crazy things; secretly he had an immense store of "embittered hearts," "pearls of bitterness," and "enchanted talismans" to astonish unbelievers; would see...
A week later, the teacher ordered us all to write about the National Flag. It was then that — give him Braga! — I put on a bossa that left everyone in awe. My composition had few lines, but it was nothing less than a paraphrase of Padre-Nosso, which began like this: “Our flag, which art in heaven...”
I don't remember the rest, but it was divine. I won 10 again, and the teacher made a point of reading my little obrinha to the stupefied class himself. This composition was not published because Itapemirim it had failed to go out, but two girls—sweet glory! — they took copies, because they thought it was beautiful.
It was right after the June vacation that the teacher started a new composition: Dawn on the Farm. Well, I had spent a fortnight on Boa Esperança, my uncle Cristóvão's farm, and I was very well informed about the sunrise there. I took it from the pen and counted with ease. Birds, chickens, ducks, a black woman throwing corn to the chickens and ducks, a boy milking a cow, a cow mooing... and, in the end, I thought it would be beautiful, to make pendant with this cow mooing (as well as "comforting as hope" combined with "burning as desire"), a "braying donkey." Then I made a paragraph, and repeated the same bray with an adverb of manner, for a golden clasp: "A donkey braying scandalously."
It was my disgrace. The professor said that that time Mr. Braga had disappointed him, that he had not taken his duty seriously and that he did not deserve a grade higher than 5; and to show how bad my composition was, it read that ending: “a donkey braying scandalously”.
It was a general laugh from the students, a laugh that was a great cruel boo. Smiles yellow. My literary glory had gone down the drain.
From the book Woe to you Copacabana, Ed. Record, São Paulo: 1996.
Among the figures of speech, the only one that does NOT appear in the student's essay is the
a) hyperbole.
b) euphemism.
c) metaphor.
d) comparison.
Resolution
Alternative B.
In the essay, we have hyperbole (“tumultuous ocean of the torn soul”), metaphor (“pearl of bitterness”) and comparison (“drop of burning water like desire”). However, there is no euphemism, a figure characterized by softening the information.
Question 3 - Check the alternative where hyperbola is present.
The) For two days, the infernal heat has taken over the entire city.
B) The statements were quite exaggerated but very pertinent.
ç) Overconfidence made him unable to bear defeat.
d) Mount Vesuvius threw lava and ash over the city of Pompeii.
and) He found a delicate rose beating inside his chest.
Resolution:
Alternative A.
The expression “infernal heat”, given its exaggerated character, is hyperbole.
Image credit
[1] Belo Horizonte City Hall (Reproduction)
by Warley Souza
Literature teacher
