Hyperbole is an exaggeration

1. What is hyperbole?
Hyperbole is the greatest,
most spectacular thing in
the history of the entire
world!

2. Hyperbole is exaggeration.
It puts a picture into the reader’s mind.
Example: You could have knocked me over with
a feather.
Hyperbole is used for emphasis (makes that part
more important) or humorous effect. With
hyperbole, an author makes a point by
overstating it.

3. Hyperbole makes qualities of people or things
stand out by exaggerating them.
Examples: The skin on her face was as thin
and drawn as tight as the skin of onion.
-Flannery O’Connor, “Parker’s Back”
She’s the funniest girl I’ve ever met.
Create your own example!

4. Hyperbole can also be used to describe a
person’s emotions (feelings).
In the following selection, a boy is pulling a man
up from a deep hole.
“It was not a mere man he was holding, but a
giant; or a block of granite. The pull was
unendurable. The pain unendurable.”
—James Ramsey Ullman, "A Boy and a Man"
What makes this hyperbole?

5. There did not seem to be brains enough in the
entire nursery, so to speak, to bait a fishhook
with.
—Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
People moved slowly then. There was no hurry,
for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and
no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside
the boundaries of Maycomb County.
—Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

6. Hyperbole is common in humorous poetry.
Hyperbole can make a point in a light-
hearted way. It can be used to poke fun at
someone or something. For example, read
this description of a dull town.
It's a slow burg—I spent a couple of weeks
there one day.
—Carl Sandburg, "The People, Yes"

7. Hyperbole:
-is exaggeration
-is used for emphasis
-is used for humorous effect
-is used in descriptions
-of people
-of emotions