Paradox, Hyperbole, and Understatement

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Paradox, Hyperbole, and Understatement

• By Fiona Fong and Abigail Darby

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Paradox

• An apparent contradiction that is nevertheless
  somehow true.
• The contradiction usually stems from one of the
  words being used figuratively, or with more than
  one denotation.
• The value of the paradox is its shock value.

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Examples of Pardoxes

• Much madness is the divinest senseMuch sense,
  the starkest madness. (Much Madness is Divinest
  Sense, Emily Dickinson)
• Time present and time past are both perhaps
  present in time future, and time future contained
  in time past. (Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot)

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Hyperbole (Overstatement)

• Simply exaggeration, but exaggeration in the
  service of truth.

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Examples of Hyperboles

• I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere
  ages and ages hence. (The Road Not Taken, Robert
  Frost)
• Close to the sun in lonely lands (The Eagle,
  Alfred Lord Tennyson)
• Saw catalogues of domes (Pathedy of Manners,
  Ellen Kay)

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Understatement

• Saying less than one means, saying what is
  literally true but with a good deal less force
  than the situation warrants.

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Examples of Understatements

• And so I smiled, but he poked out his tongue,
  and called me, Nigger. (Incident, Countee
  Cullen)
• Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly
  stopped for me. (Because I could not stop for
  Death, Emily Dickinson)

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Fathom This

• It is paradoxical that one can emphasize a truth
  either by overstating it or by understating it.