Beyond literary elements such as symbols, metaphor, and irony, hyperbole can effectively color and nuance a work of literature. Hyperbole is a form of exaggeration, where a speaker says–merely as a figure of speech–that something was more intense than it in fact was.
It is especially interesting to consider instances of hyperbole in the literary genre of mystery/detective fiction. These genres are centered on the goal of unraveling something unknown using whatever clues might be available. One of the ways authors keep this process interesting is by adding in red herrings, or other ways of making the story's puzzle even harder to unravel. Yet one might think that mystery authors would try as much as possible to keep their mysteries fairly literal in terms of language used–if not, it could become even harder to unravel the mystery, as the reader might not always know what to take literally and what to take figuratively.
However, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle shows us, mystery authors do not actually adhere to this sort of literalism. Here are two examples of hyperbole in the narrative of The Sign of the Four. Consider in each case how Doyle makes the tradeoff between the clarity of literal language and the nuance of literary elements; do you think that hyperbole was merited here, or does it instead obfuscate the narrative?
-"I have brought you something which is worth all the news in the world. I have brought you a fortune" (142).
Watson uses hyperbole in the above quote to tell Mary that he has found the treasure. Obviously, the treasure isn't worth all the news in the world, but it is certainly momentous and he wants bring excitement to the situation.
-"I was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my luck at this time, for I was a useless cripple, though not yet in my twentieth year" (145).
As Small recounts his story to the group, he uses hyperbole to illustrate how he felt at the time. Small had lost his leg, but was far from a useless cripple, as he got a wooden one and went on to many other successful pursuits afterwards.
This exploration of hyperbole in detective fiction serves to demonstrate a broader point. Literary elements are not categorically beneficial for literature: authors face tradeoffs when utilizing figurative language and other literary devices. As a further exercise, take a different genre of literature and a different literary device. Can you think of any analogous tradeoffs this new device poses to the new genre?
