Understatement-Hyperbole

Understatement and Hyperbole
An understatement is a phrase that minimizes the content of the message, using restrained or weak phrases. It is often used for rhetorical effects, and the tone is often ironic or sarcastic. For example, one may say “it is a little warm outside”, when actually the temperature is well over 40 degrees Celsius.

In contrast, a hyperbole is a figure of speech in which occurs an exaggeration, or an overstatement. It is used to put emphasis on the statement, and is usually not intended to be taken literally. An example of a hyperbole would be the phrase “I could sleep for a year”.

Within these two literary terms, there are also more specific branches of terms: litotes, meiosis, and exaggeration.


 * Litotes**

Pronounced lahy-**tuh**-teez or lahy-**toh**-teez. Litotes is a figure of speech consisting of an understatement, in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite meaning. An example of a litotes may be the sentence “I was not a little upset”, meaning that the speaker wasn’t merely “a little upset”, but was rather very upset. In contrast, the same message being conveyed without use of litotes could be expressed by simply stating “I was upset”.

An example of litotes can be found in Sophocles’ play __Oedipus the King__, in which Jacosta cries, “O Oedipus, unhappy Oedipus!” (57). The word “unhappy” is literally “not happy”. In this way, the term “unhappy” expresses its meaning by negating its opposite meaning, “happy”.


 * Meiosis**

Meiosis is a figure of speech that deliberately understates something. It is a form of litotes and bears many similarities with it, however litotes generally uses understatements as a way of making something seem more important, while meiosis uses understatement in order to diminish its importance. For example, after intentionally setting fire to a house, a child may call his acts a “prank”, rather than arson, thus making his actions seem relatively harmless and insignificant. On the other hand, the opposite is true for the litotes “I was not a little upset”, since the phrase implies that the speaker was beyond being just a little bit upset.


 * Exaggeration**

Exaggeration is basically the same as a hyperbole: a figure of speech in which something is made to seem more important than it really is, in order to put emphasis on the content of the statement.

In __The Stranger__, exaggeration is often used to put emphasis on Meursault’s surroundings. In the beach scene where Meursault kills the Arab, he states that “For two hours the day had stood still; for two hours it had been anchored in a sea of molted lead” (58). Obviously we know that an environment as prone to movement as the ocean and the beach are unable to remain still at all. Therefore, in this case, exaggeration is used for rhetorical and even artistic purposes. Exaggeration is also present in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s __Chronicle of a Death Foretold__. The character Pablo Vicario uses exaggeration when describing to the narrator the scene in which his brother Pedro was “changing the gauze he had his prick wrapped in” (70), stating that Pedro had “spent about half an hour” (70) in doing so. The narrator then comments that Pedro actually “hadn’t delayed more than ten minutes” (70). Here, Pablo used exaggeration in order to express the frustration he was feeling for what he perceived as a waste of time, thus extending the time in which he waited for Pedro by three times the length of what it really was.

Wikipedia: [|www.wikipedia.com]
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