Question

In "Heat," H.D. uses hyperbole when she describes heat that actually prevents fruit from falling. How does this hyperbole affect the poem's meaning?
Question 8 options:

It emphasizes how intense and powerful the heat is.


It captures the weakness of the fruit.


It expresses the worry the speaker feels about the fruit rotting.


It hints that the speaker is being playful rather than serious.

Answer 1

"Heat", by Hilda Doolittle, is a really short poem with several characteristics. One of them is the amount of imagery that the poet uses to communicate not so much a message but the impressions generated by what is being perceived by the speaker. We do not know who this speaker is, or what the setting is, all we known is that most likely this person is experiencing a really torrid place, most likely the tropics, as this person speaks about fruit that falls from trees. Probably one of the most impressive images this author gives is the one about heat. The poet uses such words as "cut" and "rend open" to let us know one thing; that wherever this person is, the heat is really high. In fact, the image is so strong, that through the hyperbole of heat preventing fruit from falling, you cannot help but think about the thickness of it and you feel as if you were going through a curtain of it. This is why the correct answer is A: It emphasizes how intense and powerful the heat is.