Gogol is best known for his use of irony, hyperbole, and absurdity to create humor and a sense of existential weariness. In some of his works, like <em>The Nose, Diary of a Madman, </em>and even in his unfinished novel, <em>Dead Souls, </em>he famously takes advantage of a single element, like a nose that has lost its owner, the royal ravings of an office clerk, or the business behind recollecting dead souls, respectively, and extrapolates this element to make it englobe and define his fictional characters, this then puts the characters in very absurd situations that, even though they cause hilarity, leave the reader with a sense of dread and even horror, the irony being that, though existence be dreadful, it is, nonetheless, comical to a point of absurdity.
The correct answer is option D.
Simile is a figure of speech in which two things are compared. It uses words such as <em>like </em>and <em>as</em>. The simile in the example sentence is the phrase "you swooned like an old lady."
A metaphor is a direct comparison. For example, "you are an old lady." A paradox is a statement which contradicts itself. For instance, "false truth." Finally, personification is the attribution of human characteristics to something that is not human, or the personification of an abstract human feature. For example, "the bear spoke to the young girl."
