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Does A Christmas Carol contain any hyperbole?
Quick answer:
Yes, A Christmas Carol contains hyperbole. Dickens uses exaggerated language to emphasize characters and settings. For example, Scrooge's inability to sleep is likened to his chance of going to Heaven, highlighting his restlessness. His childhood memories are described with "a thousand odours," exaggerating their overwhelming nature. Additionally, Scrooge's cold-heartedness is depicted through exaggerated physical descriptions, and the crime-ridden neighborhood is described with hyperbolic sensory details to enhance the atmosphere.
When Scrooge is anticipating the visit from the first ghost, he tries to stay awake until the time when it is supposed to arrive. He does so, then goes to bed, then wakes up when the bell tolls twelve—which he thinks is impossible since he went to bed after midnight—so he decides to continue to wait, awake.
He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.
This is an example of hyperbole, also called overstatement, because it is certainly a lot more likely that Scrooge would be able to fall asleep before he could go to Heaven. The ghost of Marley, his friend, made it incredibly clear that Scrooge has no shot of going to Heaven unless he makes a number of significant changes that...
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he has obviously not yet made.
In addition, when the Ghost of Christmas Past transports Scrooge to his childhood, the narrator says that Scrooge
was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long forgotten!
It is unlikely that Scrooge could detect a thousand smells all at once or that each one of those thousand could be linked to a thousand thoughts and so forth. However, this hyperbole emphasizes just how overcome Scrooge is by the memories and the moments he has forgotten.
Hyperbole is a literary term to describe the use of exaggerated or over-embellished language by a writer. In A Christmas Carol, we see many instances of hyperbole in Dickens' writing as he seeks to create a strong impression on the reader.
Looking at stave one, for example, Dickens uses hyperbole when he describes the physical appearance of Scrooge:
"The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice."
Of course, Scrooge doesn't really have cold inside him that has affected his features. This is a deliberate exaggeration which is used to emphasise Dickens' point that Scrooge is a cold-hearted and mean person.
Similarly, Dickens also uses hyperbole to describe particular locations in A Christmas Carol. We see this, for instance, in the neighbourhood surrounding Old Joe's shop, in stave four:
"Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery."
Crime doesn't really have a smell but this exaggerated description goes a long way in building an atmosphere. By using this embellished language, Dickens is engaging the reader's senses and creating an image which is so strong that it is virtually tangible.