Read the following excerpt from mark twain's life on the mississippi
when i was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition
among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the
mississippi river. that was to be a steamboatman. we
had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only
transient. when a circus came and went, it left us all
burning to become clowns, the first negro minstrel show
that ever came to our section left us all suffering to try that
kind of life, now and then we had a hope that, if we lived
and were good, god would permit us to be pirates. these
ambitions faded out, each in its turn, but the ambition to be
a steamboatman always remained.
what is one effect of the hyperbole in this passage?
o
a. it makes it sound as if every newcomer who arrived in town
eventually left
o
b. it conveys a sense of how strongly the children ached for these
career ambitions
o
c. it exaggerates the danger of the children's environment by
suggesting they might not live.
o
d. it expresses the idea that career ambitions are easily changed and
should be controlled by god.