Tall Tales

Deliberate exaggeration as a narrative form.

A tall tale is a story whose exaggeration is the point. Its hero performs feats no one is meant to believe, told in a matter-of-fact register that makes the gap between claim and plausibility the source of the humour.

Conventions

• A hero of superhuman size, strength or skill.
• Exaggeration that escalates through the telling.
• A deadpan narrator who never signals disbelief.
• An origin explanation for a landscape or custom.

Compared with neighbouring forms