Rhetorical Devices 2

Inversion

Function: to help the writers achieve stylistic effects like laying an emphasis on a particular point or changing the focus of the readers from a particular point. In poetry, inversions are regularly used to create rhythm, meter or rhyming scheme in the lines. Definition: Inversion, also known as anastrophe, is a literary technique in which the normal order of words is reversed in order to achieve a particular effect of emphasis or meter such as the placing of an adjective after the noun it modifies, a verb before its subject, or a noun preceding its preposition. There are a number of common inversions in English. (see first examples below -) Example: What a beautiful picture it is! Where in the world were you! How wonderful the weather is today! "To me alone there came a thought of grief: A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;" (Wordsworth)

Rhetorical question

Function: .To provoke the reader to respond or to think. It is a requirement in persuasive speeches. Definition: To ask a question, not for the purpose of getting a response, but to assert or deny an answer implicitly. It is asked just for effect or to lay emphasis on some point discussed when no real answer is expected. A rhetorical question may have an obvious answer but the questioner asks rhetorical questions to lay emphasis to the point. Examples: common usage - Who knows?" "Are you stupid?" "Did you hear me?" "Ok?" "Why not?" "It's too hot today. Isn't it?" "The actors played the roles well. Didn't they?" from literature - a. JULIET: "Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." b. "O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" (Shelley) c. "What made you think of love and tears And birth and death and pain?" (Hladia Porter Stewart) d. "Will no one tell me what she sings?" (Wordsworth) e. Shylock: "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice)

Zeugma

Function: It adds flavor to literary texts as it helps produce a dramatic effect, which could possibly be shocking in its result. Definition: Using a word, usually a verb or an adjective, and applying it to more than one noun, blending together grammatically and logically different ideas Examples: a. "And all the people saw the thundering, and the lightning, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off." (The Bible) - this uses the verb "saw" for a list that include noise, which you don't see b. "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." (Shakespeare) c. "Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend." (Francis Bacon) d. "Here Thou, great Anna! whom three Realms obey, Dost sometimes Counsel take - and sometimes Tea." (Alexander Pope) - take counsel or tea - 2 different ideas e. "[They] covered themselves with dust and glory." (Mark Twain, "Tom Sawyer") dust and glory are 2 different ideas with the same verb "cover" f. "Miss Bolo [...] went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair." g. "[H]e was alternately cudgelling his brains and his donkey when, passing the workhouse, his eyes encountered the bill on the gate."

Polysyndeton

Function: It joins words, phrases and clauses and thus brings continuity in a sentence, and it acts as a stylistic device, brings rhythm to the text with the repetition of conjunctions in quick succession. It is also employed as a tool to lay emphasis to the ideas the conjunctions connect. It speeds up and adds a frenetic quality to the rhythm of a sentence. Definition: The use of many coordinating conjunctions in succession in order to achieve an artistic effect. (Conjunctions like "and", "or", "but" and "nor".) Examples: a. "And Joshua, and all of Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had." (The Bible) b. "I said, 'Who killed him?' and he said, 'I don't know who killed him but he's dead all right,' and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of water." (Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm") c. "Let the whitefolks have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and mostly-mostly-let them have their whiteness." (Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) d. "There were frowzy fields, and cow-houses, and dunghills, and dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens, and summer-houses, and carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the Railway. Little tumuli of oyster shells in the oyster season, and of lobster shells in the lobster season, and of broken crockery and faded cabbage leaves in all seasons, encroached upon its high places." (Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son) e. "We lived and laughed and loved and left." (James Joyce, Finnegans Wake)

Paradox

Function: Readers enjoy more when they extract the hidden meanings out of the writing rather than something presented to them in an uncomplicated manner. Thus, the chief purpose of a paradox is to give pleasure. Poets usually make use of a paradox to create a remarkable thought or image out of words. To make a reader think over an idea in an innovative way. Definition: An apparently contradictory statement that nevertheless contains a measure of truth. Examples: a. Your enemy's friend is your enemy. b. I am nobody. c. "What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young." - George Bernard Shaw d. Wise fool e. Truth is honey which is bitter. f. "I can resist anything but temptation." - Oscar Wilde From literature - a. "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others". (George Orwell, "Animal Farm") b. "I must be cruel to be kind." (Shakespeare, "Hamlet") c. "The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb; What is her burying grave, that is Rainbow in her womb;" (Shakespeare, "Romeo & Juliet") d. "Child is father of the man" (Wordsworth) e. "Whoever loses his life, shall find it." (Matthew, 16:25)

Juxtaposition

Function: To call attention to extremes. Used to surprise readers and evoke their interest. The comparison drawn adds vividness to a given image, controls pacing of poem or a narrative and provides a logical connection between two various vague concepts. Definition: A literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts. Examples: a. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way..." (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities) Dickens uses Juxtaposition throughout the novel in which the have not's and the haves are put side by side to highlight the presence of severe disparity and discord in the then French society that paved the way for the French revolution. b. "Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." (Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night) He is requesting his father not to give up like ordinary dying men but to put a fight against it to survive. The juxtaposition is in action of struggle for life to put off death against the action of merely lying down waiting for death. c. "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;" (Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet) Shakespeare uses juxtaposition commonly in his play "Romeo and Juliet". We notice the juxtaposition of "light and "darkness" repeatedly. Here, the radiant face of Juliet is juxtaposed with a black African's dark skin.

Irony

Function: To convey complexity. It brings added meanings to a situation. Definition: To use a word in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the word. (1) verbal irony - when the words literally state the opposite of the writer's (or speaker's) meaning (2) situational irony - when events turn out the opposite of what was expected; when what the characters and readers think ought to happen is not what does happen (3) dramatic irony - when facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or piece of fiction but known to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work. Examples: from real life - a. I posted a video on YouTube about how boring and useless YouTube is. b. The name of Britain's biggest dog was "Tiny". c. You laugh at a person who slipped stepping on a banana peel and the next thing you know, you slipped too. other examples - a. "This plan means that one generation pays for another. Now that's just dandy." (Huey P. Long) b. "By Spring, if God was good, all the proud privileges of trench lice, mustard gas, spattered brains, punctured lungs, ripped guts, asphyxiation, mud and gangrene might be his." (Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward Angel) c. "Go ask his name: if he be married. My grave is like to be my wedding bed." (from Romeo & Juliet) dramatic irony - the audience knows she is going to die but she doesn't d. CASSIUS: "'tis true this god did shake" (from Julius Caesar) Cassius calls Caesar a god, even though he knows his mortal flaws e. "Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink." (Rime of the Ancient Mariner) a ship stranded at sea

Parallelism

Function: To create a memorable, powerful effect to reinforce an idea; to show balance or equal importance/value of ideas. It can be used as a tool for persuasion because of the repetition it uses. To create a memorable, powerful effect to reinforce an idea; to show balance or equal importance/value of ideas Definition: The use of components in a sentence that are grammatically the same; or similar in their construction, sound, meaning or meter. The similarity in structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses. Equivalent things that are set forth in coordinate grammatical structures. (A type of scheme - Scheme of Balance) Examples: common usage - Like father, like son. The escaped prisoner was wanted dead or alive. Easy come, easy go. Flying is fast, comfortable, and safe. In literature - a. "To err is human; to forgive divine." (Alexander Pope) antithetical parallelism - b. "Good we must love, and must hate ill, For ill is ill, and good good still; But there are things indifferent, Which we may neither hate, nor love, But one, and then another prove, As we shall find our fancy bent." (John Donne) c. "...for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" (The Declaration of Independence) d. "What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?" (William Blake, "The Tyger") The use of parallel structures, starting with "what", creates a beautiful rhythm in the above lines. e. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." (Charles Dickens, "The Tale of Two Cities") By repeating "It was..." in the passage, the readers are prompted to focus on the traits of the "age" they will read about in the succeeding passages.

Imagery

Function: To generate a vibrant and graphic presentation of a scene that appeals to as many of the reader's senses as possible. To aid the reader to envision the characters and scenes in the literary piece clearly. Imagery beautifies a piece of literature. Definition: The sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions. The word or words that create a picture in the reader's mind. Usually this involves the five senses. Authors often use imagery in conjunction with metaphors, similes, or figures of speech Examples: - It was dark and dim in the forest. - The words "dark" and "dim" are visual images. - The children were screaming and shouting in the fields. - "Screaming" and "shouting" appeal to our sense of hearing or auditory sense. - He whiffed the aroma of brewed coffee. - "whiff" and "aroma" evoke our sense of smell or olfactory sense. "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;" (Shakespeare) Romeo praises Juliet by saying that she appears more radiant than the brightly lit torches in the hall. He says that at night her face glows like a bright jewel shining against the dark skin of an African. Through the contrasting images of light and dark, Romeo portrays Juliet's beauty. "Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies." The animal sounds in the above excerpt keep appealing to our sense of hearing. We hear the lamb bleating and the crickets chirping. We hear the whistles of the redbreast robin and the twitters of swallows in the sing. Keats call these sounds as the song of autumn.

Synecdoche

Function: To give otherwise common ideas and objects deeper meanings and thus draw readers' attention. It also helps writers to achieve brevity. Definition: A figure of speech in which a part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to represent a part. It may also use larger groups to refer to smaller groups or vice versa. It may also call a thing by the name of the material it is made of or it may refer to a thing in a container or packing by the name of that container or packing.(NOTE similar to metonymy - but here the piece is actually part of the whole or v.v.) Examples: common usage - The word "bread" refers to food or money. The phrase "gray beard" refers to an old man. The word "sails" refers to a whole ship. The word "suits" refers to businessmen. The word "boots" usually refers to soldiers. The term "coke" is a common synecdoche for all carbonated drinks. in Literature - a. "The western wave was all a-flame. The day was well was nigh done! Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright Sun" (Coleridge) the western wave represents the sea b. "O no! It is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken." (Shakespeare) ever-fixed mark refers to a lighthouse c. "Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them." (Shelly) the hand = the sculptor d. "At midnight I went on deck, and to my mate's great surprise put the ship round on the other tack. His terrible whiskers flitted round me in silent criticism." whiskers= his mate

Imperative sentence

Function: To issue a command. Definition: A type of sentence that issues a command or gives instructions or advice. Usually starts with the base form of the verb without the subject (which is understood.) Examples: "Go now!" "Go ahead, make my day." "Don't go outside!"

Metaphor / Extended metaphor

Function: To make a pointed comparison, often a very powerful comparison. They appeal directly to the senses of listeners or readers, sharpening their imaginations to comprehend what is being communicated to them. Metaphors are also ways of thinking, offering the listeners and the readers fresh ways of examining ideas and viewing the world. Definition: It makes an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things that are unrelated but share some common characteristics. In other words, a resemblance of two contradictory or different objects is made based on a single or some common characteristics.; A figure of speech that refers, for rhetorical effect, to one thing by mentioning another thing. It may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas. Where a simile compares two items, a metaphor directly equates them, and does not use "like" or "as" as does a simile. Examples: in common usage - a. My brother was boiling mad. b. The assignment was a breeze. c. It is going to be clear skies from now on. Literary usage - a. "She is all states, and all princes, I." (John Donne) This line demonstrates the speaker's belief that he and his beloved are richer than all states, kingdoms, and rulers in the entire world because of the love that they share. b. "Shall I Compare Thee to a summer's Day" (William Shakespeare) This sonnet is an extended metaphor between the love of the speaker and the fairness of the summer season. c. "before high-pil'd books, in charact'ry / Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain" (John Keats) Keats has tuberculosis and writes of life and death. This is a double-metaphor. Writing poetry is implicitly compared with reaping and sowing, and both these acts represent the emptiness of a life unfulfilled creatively. d. "All the world's a stage.." (The world is not literally a stage. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world and a stage to convey an understanding about the mechanics of the world and the behavior of the people within it.) e. "With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood." (Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream)

Oxymoron

Function: To produce dramatic effect. For instance, when we read the famous oxymoron, "sweet sorrow", (Shakespeare) it appeals to us instantly. It provokes our thoughts and makes us ponder on the meaning of contradicting ideas. This apparently confusing phrase expresses a complex nature of love that could never be expressed through any other simple expression. In everyday conversation, however, people use oxymorons to show wit. It adds flavor to their speech. Definition: two opposite ideas are joined to create an effect. The common oxymoron phrase is a combination of an adjective proceeded by a noun with contrasting meanings, e.g. "cruel kindness" or "living death". However, the contrasting words/phrases are not always glued together. The contrasting ideas may be spaced out in a sentence, e.g. "In order to lead, you must walk behind." (NOTE- Similar to a paradox except that a paradox may consist of a sentence or even a group of sentences while an oxymoron is a combination of two contradictory or opposite words. Also an oxymoron does not make sense , but a paradox does contain an implied truth.) Examples: commonly used - Open secret Tragic comedy Seriously funny Awfully pretty Foolish wisdom Original copies Liquid gas In literature - a. "Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O anything, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this. Dost thou not laugh?" (Shakespeare, "Romeo & Juliet") b. "the shackles of love straiten'd him His honour rooted in dishonoured stood And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true" (Tennyson) "shackles... straiten'd", "honour... dishonour", "faith unfaithful" and "falsely true". c. "I find no peace, and all my war is done I fear and hope, I burn and freeze like ice, I flee above the wind, yet can I not arise;" (Petrarch) "war...peace", "burn ....freeze", and "flee above...not rise" a. "The unheard sounds came through, each melodic line existed of itself, stood out clearly from all the rest, said its piece, and waiting patiently for the other voices to speak." --Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man b. "cruel kindness"; "visible darkness"

Satire

Function: To ridicule, criticize and expose hypocrisy, wrong behaviors or vice. The writer considers it his obligation to expose these vices for the betterment of humanity. Therefore, the function of satire is not to make others laugh at persons or ideas they make fun of. It intends to warn the public and to change their opinions about the prevailing corruption/conditions in society. Definition: To expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule. It tries to improve humanity by criticizing its follies and foibles. A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule. Examples: a. "If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it." (Stephen Colbert) b. from Mark Twain's "Hucleberry Finn" - "What's the use you learning to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and isn't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?" - "There warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different." - "The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is-a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness." c. "Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Or some frail china jar receive a flaw, Or stain her honor, or her new brocade" (Alexander Pope) He is mocking the upper middle class of 18th century England - For Belinda, the loss of her virtue becomes equal to a China jar being cracked. Trivial things are thought of as important things. d. "that for above seventy Moons past there have been two struggling Parties in this Empire, under the Names of Tramecksan and Slamecksan from the high and low Heels on their shoes, by which they distinguish themselves." (Johnathon Swift, "Gulliver's Travels") He is mocking party politics.

Litotes

Function: To use ironical understatement in order to emphasize an idea or situation rather than minimizing its importance. A unique way to attract people's attention to an idea by ignoring it. Definition: The deliberate use of understatement by using double negatives. An intentional use of understatement that renders an ironical effect. Examples: common everyday usage - a. They do not seem the happiest couple around. b. The ice cream was not too bad. c. A million dollars is not a little amount. The above litotes add emphasis to the ideas rather than decrease their importance. This is due to the ironical effect produced by the understatement. In literature - a. "Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her appearance for the worse." (Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub) b. "It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain." (Catcher in the Rye) c. "Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of the others." (Frederick Douglas d. "She's not as young as she was." (she's old!) e. "It's just a flesh wound!" (Monty Python - my arm has been severed from my body.)

Periodic sentence

Function: Used for emphasis and can be persuasive by putting reasons for something at the beginning before the final point is made. It can also create suspense or interest for the reader. Definition: A type of sentence structure in which the main idea is not completed until the end of the sentence. The writer begins with subordinate elements and postpones the main clause. Examples: a. "His confidence broken, he doubted whether he could ever again appear before an audience." b. "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Metonymy

Function: Used in developing literary symbolism i.e. it gives more profound meanings to otherwise common ideas and objects. Helps exhibit deeper or hidden meanings and thus draw readers' attention. In addition, the use of metonymy helps achieve conciseness. Definition: It replaces the name of a thing with the name of something else with which it is closely associated. Substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant. (NOTE- similar to synecdoche - but here the representation is not actually part of the thing actually meant) Examples: a. The British crown has been plagued by scandal. (crown means the royal family) b. There is no word from the Pentagon on the new rumors from Afghanistan. (Pentagon means the defense department) c. The pen is mightier than the sword. (pen signifies written words, sword is military force) d. "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." (Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar") ears means attention e. "I'm mighty glad Georgia waited till after Christmas before it secedes or it would have ruined the Christmas parties." (Margaret Mitchel, "Gone with the Wind") Georgia stands for everything that makes up the state: citizens, politicians, government etc. f. "As he swung toward them holding up the hand Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from spilling" (Robert Frost, "Out, Out") life means blood