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Since antithesis is intended to be a figure of speech, such statements are not meant to be understood in a literal manner. Here are some examples of antithesis used in everyday speech: Go big or go home. Spicy food is heaven on the tongue but hell in the tummy. Those who can, do; those who can’t do, teach. Get busy living or get busy dying.
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Antithesis is used in everyday speech, novels, poems, short stories, plays, and more. The rhetoricaldevice can be used in very different ways in order to achieve varied outcomes. Parallelism is an important part of antithesis. The structure of the words around the contrasting ideas is usually identical, at least in part. This allows the juxtaposedw...
Paradise Lost by John Milton
In John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost,’ there is a great example of antithesis in the first book. Satan was up in Hell, imprisoned alongside a fiery lake, and he uses these words: While speaking to Beelzebub, he says that it’s better to “reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.” Through this clever turn of phrase, he’s suggesting that he’d rather fulfill his role as “the devil” and control his own destiny than be under God’s thumb in Heaven. It’s important to remember when considering this quote that S...
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens’ famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities, has a wonderful example of antithesis at the beginning of the first chapter. Here is an excerpt from the novel that demonstrates, in several different ways, how the device might be used. The examples of antithesis are seen through the bolded words. “Best” contrasts with “worst” and “everything” with “nothing.” Through the use of this technique, Dickens is able to highlight the different perspectives and conflictsthat are going to arise in t...
Community by John Donne
In this lesser-known Donne poem, the poet includes the following lines: He presents “love” alongside “hate” in addition to “good” alongside “ill.” By showing the reader both sides, he’s able to emphasize why “we” love what we love and why we hate what we hate. He goes on, to state that, in contrast, it is a matter of choice whether one hates or loves the “things indifferent.” Read more of John Donne’s famous poems.
Antithesis is similar to juxtaposition in that they are both concerned with opposites and contrasting terms. When two ideas are juxtaposed, they are placed next to one another but not necessarily to create a relationship between the two. They may not have a more important meaning other than to add interest to the text.
Antithesis is also often confused with an oxymoron. The latter occurs when two words that contradict one another are placed together in order to reveal a deeper truth. For example, “sweet sorrow” or “living dead.” These are stand-alone statements in which two words that don’t seem to belong together are placed next to one another and then make sens...
Oxymoron: a kind of figurative languagein which two contrasting things are connected together.Simile: a comparisonbetween two unlike things that uses the words “like” or “as”.Listen: Antithesis—Why Opposites AttractWatch: Oxymoron Definition and ExamplesWatch: ‘To be or not to be’ Hamlet SpeechAntithesis is a figure of speech that juxtaposes two contrasting or opposing ideas, usually within parallel grammatical structures. For instance, Neil Armstrong used antithesis when he stepped onto the surface of the moon in 1969 and said, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." This is an example of antithesis because ...
In literary analysis, an antithesis is a pair of statements or images in which the one reverses the other. The pair is written with similar grammatical structures to show more contrast. Antithesis (pronounced an-TITH-eh-sis) is used to emphasize a concept, idea, or conclusion. II. Examples of Antithesis.
May 17, 2021 · Examples of Antithesis in Poetry. Some authors use antithesis extensively, while others may be less pronounced, or lack antithesis completely. The following examples show clear use of antithesis by various poets, both contemporary and classical. 1. "Lessons from the Wildflower" by Chitrangada Sharan.
For example, the following famous Muhammad Ali quote is an example of antithesis: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”. This is an antithesis example because there is the contrast between the animals and their actions (the peaceful floating butterfly versus the aggressive stinging bee) combined with the parallel grammatical structure ...
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Antithesis. Contrasting or combining two terms, phrases, or clauses with opposite meanings. William Blake pits love’s competing impulses—selflessness and self-interest—against each other in his poem “The Clod and the Pebble.”. Love “builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair,” or, antithetically, it “builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite
