antithesis syntax sentence

Antithesis Definition

What is antithesis? Here’s a quick and simple definition:

Antithesis 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 the two halves of the sentence mirror each other in grammatical structure, while together the two halves emphasize the incredible contrast between the individual experience of taking an ordinary step, and the extraordinary progress that Armstrong's step symbolized for the human race.

Some additional key details about antithesis:

• Antithesis works best when it is used in conjunction with parallelism (successive phrases that use the same grammatical structure), since the repetition of structure makes the contrast of the content of the phrases as clear as possible.
• The word "antithesis" has another meaning, which is to describe something as being the opposite of another thing. For example, "love is the antithesis of selfishness." This guide focuses only on antithesis as a literary device.
• The word antithesis has its origins in the Greek word antithenai , meaning "to oppose." The plural of antithesis is antitheses.

How to Pronounce Antithesis

Here's how to pronounce antithesis: an- tith -uh-sis

Antithesis and Parallelism

Often, but not always, antithesis works in tandem with parallelism . In parallelism, two components of a sentence (or pair of sentences) mirror one another by repeating grammatical elements. The following is a good example of both antithesis and parallelism:

To err is human , to forgive divine .

The two clauses of the sentence are parallel because each starts off with an infinitive verb and ends with an adjective ("human" and "divine"). The mirroring of these elements then works to emphasize the contrast in their content, particularly in the very strong opposite contrast between "human" and "divine."

Antithesis Without Parallelism

In most cases, antitheses involve parallel elements of the sentence—whether a pair of nouns, verbs, adjectives, or other grammar elements. However, it is also possible to have antithesis without such clear cut parallelism. In the Temptations Song "My Girl," the singer uses antithesis when he says:

"When it's cold outside , I've got the month of May ."

Here the sentence is clearly cut into two clauses on either side of the comma, and the contrasting elements are clear enough. However, strictly speaking there isn't true parallelism here because "cold outside" and "month of May" are different types of grammatical structures (an adjective phrase and a noun phrase, respectively).

Antithesis vs. Related Terms

Three literary terms that are often mistakenly used in the place of antithesis are juxtaposition , oxymoron , and foil . Each of these three terms does have to do with establishing a relationship of difference between two ideas or characters in a text, but beyond that there are significant differences between them.

Antithesis vs. Juxtaposition

In juxtaposition , two things or ideas are placed next to one another to draw attention to their differences or similarities. In juxtaposition, the pairing of two ideas is therefore not necessarily done to create a relationship of opposition or contradiction between them, as is the case with antithesis. So, while antithesis could be a type of juxtaposition, juxtaposition is not always antithesis.

Antithesis vs. Oxymoron

In an oxymoron , two seemingly contradictory words are placed together because their unlikely combination reveals a deeper truth. Some examples of oxymorons include:

• Sweet sorrow
• Cruel kindness
• Living dead

The focus of antithesis is opposites rather than contradictions . While the words involved in oxymorons seem like they don't belong together (until you give them deeper thought), the words or ideas of antithesis do feel like they belong together even as they contrast as opposites. Further, antitheses seldom function by placing the two words or ideas right next to one another, so antitheses are usually made up of more than two words (as in, "I'd rather be among the living than among the dead").

Antithesis vs. Foil

Some Internet sources use "antithesis" to describe an author's decision to create two characters in a story that are direct opposites of one another—for instance, the protagonist and antagonist . But the correct term for this kind of opposition is a foil : a person or thing in a work of literature that contrasts with another thing in order to call attention to its qualities. While the sentence "the hare was fast, and the tortoise was slow" is an example of antithesis, if we step back and look at the story as a whole, the better term to describe the relationship between the characters of the tortoise and the hare is "foil," as in, "The character of the hare is a foil of the tortoise."

Antithesis Examples

Antithesis in literature.

Below are examples of antithesis from some of English literature's most acclaimed writers — and a comic book!

Antithesis in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities

In the famous opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities , Dickens sets out a flowing list of antitheses punctuated by the repetition of the word "it was" at the beginning of each clause (which is itself an example of the figure of speech anaphora ). By building up this list of contrasts, Dickens sets the scene of the French Revolution that will serve as the setting of his tale by emphasizing the division and confusion of the era. The overwhelming accumulation of antitheses is also purposefully overdone; Dickens is using hyperbole to make fun of the "noisiest authorities" of the day and their exaggerated claims. The passage contains many examples of antithesis, each consisting of one pair of contrasting ideas that we've highlighted to make the structure clearer.

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 —in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Antithesis in John Milton's Paradise Lost

In this verse from Paradise Lost , Milton's anti-hero , Satan, claims he's happier as the king of Hell than he could ever have been as a servant in Heaven. He justifies his rebellion against God with this pithy phrase, and the antithesis drives home the double contrast between Hell and Heaven, and between ruling and serving.

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

Antithesis in William Shakespeare's Othello

As the plot of Othello nears its climax , the antagonist of the play, Iago, pauses for a moment to acknowledge the significance of what is about to happen. Iago uses antithesis to contrast the two opposite potential outcomes of his villainous plot: either events will transpire in Iago's favor and he will come out on top, or his treachery will be discovered, ruining him.

This is the night That either makes me or fordoes me quite .

In this passage, the simple word "either" functions as a cue for the reader to expect some form of parallelism, because the "either" signals that a contrast between two things is coming.

Antithesis in William Shakespeare's Hamlet

Shakespeare's plays are full of antithesis, and so is Hamlet's most well-known "To be or not to be" soliloquy . This excerpt of the soliloquy is a good example of an antithesis that is not limited to a single word or short phrase. The first instance of antithesis here, where Hamlet announces the guiding question (" to be or not to be ") is followed by an elaboration of each idea ("to be" and "not to be") into metaphors that then form their own antithesis. Both instances of antithesis hinge on an " or " that divides the two contrasting options.

To be or not to be , that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them ...

Antithesis in T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets"

In this excerpt from his poem "Four Quartets," T.S. Eliot uses antithesis to describe the cycle of life, which is continuously passing from beginning to end, from rise to fall, and from old to new.

In my beginning is my end . In succession Houses rise and fall , crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building , old timber to new fires ...

Antithesis in Green Lantern's Oath

Comic book writers know the power of antithesis too! In this catchy oath, Green Lantern uses antithesis to emphasize that his mission to defeat evil will endure no matter the conditions.

In brightest day , in blackest night , No evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might Beware my power—Green lantern's light!

While most instances of antithesis are built around an "or" that signals the contrast between the two parts of the sentence, the Green Lantern oath works a bit differently. It's built around an implied "and" (to be technical, that first line of the oath is an asyndeton that replaces the "and" with a comma), because members of the Green Lantern corps are expressing their willingness to fight evil in all places, even very opposite environments.

Antithesis in Speeches

Many well-known speeches contain examples of antithesis. Speakers use antithesis to drive home the stakes of what they are saying, sometimes by contrasting two distinct visions of the future.

Antithesis in Patrick Henry's Speech to the Second Virginia Convention, 1775

This speech by famous American patriot Patrick Henry includes one of the most memorable and oft-quoted phrases from the era of the American Revolution. Here, Henry uses antithesis to emphasize just how highly he prizes liberty, and how deadly serious he is about his fight to achieve it.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take: but as for me, give me liberty or give me death .

Antithesis in Martin Luther King Jr.'s Oberlin Commencement Address

In this speech by one of America's most well-known orators, antithesis allows Martin Luther King Jr. to highlight the contrast between two visions of the future; in the first vision, humans rise above their differences to cooperate with one another, while in the other humanity is doomed by infighting and division.

We must all learn to live together as brothers —or we will all perish together as fools .

Antithesis in Songs

In songs, contrasting two opposite ideas using antithesis can heighten the dramatic tension of a difficult decision, or express the singer's intense emotion—but whatever the context, antithesis is a useful tool for songwriters mainly because opposites are always easy to remember, so lyrics that use antithesis tend to stick in the head.

Antithesis in "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash (1981)

In this song by The Clash, the speaker is caught at a crossroads between two choices, and antithesis serves as the perfect tool to express just how confused and conflicted he is. The rhetorical question —whether to stay or to go—presents two opposing options, and the contrast between his lover's mood from one day (when everything is "fine") to the next (when it's all "black") explains the difficulty of his choice.

One day it's fine and next it's black So if you want me off your back Well, come on and let me know Should I stay or should I go ? Should I stay or should I go now? Should I stay or should I go now? If I go, there will be trouble If I stay it will be double ...

Antithesis in "My Girl" by the Temptations (1965)

In this song, the singer uses a pair of metaphors to describe the feeling of joy that his lover brings him. This joy is expressed through antithesis, since the singer uses the miserable weather of a cloudy, cold day as the setting for the sunshine-filled month of May that "his girl" makes him feel inside, emphasizing the power of his emotions by contrasting them with the bleak weather.

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day When it's cold outside I've got the month of May Well I guess you'd say, What can make me feel this way? My girl, my girl, my girl Talkin' bout my girl.

Why Do Writers Use Antithesis?

Fundamentally, writers of all types use antithesis for its ability to create a clear contrast. This contrast can serve a number of purposes, as shown in the examples above. It can:

• Present a stark choice between two alternatives.
• Convey magnitude or range (i.e. "in brightest day, in darkest night" or "from the highest mountain, to the deepest valley").
• Express strong emotions.
• Create a relationship of opposition between two separate ideas.
• Accentuate the qualities and characteristics of one thing by placing it in opposition to another.

Whatever the case, antithesis almost always has the added benefit of making language more memorable to listeners and readers. The use of parallelism and other simple grammatical constructions like "either/or" help to establish opposition between concepts—and opposites have a way of sticking in the memory.

Other Helpful Antithesis Resources

• The Wikipedia page on Antithesis : A useful summary with associated examples, along with an extensive account of antithesis in the Gospel of Matthew.
• Sound bites from history : A list of examples of antithesis in famous political speeches from United States history — with audio clips!
• A blog post on antithesis : This quick rundown of antithesis focuses on a quote you may know from Muhammad Ali's philosophy of boxing: "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

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Definition of Antithesis

Antithesis is a literary device that refers to the juxtaposition of two opposing elements through the parallel grammatical structure. The word antithesis, meaning absolute opposite, is derived from Greek for “ setting opposite,” indicating when something or someone is in direct contrast or the obverse of another thing or person.

Antithesis is an effective literary and rhetorical device , as it pairs exact opposite or contrasting ideas by utilizing the parallel grammatical structure. This helps readers and audience members define concepts through contrast and develop an understanding of something through defining its opposite. In addition, through the use of parallelism , antithesis establishes a repetitive structure that makes for rhythmic writing and lyrical speech.

For example, Alexander Pope states in  An Essay on Criticism , “ To err is human ; to forgive divine.” Pope’s use of antithesis reflects the impact of this figure of speech in writing, as it creates a clear, memorable, and lyrical effect for the reader. In addition, Pope sets human error in contrast to divine forgiveness, allowing readers to understand that it is natural for people to make mistakes, and therefore worthy for others to absolve them when they do.

Examples of Antithesis in Everyday Speech

Antithesis is often used in everyday speech as a means of conveying opposing ideas in a concise and expressive way. 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.
• Speech is silver but silence is gold.
• No pain, no gain.
• It’s not a show, friends; it’s show business.
• No guts, no glory.
• A moment on the lips; a lifetime on the hips.
• If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.

Common Examples of Antithesis from Famous Speeches

Antithesis can be an effective rhetorical device in terms of calling attention to drastic differences between opposing ideas and concepts. By highlighting the contrast side-by-side with the exact same structure, the speaker is able to impact an audience in a memorable and significant way. Here are some common examples of antithesis from famous speeches:

• “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character .” (Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream”)
• “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” (Abraham Lincoln “The Gettysburg Address”)
• “‘Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.'” (Edward Kennedy quoting Robert F. Kennedy during eulogy )
• “We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change.” (John F. Kennedy “Presidential Inaugural Speech”)
• “You see, for any champion to succeed, he must have a team — a very incredible, special team; people that he can depend on, count on, and rely upon through everything — the highs and lows, the wins and losses, the victories and failures, and even the joys and heartaches that happen both on and off the court.” (Michael Chang “ Induction Speech for Tennis Hall of Fame”)

Examples of Proverbs Featuring Antithesis

Proverbs are simple and often traditional sayings that express insight into truths that are perceived, based on common sense or experience. These sayings are typically intended to be metaphorical and therefore rely on figures of speech such as antithesis. Proverbs that utilize antithetical parallelism feature an antithesis to bring together opposing ideas in defined contrast. Therefore, antithesis is effective as a literary device in proverbs by allowing the reader to consider one idea and then it’s opposite. It also makes for lyrical and easily remembered sayings.

Here are some examples of proverbs featuring antithesis:

• Cleanliness is next to godliness.
• Beggars can’t be choosers.
• Easy come, easy go.
• Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.
• Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer.
• Like father, like son.
• Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
• An ounce of protection is worth a pound of cure.
• Be slow in choosing, but slower in changing.
• Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.
• If you can’t beat them, join them.
• Keep your mouth closed and your eyes open.
• One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
• Out of sight, out of mind.
• Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Utilizing Antithesis in Writing

As a literary device, antithesis allows authors to add contrast to their writing. This is effective in terms of comparing two contrasting ideas, such as a character’s conflicting emotions or a setting’s opposing elements. In literature, antithesis doesn’t require a pairing of exact opposites, but rather concepts that are different and distinct. In addition, since antithesis creates a lyrical quality to writing through parallel structure , the rhythm of phrasing and wording should be as similar as possible. Like most literary and rhetorical devices, overuse of antithesis will create confusion or invoke boredom in a reader as well as make the writing seem forced.

Antithesis and Parallelism

Both terms demonstrate a fundamental difference. An antithesis comprises two contradictory ideas and parallelism does not necessarily comprise opposite ideas or persons. It could have more than two ideas or persons. As the name suggests that parallelism is a condition where is an antithesis is an opposition. For example, man proposes, God disposes, has two contradictory ideas. However, it is also a parallel sentence . Furthermore, parallelism occurs mostly in structure and less in ideas. Even similar ideas could occur in parallelism, while an antithesis has only dissimilar ideas.

Antithesis and Juxtaposition

As far as juxtaposition is concerned, it means placing two ideas together that are dissimilar. They need not be opposite to each other. In the case of antithesis, they must be opposite to each other as in the case of man proposes, God disposes. Not only these two ideas are dissimilar, but also they are opposite. In the case of juxtaposition, a poet only puts two ideas together and they are not opposed to each other.

Use of Antithesis in Sentences  

• As soon he dies, he becomes a dead living.
• Most people do not understand the value of money when the poor put money ahead of them.
• Some people make money, while some waste it.
• Although they have gone leaps ahead, they have also stepped back just in the nick of time.
• The public comes forward when there is prosperity and moves back when there is adversity.

Examples of Antithesis in Literature

Antithesis is an effective literary device and figure of speech in which a writer intentionally juxtaposes two contrasting ideas or entities. Antithesis is typically achieved through parallel structure, in which opposing concepts or elements are paired in adjacent phrases , clauses , or sentences. This draws the reader’s attention to the significance or importance of the agents being contrasted, thereby adding a memorable and meaningful quality to the literary work.

Here are some examples of antithesis in well-known works of literature:

Example 1:  Hamlet (William Shakespeare)

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice ; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

In Shakespeare’s well-known play , he utilizes antithesis as a literary device for Polonius to deliver fatherly advice to his son before Laertes leaves for France. In these lines, Polonius pairs contrasting ideas such as listening and speaking using parallel structure. This adds a lyrical element to the wording, in addition to having a memorable and foreboding impact on the characters and audience members with the meaning of each line.

Despite the attempt by Polonius to impart logical thinking, measured response, and wise counsel to his son through antithesis, Laertes becomes so fixated on avenging his father’s death that his actions are impulsive and imprudent. Polonius’s antithetical words are not heeded by his son, resulting in the death of several characters including Hamlet and Laertes himself.

Example 2:  Paradise Lost  (John Milton)

Here at least We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

In Milton’s epic poem , he explores the Fall of Satan as well as the temptation and subsequent Fall of Man. This passage is spoken by Satan after he has been condemned to Hell by God for attempting to assume power and authority in Heaven. Satan is unrepentant of his actions, and wants to persuade his followers that Hell is preferable to Heaven.

Satan utilizes antithesis in the last line of this passage to encourage his rebellious followers to understand that, in Hell, they are free and rule their own destiny. In this line, Milton contrasts not just the ideas of Hell and Heaven, but also of reign and servitude as concepts applied to the angels , respectively. Pairing these opposites by using this literary device has two effects for the reader. First, Satan’s claim foreshadows his ability to use his words describing independence to tempt Eve, resulting in her and Adam’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Second, this antithesis invites the reader to consider Satan’s thought-process and experience to gain a deeper understanding of his motives in the poem.

Example 3:  Fire and Ice  (Robert Frost)

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

In his poem, Frost utilizes antithesis to contrast fire and ice as elements with devastating and catastrophic potential to end the world. Frost effectively demonstrates the equal powers for the destruction of these elements, despite showcasing them as opposing forces. In this case, the poet’s antithesis has a literal as well as figurative interpretation. As the poem indicates, the world could literally end in the fire as well as ice. However, fire and ice are contrasting symbols in the poem as well. Fire represents “desire,” most likely in the form of greed, the corruption of power, domination, and control. Conversely, ice represents “hate” in the form of prejudice, oppression, neglect, and isolation.

The presence of antithesis in the poem is effective for readers in that it evokes contrasting and powerful imagery of fire and ice as opposing yet physically destructive forces. In addition, the human characteristics associated with fire and ice, and what they represent as psychologically and socially destructive symbols, impact the reader in a powerful and memorable way as well. Antithesis elevates for the reader the understanding that the source of the end of the world may not be natural causes but rather human action or behavior; and that the end of the world may not be simply the destruction of the earth, but rather the destruction of humankind.

Example 4: The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives so that nation might live.

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

These three examples from the address of Abraham Lincoln show the use of contradictory ideas put together in one sentence. They show how he mentions living and dead putting them side by side. This antithesis has helped Lincoln as well as America to come out of the ravages of the Civil War.

Function of Antithesis

An antithesis helps make an idea distinct and prominent when it contradicts another idea in the first part of the argument . This contrastive feature helps make readers make their argument solid, cogent, and eloquent. Sentences comprising anthesis also become easy to remember, quote, and recall when required. When an antithesis occurs in a text, it creates an argumentative atmosphere where a dialectic could take place and helps writers and speakers hook their audience easily with antithetical statements.

Synonyms of Antithesis

Antithesis has no exact synonyms but several words come closer in meanings such as opposite, reverse, converse, reversal, inverse, extreme, another side of the coin, or flip side or contrast.

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What is Antithesis? Definition, Examples of Antitheses in Writing

Home » The Writer’s Dictionary » What is Antithesis? Definition, Examples of Antitheses in Writing

Antithesis definition: Antithesis is a literary and rhetorical device where two seemingly contrasting ideas are expressed through parallel structure.

What is Antithesis?

What does antithesis mean? An antithesis is just that—an “anti” “thesis.” An antithesis is used in writing to express ideas that seem contradictory.

An antithesis uses parallel structure of two ideas to communicate this contradiction.

Example of Antithesis:

• “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” –Muhammad Ali

First, the structure is parallel. Each “side” of the phrase has the same number of words and the same structure. Each uses a verb followed by a simile.

Second, the contracting elements of a butterfly and a bee seem contradictory. That is, a butterfly is light and airy while a bee is sharp and stinging. One person (a boxer, in this case) should not be able to possess these two qualities—this is why this is an antithesis.

However, Ali is trying to express how a boxer must be light on his feet yet quick with his fist.

Modern Examples of Antithesis

• “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Through parallel structure, this quotation presents an antithesis. It seems contradictory that one action could be a “small step” and a “giant leap.”

However, this contradiction proposes that the action of landing on the moon might have just been a small physical step for the man Neil Armstrong, but it was a giant leap for the progress of mankind.

The Function of Antithesis

An antithesis stands out in writing. Because it uses parallel structure, an antithesis physically stands out when interspersed among other syntactical structures. Furthermore, an antithesis presents contrasting ideas that cause the reader or audience to pause and consider the meaning and purpose.

Oftentimes, the meaning of an antithesis is not overtly clear. That is, a reader or audience must evaluate the statement to navigate the meaning.

Writers utilize antitheses very sparingly. Since its purpose is to cause an audience to pause and consider the argument, it must be used with purpose and intent.

Antithesis Example from Literature

• “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…”

From the beginning, Dickens presents two contradictory ideas in this antithesis.

How can it be the “best” and the “worst” of times? These two “times” should not be able to coexist.

Similarly, how can the setting of this novel also take place during an “age of wisdom” and an “age of foolishness?”

The antithesis continues.

Dickens opens his with these lines to set the tone for the rest of the novel. Clearly, there are two sides to this story, two tales of what is the truth. These two “sides” should not function peacefully. And, in fact, they do not. That, after all, is the “tale of two cities.”

Dickens sets up this disparity to set the tone for his novel, which will explore this topic.

Summary: What is an Antithesis?

Define antithesis: An antithesis consists of contrasting concepts presented in parallel structure.

Writers use antithesis to create emphasis to communicate an argument.

• Note: The plural form of antithesis is antitheses.

Literary Devices

Literary devices, terms, and elements, definition of antithesis.

Antithesis is the use of contrasting concepts, words, or sentences within parallel grammatical structures. This combination of a balanced structure with opposite ideas serves to highlight the contrast between them. 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 of similes indicated by “like a.” Ali is indicating the contrasting skills necessary to be a good boxer.

Difference Between Antithesis and Juxtaposition

Antithesis is very similar to juxtaposition, as juxtaposition also sets two different things close to each other to emphasize the difference between them. However, juxtaposition does not necessarily deal with completely opposite ideas—sometimes the juxtaposition may be between two similar things so that the reader will notice the subtle differences. Juxtaposition also does not necessitate a parallel grammatical structure. The definition of antithesis requires this balanced grammatical structure.

Common Examples of Antithesis

The use of antithesis is very popular in speeches and common idioms, as the inherent contrasts often make antithesis quite memorable. Here are some examples of antithesis from famous speeches:

• “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.” –John F. Kennedy Jr.
• “We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” –Barack Obama
• “Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.” –Winston Churchill
• “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” –Abraham Lincoln

Significance of Antithesis in Literature

Antithesis can be a helpful tool for the author both to show a character’s mindset and to set up an argument. If the antithesis is something that the character is thinking, the audience can better understand the full scope of that character’s thoughts. While antithesis is not the most ubiquitous of literary devices, some authors use antithesis quite extensively, such as William Shakespeare. Many of his sonnets and plays include examples of antithesis.

Examples of Antithesis in Literature

HAMLET: To be, or not to be, that is the question— Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them?

( Hamlet by William Shakespeare)

Arguably the most famous six words in all of Shakespeare’s work are an example of antithesis. Hamlet considers the important question of “to be, or not to be.” In this line, he is considering the very nature of existence itself. Though the line is quite simple in form it contrasts these very important opposite states. Hamlet sets up his soliloquy with this antithesis and continues with others, including the contrast between suffering whatever fortune has to offer or opposing his troubles. This is a good example of Shakespeare using antithesis to present to the audience or readers Hamlet’s inner life and the range of his thinking.

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…

( A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens)

The opening paragraph of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities employs many different literary devices all at once. There are many examples of antithesis back-to-back, starting with the first contrast between “the best of times” and “the worst of times.” Each pair of contrasting opposites uses a parallel structure to emphasize their differences. Dickens uses these antithetical pairs to show what a tumultuous time it was during the setting of his book. In this case, the use of antithesis is a rhetorical device that foreshadows the conflicts that will be central to the novel.

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

( Catch-22 by Joseph Heller)

In Joseph Heller’s classic anti-war novel Catch-22 , Heller uses a specific type of humor in which antithetical statements show the true absurdity of war. This very famous quote explains the concept of the “Catch-22,” which became a popular idiomatic expression because of the book. In fact, this example is not so much an antithetical statement but instead an antithetical situation. That is to say, the two possible outcomes for Orr are opposite: either he’s deemed crazy and would thus not be forced to fly any more combat missions, or he’s sane and then would indeed have to fly them. However, the one situation negates the possibility of the other, as only a sane man would be clear-headed enough to ask not to fly more missions.

This case is not a difficult one, it requires no minute sifting of complicated facts, but it does require you to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant.

( To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee)

In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird , Atticus Finch is a lawyer representing Tom Robinson. Atticus presents the above statement to the jury, setting up an antithesis. He asserts that the case is not difficult and yet requires the jury to be absolutely sure of their decision. Atticus believes the case to have a very obvious conclusion, and hopes that the jury will agree with him, but he is also aware of the societal tensions at work that will complicate the case.

Test Your Knowledge of Antithesis

1. What is the correct antithesis definition? A. Using two very similar concepts and showing their subtle differences. B. Setting up a contrast between two opposite ideas or phrases in a balanced grammatical structure. C. Using words to convey an opposite meaning to their literal sense. [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #1″] Answer: B is the correct answer. A is one possible definition of juxtaposition, while C is one possible definition of irony.[/spoiler]

2. What is the difference between antithesis and juxtaposition? A. They are exactly the same device. B. They are completely different literary devices. C. Antithesis parallels opposite concepts, while juxtaposition sets up a comparison and contrast between two concepts that can be either similar or different. [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #2″] Answer: C is the correct answer.[/spoiler]

3. Which of the following quotes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth contains an example of antithesis? A. 

WITCHES: Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.

MACBETH: Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?

WITCHES: Something wicked this way comes.

[spoiler title=”Answer to Question #3″] Answer: A is the correct answer.[/spoiler]

4. Which of the following quotes from Heller’s Catch-22 contains an example of antithesis? A. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many counties can’t all be worth dying for. B. He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive. C. You’re inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #4″] Answer: B is the correct answer.[/spoiler]

Antithesis (Grammar and Rhetoric)

Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms

 Richard Nordquist

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Antithesis is a  rhetorical term for the juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases or clauses . Plural: antitheses . Adjective: antithetical .

In grammatical terms, antithetical statements are parallel structures . 

"A perfectly formed antithesis," says Jeanne Fahnestock, combines " isocolon , parison , and perhaps, in an inflected language, even homoeoteleuton ; it is an overdetermined figure . The aural patterning of the antithesis, its tightness and predictability, are critical to appreciating how the syntax of the figure can be used to force semantic opposites" ( Rhetorical Figures in Science , 1999).

From the Greek, "opposition"

Examples and Observations

• "Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing." (Goethe)
• "Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." (advertising slogan)
• "There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today." (Mignon McLaughlin, The Complete Neurotic's Notebook . Castle Books, 1981)
• "We notice things that don't work. We don't notice things that do. We notice computers, we don't notice pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don't notice books." (Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time . Macmillan, 2002)
• "Hillary has soldiered on, damned if she does, damned if she doesn't, like most powerful women, expected to be tough as nails and warm as toast at the same time." (Anna Quindlen, "Say Goodbye to the Virago." Newsweek , June 16, 2003)
• "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 , 1859)
• "Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours." (President Barack Obama, election night victory speech, November 7, 2012)
• "You're easy on the eyes Hard on the heart." (Terri Clark)
• "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools." (Martin Luther King, Jr., speech at St. Louis, 1964)
• "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." (Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address , 1863)
• "All the joy the world contains Has come through wishing happiness for others. All the misery the world contains Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself." (Shantideva)
• "The more acute the experience, the less articulate its expression." (Harold Pinter, "Writing for the Theatre," 1962)
• "And let my liver rather heat with wine Than my heart cool with mortifying groans." (Gratiano in The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare)
• Jack London's Credo "I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dryrot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." (Jack London, quoted by his literary executor, Irving Shepard, in an introduction to a 1956 collection of London's stories)
• Antithesis and Antitheton " Antithesis is the grammatical form of antitheton . Antitheton deals with contrasting thoughts or proofs in an argument ; Antithesis deals with contrasting words or ideas within a phrase, sentence, or paragraph." (Gregory T. Howard, Dictionary of Rhetorical Terms . Xlibris, 2010)
• Antithesis and Antonyms Antithesis as a figure of speech exploits the existence of many 'natural' opposites in the vocabularies of all languages. Small children filling in workbooks and adolescents studying for the antonyms section of the SAT learn to match words to their opposites and so absorb much vocabulary as pairs of opposed terms, connecting up to down and bitter to sweet, pusillanimous to courageous and ephemeral to everlasting. Calling these antonyms 'natural' simply means that pairs of words can have wide currency as opposites among users of a language outside any particular context of use. Word association tests give ample evidence of the consistent linking of opposites in verbal memory when subjects given one of a pair of antonyms most often respond with the other, 'hot' triggering 'cold' or 'long' retrieving 'short' (Miller 1991, 196). An antithesis as a figure of speech at the sentence level builds on these powerful natural pairs, the use of one in the first half of the figure creating the expectation of its verbal partner in the second half." (Jeanne Fahnestock, Rhetorical Figures in Science . Oxford University Press, 1999)
• Antithesis in Films - "Since . . . the quality of a scene or image is more vividly shown when set beside its opposite, it is not surprising to find antithesis in film . . .. There is a cut in Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick) from the yellow flickers of a flaming house to a still gray courtyard, lined with soldiers, and another from the yellow candles and warm browns of a gambling room to the cool grays of a terrace by moonlight and the Countess of Lyndon in white." (N. Roy Clifton, The Figure in Film . Associated University Presses, 1983) "It is clear that in every simile there is present both differences and likenesses, and both are a part of its effect. By ignoring differences, we find a simile and may perhaps find an antithesis in the same event, by ignoring likeness. . . . - "In The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges), a passenger boards a liner by tender. This was conveyed by the two vessels' whistling. We see a convulsive spurt of water and hear a desperate, soundless puff before the siren of the tender found its voice. There was a stuttering amazement, a drunken incoordination to these elaborate preliminaries, foiled by the liner's lofty unruffled burst of sounding steam. Here things that are like, in place, in sound, and in function, are unexpectedly contrasted. The commentary lies in the differences and gains force from the likeness." (N. Roy Clifton, The Figure in Film . Associated University Presses, 1983)
• Antithetical Observations of Oscar Wilde - “When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy.” ( The Picture of Dorian Gray , 1891) - “We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.” ("The Critic as Artist," 1991) - “Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.” ( The Soul of Man Under Socialism , 1891) - “Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.” ("The Critic as Artist," 1991)

Pronunciation: an-TITH-uh-sis

• The Top 20 Figures of Speech
• Figure of Speech: Definition and Examples
• What Is Anastrophe in Rhetoric?
• Ethopoeia (Rhetoric)
• Aposiopesis: The Broken Figure of Speech
• Pun: Definition and Examples in English
• Syncrisis (Rhetoric) Definition and Examples
• AP English Exam: 101 Key Terms
• Figure of Thought in Rhetoric
• Brief Introductions to Common Figures of Speech
• Prosopopoeia: Definition and Examples
• presence (rhetoric)
• Enumeratio (Enumeration)
• Definitions and Examples of Merisms in Rhetoric
• Gradatio (Rhetoric)
• Polyptoton (Rhetoric)

• Literary Terms
• Definition & Examples
• How to Use Antithesis

I. What is an Antithesis?

“Antithesis” literally means “opposite” – it is usually the opposite of a statement, concept, or idea. 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

That’s one small step for a man – one giant leap for mankind .  (Neil Armstrong, 1969)

In this example, Armstrong is referring to man walking on the moon. Although taking a step is an ordinary activity for most people, taking a step on the moon, in outer space, is a major achievement for all humanity.

To err is human ; to forgive , divine . (Alexander Pope)

This example is used to point out that humans possess both worldly and godly qualities; they can all make mistakes, but they also have the power to free others from blame.

The world will little note , nor long remember , what we say here, but it can never forget what they did  (Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address )

In his speech, Lincoln points out that the details of that moment may not be memorable, but the actions would make history, and therefore, never entirely forgotten.

Antithesis can be a little tricky to see at first. To start, notice how each of these examples is separated into two parts . The parts are separated either by a dash, a semicolon, or the word “but.” Antithesis always has this multi-part structure (usually there are two parts, but sometimes it can be more, as we’ll see in later examples). The parts are not always as obvious as they are in these examples, but they will always be there.

Next, notice how the second part of each example contains terms that reverse or invert terms in the first part: small step vs. giant leap; human vs. divine; we say vs. they do. In each of the examples, there are several pairs of contrasted terms between the first part and the second, which is quite common in antithesis.

Finally, notice that each of the examples contains some parallel structures and ideas in addition to the opposites. This is key! The two parts are not simply contradictory statements. They are a matched pair that have many grammatical structures or concepts in common; in the details, however, they are opposites.

For example, look at the parallel grammar of Example 1: the word “one,” followed by an adjective, a noun, and then the word “for.” This accentuates the opposites by setting them against a backdrop of sameness – in other words, two very different ideas are being expressed with very, very similar grammatical structures.

To recap: antithesis has three things:

• Two or more parts
• Reversed or inverted ideas
• (usually) parallel grammatical structure

III. The Importance of Verisimilitude

Antithesis is basically a complex form of juxtaposition . So its effects are fairly similar – by contrasting one thing against its opposite, a writer or speaker can emphasize the key attributes of whatever they’re talking about. In the Neil Armstrong quote, for example, the tremendous significance of the first step on the moon is made more vivid by contrasting it with the smallness and ordinariness of the motion that brought it about.

Antithesis can also be used to express curious contradictions or paradoxes. Again, the Neil Armstrong quote is a good example: Armstrong is inviting his listeners to puzzle over the fact that a tiny, ordinary step – not so different from the millions of steps we take each day – can represent so massive a technological accomplishment as the moon landing.

Paradoxically, an antithesis can also be used to show how two seeming opposites might in fact be similar.

IV. Examples of Verisimilitude in Literature

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Forgive us this day our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us . (The Lord’s Prayer)

The antithesis is doing a lot of work here. First, it shows the parallel between committing an evil act and being the victim of one. On the surface, these are opposites, and this is part of the antithesis, but at the same time they are, in the end, the same act from different perspectives. This part of the antithesis is basically just an expression of the Golden Rule.

Second, the antithesis displays a parallel between the speaker (a human) and the one being spoken to (God). The prayer is a request for divine mercy, and at the same time a reminder that human beings should also be merciful.

All the joy the world contains has come through wanting happiness for others . All the misery the world contains has come through wanting pleasure for yourself . (Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva )

The antithesis here comes with some pretty intense parallel structure. Most of the words in each sentence are exactly the same as those in the other sentence. (“All the ___ the world contains has come through wanting ____ for ____.”) This close parallel structure makes the antithesis all the more striking, since the words that differ become much more visible.

Another interesting feature of this antithesis is that it makes “pleasure” and “happiness” seem like opposites, when most of us might think of them as more or less synonymous. The quote makes happiness seem noble and exalted, whereas pleasure is portrayed as selfish and worthless.

The proper function of man is to live , not to exist . I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong  (Jack London, Credo )

The opening antithesis here gets its punch from the fact that we think of living and existing as pretty similar terms. But for London, they are opposites. Living is about having vivid experiences, learning, and being bold; simply existing is a dull, pointless thing. These two apparently similar words are used in this antithesis to emphasize the importance of living as opposed to mere existing.

The second antithesis, on the other hand, is just the opposite – in this case, London is taking two words that seem somewhat opposed (waste and prolong), and telling us that they are in fact the same . Prolonging something is making it last; wasting something is letting it run out too soon. But, says London, when it comes to life, they are the same. If you try too hard to prolong your days (that is, if you’re so worried about dying that you never face your fears and live your life), then you will end up wasting them because you will never do anything worthwhile.

V. Examples of Verisimilitude in Pop Culture

Everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee. (Sara Lee pastry advertisement)

This classic ad uses antithesis to set up a deliberate grammatical error. This is a common technique in advertising, since people are more likely to remember a slogan that is grammatically incorrect. (Even if they only remember it because they found it irritating, it still sticks in their brain, which is all that an ad needs to do.) The antithesis helps make the meaning clear, and throws the grammatical error into sharper relief.

What men must know , a boy must learn . (The Lookouts)

Here’s another example of how parallel structure can turn into antithesis fairly easily. (The structure is noun-“must”-verb. ) The antithesis also expresses the basic narrative of The Lookouts , which is all about kids learning to fend for themselves and become full-fledged adults.

Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes (the band “AFI” – album title)

The antithesis here is a juxtaposition of two different actions (opening and shutting) that are actually part of the same sort of behavior – the behavior of somebody who wants to understand the world rather than be the center of attention. It’s basically a restatement of the old adage that “those who speak the most often have the least to say.”

VI. Related Terms

• Juxtaposition

Antithesis is basically a form of juxtaposition . Juxtaposition, though, is a much broader device that encompasses any deliberate use of contrast or contradiction by an author. So, in addition to antithesis, it might include:

• The scene in “The Godfather” where a series of brutal murders is intercut with shots of a baptism, juxtaposing birth and death.
• “A Song of Ice and Fire” (George R. R. Martin book series)
• Heaven and Hell
• Mountains and the sea
• Dead or alive
• “In sickness and in health”

Antithesis performs a very similar function, but does so in a more complicated way by using full sentences (rather than single words or images) to express the two halves of the juxtaposition.

Here is an antithesis built around some of the common expressions from above

• “ Sheep go to Heaven ; goats go to Hell .”
• “Beethoven’s music is as mighty as the mountains and as timeless as the sea .”
• “In sickness he loved me; in health he abandoned ”

Notice how the antithesis builds an entire statement around the much simpler juxtaposition. And, crucially, notice that each of those statements exhibits parallel grammatical structure . In this way, both Juxtaposition and parallel structures can be used to transform a simple comparison, into antithesis.

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

What is Antithesis? Definition, Usage, and Literary Examples

Antithesis definition.

Antithesis  (ann-TIH-thuh-suhs), put simply, means the absolute opposite of something. As a literary term, it refers to the juxtaposition of two opposing entities in parallel structure. Antithesis is an effective literary device because humans tend to define through contrast. Therefore, antithesis can help readers understand something by defining its opposite.

Antithesis  comes from the Latin word, via Greek, for “to place against.” It was first used in English in the 1520s as rhetorical term, but the concept goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who believed an argument could be strengthened by illustrating it with contrast.

Examples of Antithesis

• “Spicy food is heaven on the tongue but hell in the tummy.” The concepts of heaven and hell are opposites—the former being very pleasant and ideal, the latter being highly undesirable. This antithetical statement is using these concepts to convey that spicy food is delicious, but it can lead to an unfortunate digestive reaction.
• “I’m either an impressive vegetarian or a disappointing vegan.” On the scale between vegetarianism and the stricter veganism, the speaker’s current diet lies somewhere in the middle. So, while a vegetarian might applaud their efforts, a vegan might berate them for being so lax.
• “Psychiatrists write prescriptions, therapists prescribe writing.” This example includes a humorous inversion to explain the difference between psychiatrists and therapists. The former prescribes medicine to address mental issues on a biological level, while the latter might suggest a more psychologically focused approach, like journaling, as a way of easing mental stress.

Antithesis vs. Other Comparative Terms

There are several literary terms that, like antithesis, make comparisons between two things or concepts that are opposites or contrast in some way. Three such terms are  dichotomy ,  oxymoron , and foil.

Dichotomy is a division between two entities, whereas antithesis pits two opposing entities against each other. For example, the colors black and white are considered opposites, but they are not in opposition; they can’t be in conflict nor do they cancel each other out. The concepts of war and peace, on the other hand, are at odds and can’t be reconciled.

An oxymoron is a contradiction in terms, but unlike antithesis, these terms are working together. The basic oxymoron construction is a word + an antonymic modifier, and the two essentially function as a single unit. For example, calling something a “minor crisis” is an oxymoron because  minor  implies something insignificant, while  crisis  means it requires immediate attention. Based on this, an oxymoron can’t be a component of antithesis because the point of the latter is to pit two things against each other.

Where antithesis is a verbal or written opposition, a foil is a literary opposition, usually embodied by a character in a narrative. For example, Draco Malfoy can be considered Harry Potter’s foil in the  Harry Potter  series because where Harry is honorable and loyal, Draco is somewhat corrupt and unfaithful.

Antithesis Outside of Literature

A common theme in American popular music is the difference between the middle and lower classes. In “Men of Good Fortune” by Lou Reed, the singer describes all the things rich men can do that poor men cannot:

Men of good fortune

Often cause empires to fall

While men of poor beginnings

Often can’t do anything at all

Antithesis is common in political speeches, particularly when it comes to the underrepresented pushing for equitable policies. In Malcolm X’s famous “ Ballot or the Bullet ”  speech, he discusses how America was built by Black and indigenous people for white people’s benefit, saying, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock; the rock was landed on us.”

Examples of Antithesis in Literature

1. Charles Dickens,  A Tale of Two Cities

This classic tale of love and sacrifice features the French Revolution as its backdrop. In this tumultuous era, where the differences between the haves and the have-nots was at its starkest, Dickens illustrates the antithetical concepts that existed simultaneously:

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 […]

2. William Shakespeare,  The Merchant of Venice

At the beginning of this romantic comedy, chatty lout Gratiano wants to understand why his friend Antonio is so down—and why anyone would ever be down at all:

And let my liver rather heat with wine

Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.

Gratiano is implying that he’d rather experience life through a chemically altered (and therefore unreliable) lens than face any ordeals, even though they would be truer to reality.

3. John Milton,  Paradise Lost

Milton’s epic poem explores many facets of the Christian bible and belief systems—including the concept of free will. When Lucifer, once one of God’s brightest angels, is cast into Hell, he says, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” This leads the reader to question whether anyone is truly free, though ultimately the Bible’s core argument is that willingly giving over control to God is what will leads to a happy life.

Further Resources on Antithesis

MasterClass’s  How to Use Antithesis in Your Writing  course is a concise guide on the mechanics of antithesis and when to use it.

This excerpt from  Hegel for Beginners  by Lloyd Spencer is a handy introduction to antithesis as a component of dialectics (a system for pursuing truth by way of logical argument).

Related Terms

• Juxtaposition

Antithesis Definition Antithesis, which literally means “opposite,” is a rhetorical device wherein opposite thoughts are prepare in a sentence to obtain a contrasting effect. Antithesis emphasizes the idea of assessment through parallel structures of the contrasted terms or clauses. The structures of terms and clauses are similar, so that it will draw the attention of the listeners or readers. For example: “Setting foot on the moon may be a small step for a person but a giant step for mankind.” The use of contrasting thoughts, “a small step” and “a massive step,” within the sentence above emphasizes the importance of one of the most important landmarks of human history. Common Antithesis Examples Some well-known antithetical statements have become part of our everyday speech, and are regularly used in arguments and discussions. Below is a listing of some commonplace antithetical statements: Give every man thy ear, however few thy voice. Man proposes, God disposes. Love is a really perfect thing, marriage a actual thing. Speech is silver, but silence is gold. Patience is bitter, however it has a sweet fruit. Money is the foundation of all evil: poverty is the fruit of all goodness. You are smooth on the eyes, but tough on the heart. Examples of Antithesis in Literature In literature, writers rent antithesis not simplest in sentences, but additionally in characters and events. Thus, its use is extensive. Below are a few examples of antithesis in literature: Example #1: A Tale of Two Cities (By Charles Dickens) The establishing lines of Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities provides an unforgettable antithesis example: “It become the first-class of times, it become the worst of times, it became the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it become the epoch of belief, it turned into the epoch of incredulity, it changed into the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it changed into the spring of hope, it was the wintry weather of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing earlier than us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the opposite way.” The contrasting thoughts, set in parallel structures, markedly spotlight the battle that existed within the time discussed in the novel. Example #2: Julius Caesar (By William Shakespeare) In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, we note antithesis within the characters of Mark Antony and Marcus Brutus. Brutus is portrayed as the “noblest of Romans,” near Caesar, and someone who cherished Rome and Caesar. Antony, at the contrary, is proven as a person with the evil intentions of harming Caesar, and taking charge of Rome. These antithetical characters spotlight the battle inside the play. Example #3: An Essay on Criticism (By Alexander Pope) Alexander Pope, in his An Essay on Criticism, says: “To err is human; to forgive divine.” Fallibility is a trait of humans, and God – the Creator – is most forgiving. Through those antithetical thoughts, Pope exhibits the simple nature of human beings. He wants to say that God is forgiving because his creation is erring. Example #4: Community (By John Donne) We find antithesis in John Donne’s poem Community: “Good we must love, and must hate ill, For unwell is ill, and correct desirable still; But there are things indifferent, Which we may neither hate, nor love, But one, and then another prove, As we shall discover our fancy bent.” Two contrasting words “love” and “hate” are combined within the above lines. It emphasizes that we love right due to the fact it is always top, and we hate bad due to the fact it's far always bad. It is a matter of desire to love or hate things that are neither good nor bad. Example #5: Paradise Lost (By John Milton) John Milton, in Paradise Lost, says: “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav’n.” The contrasting thoughts of reign/serve, and Hell/Heav’n are positioned on this sentence to acquire an antithetical effect. Function of Antithesis A literary tool, like antithesis, makes use of phrases to convey ideas in exceptional methods from the commonplace words and expressions of daily life. Thus, it conveys meaning greater vividly than regular speech. When contrasting thoughts are brought together, the concept is expressed extra emphatically. As a literary device, antithesis makes contrasts in an effort to observe pros and cons of a subject below discussion, and facilitates to bring on judgment on that precise subject.

• Alliteration
• Anachronism
• Antimetabole
• Aposiopesis
• Characterization
• Colloquialism
• Connotation
• Deus Ex Machina
• Didacticism
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Flash Forward
• Foreshadowing
• Internal Rhyme
• Juxtaposition
• Non Sequitur
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Poetic Justice
• Point of View
• Portmanteau
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Superlative
• Synesthesia
• Tragicomedy
• Tragic Flaw
• Verisimilitude

What is Antithesis? Examples of Antithesis in Literature and Speech

Antithesis is a rhetorical device that has been used for centuries to create contrast and emphasize ideas in speech and writing. It involves placing two contrasting ideas side by side, often using parallel grammatical structures, to highlight their differences. This technique can be used for various purposes, such as to create emphasis, create balance, or to make a point.

Table of Contents

Definition of Antithesis

Antithesis is a literary device that involves contrasting two opposing ideas or concepts in a sentence or passage in order to create a dramatic or rhetorical effect. The word “antithesis” comes from the Greek word “antithenai,” which means “to oppose.”

Antithesis can be used in a variety of ways, including through contrasting words, phrases, or clauses. This technique is often used in poetry, prose, and speeches to create a sense of tension and to emphasize the differences between two ideas.

In antithesis, two contrasting ideas are placed side by side in order to highlight their differences. This technique is often used to create a sense of balance in a sentence or passage. For example, consider the following sentence: “To be or not to be, that is the question.” In this sentence, the opposing ideas of existence and non-existence are contrasted in order to create a sense of tension and to emphasize the importance of the decision at hand.

Examples of Antithesis

Antithesis is a literary device that involves the use of contrasting ideas, words, or phrases in a parallel structure. Here are some examples of antithesis in literature, speeches, and advertising.

Antithesis in Literature

Antithesis is commonly used in literature to highlight the contrast between two opposing ideas or themes. One of the most famous examples of antithesis in literature is found in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities . The opening lines of the novel read:

“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 – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

The contrasting ideas of “best” and “worst,” “wisdom” and “foolishness,” “belief” and “incredulity,” and others are used to emphasize the stark differences between the two cities.

Antithesis in Speeches

Antithesis is also commonly used in speeches to create a memorable impact on the audience. One of the most famous examples of antithesis in a speech is from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech:

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

The contrasting ideas of “live together” and “perish together” are used to emphasize the importance of unity and brotherhood.

Antithesis in Advertising

Antithesis is also used in advertising to create memorable slogans and taglines. One example is the slogan for the car company BMW:

“The ultimate driving machine.”

The contrasting ideas of “ultimate” and “driving machine” are used to emphasize the high quality and performance of BMW cars.

In conclusion, antithesis is a powerful literary device that can be used in a variety of contexts to create memorable and impactful statements.

Antithesis vs. Juxtaposition

Antithesis and juxtaposition are two rhetorical devices that are often used in literature and speech. While they may seem similar, there are distinct differences between the two.

Antithesis is a rhetorical device that involves placing two contrasting ideas side by side in a sentence or phrase. The purpose of antithesis is to create a stark contrast between the two ideas, often to emphasize a point or to create a sense of tension or conflict.

For example, one famous example of antithesis comes from Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” This sentence contrasts two opposing ideas, highlighting the extreme differences between them.

Antithesis is often used in speeches and persuasive writing to create a memorable and impactful statement. However, it can also be used in more subtle ways to add depth and complexity to a piece of writing.

Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition, on the other hand, involves placing two ideas or objects next to each other in order to highlight their differences or similarities. Unlike antithesis, the two ideas or objects may not necessarily be opposing or contrasting.

For example, a writer might use juxtaposition to describe two characters in a story. By placing their descriptions side by side, the writer can highlight their differences and create a more vivid picture of each character.

Juxtaposition can also be used to create irony or humor. By placing two unlikely ideas or objects next to each other, a writer can create a sense of surprise or amusement.

In conclusion, while antithesis and juxtaposition are both rhetorical devices that involve placing two ideas or objects next to each other, they serve different purposes. Antithesis is used to create a contrast or conflict between two opposing ideas, while juxtaposition is used to highlight the differences or similarities between two ideas or objects.

Antithesis in Communication

Antithesis is a powerful tool in communication that can be used to emphasize contrast, create memorable phrases, and strengthen arguments. By juxtaposing two opposing ideas, antithesis can help to clarify and highlight the differences between them, making them more easily understood and remembered. In this section, we will explore the importance of antithesis in communication and how it can be used effectively.

Emphasizing Contrast

One of the primary functions of antithesis is to emphasize contrast. By placing two opposing ideas side by side, antithesis can draw attention to their differences and make them more apparent. This can be especially useful in situations where it is important to distinguish between two similar but distinct concepts. For example, in political discourse, antithesis can be used to highlight the differences between two competing policy proposals or ideologies.

Creating Memorable Phrases

Another important function of antithesis is to create memorable phrases. By using contrasting ideas in a sentence or phrase, antithesis can create a sense of balance and rhythm that can make the words more memorable. This can be seen in famous quotes such as “To be or not to be” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which uses antithesis to create a memorable phrase that encapsulates the play’s central theme.

Strengthening Arguments

Finally, antithesis can be used to strengthen arguments. By using contrasting ideas, antithesis can help to make an argument more persuasive by highlighting the strengths of one idea while pointing out the weaknesses of another. This can be especially useful in situations where it is important to make a convincing case, such as in a legal argument or a political debate.

In conclusion, antithesis is an important tool in communication that can be used to emphasize contrast, create memorable phrases, and strengthen arguments. By using contrasting ideas, antithesis can help to clarify and highlight the differences between two concepts, making them more easily understood and remembered. Whether in literature, politics, or everyday conversation, antithesis can be a powerful tool for effective communication.

Overall, antithesis is a valuable tool for writers and speakers who want to create a sense of contrast and emphasize their point. When used effectively, it can make writing or speech more memorable and impactful. However, it is important to use it in moderation and not rely on it too heavily. By understanding how to use antithesis effectively, writers and speakers can take their communication skills to the next level.

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Antithesis: Definition, Grammartical Structure and Examples

Antithesis is a rhetorical device that involves contrasting two opposing ideas in a sentence or a paragraph. It is a powerful tool used in literature, speeches, and debates to emphasize the difference between two ideas. The word antithesis is derived from the Greek word “antitithenai,” which means “to oppose” or “to set against.”

Antithesis can be used to create a memorable impact on the audience. It draws attention to the stark contrast between two opposing ideas, making it easier for the audience to understand the message being conveyed. Antithesis can be used in various forms, such as contrasting words, phrases, or entire sentences. It is often used in famous speeches, such as Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, where he used antithesis to emphasize the difference between segregation and equality.

Antithesis Definitions

Greek Origins

The word “antithesis” has its roots in the Greek word “antithenai,” which means “to oppose.” The Greek word “tithenai” also contributed to the development of “antithesis,” as it means “to put, set, or place.” These Greek words were used to describe the concept of setting something in opposition to another thing, or placing two contrasting ideas side by side for comparison.

Modern Definitions

According to Merriam-Webster, “antithesis” has two primary definitions. The first definition is “the direct opposite,” while the second definition is “the rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses, or sentences.” This second definition refers to the use of antithesis as a literary device, where contrasting ideas are presented in a parallel structure for emphasis or effect.

Other definitions of “antithesis” include “opposition” and “contrast.” Synonyms for “antithesis” include “contradiction,” “counterpart,” and “inverse.”

Overall, the concept of antithesis has evolved from its Greek origins to become a widely recognized literary device used in various forms of writing and speech. By presenting contrasting ideas in a parallel structure, writers and speakers can create a powerful sense of contrast and emphasis that can capture the attention of their audience.

Understanding Antithesis

In Rhetoric

Antithesis is a rhetorical device that involves the use of contrasting concepts, words, or sentences within parallel grammatical structures to create a balanced and contrasting effect. This literary device is often used to emphasize the differences between two ideas or concepts, thereby creating a more powerful and memorable message.

Antithesis is commonly used in persuasive writing and speeches, as it allows the speaker or writer to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of opposing viewpoints. By presenting two contrasting ideas side by side, the audience is able to see the differences more clearly and make a more informed decision.

In Literature

In literature, antithesis is used to create a sense of tension and drama by contrasting two opposing ideas or concepts. This technique is often used in poetry, where contrasting concepts are used to create a more powerful and memorable image or message.

In literature, antithesis is often used to create a sense of irony or contradiction, as the author juxtaposes two opposing ideas to create a more complex and nuanced message. For example, in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, the opening lines “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” use antithesis to highlight the stark contrasts between the two cities.

In Speeches

Antithesis is a common rhetorical device used in speeches to create a more powerful and memorable message. By presenting two contrasting ideas side by side, the speaker is able to emphasize the differences between them and create a more persuasive argument.

Antithesis is often used in political speeches, where the speaker may use contrasting concepts to highlight the differences between their own policies and those of their opponents. For example, in John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, he used antithesis when he said “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

Overall, antithesis is a powerful literary and rhetorical device that can be used in a variety of contexts to create a more memorable and persuasive message. By presenting two contrasting ideas side by side, the speaker or writer is able to highlight the differences between them and create a more nuanced and complex message that is more likely to be remembered by the audience.

Grammatical Structure

Antithesis is a rhetorical device that uses contrasting ideas in parallel grammatical structures to create emphasis and highlight the differences between them. The grammatical structure of antithesis is essential to its effectiveness, as it creates a balance between the opposing ideas and makes them more memorable to the reader or listener.

Parallelism

Parallelism is a crucial aspect of antithesis. It involves using the same grammatical structure for both contrasting ideas, such as using the same sentence structure for two opposing phrases. This technique creates a rhythmic effect that draws the reader’s attention to the contrasting ideas and emphasizes the differences between them.

For instance, Martin Luther King Jr. used parallelism in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech when he said, “Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”

Contrasting Ideas

Antithesis relies on contrasting ideas to create a powerful effect. These ideas can be expressed through sentences, clauses, phrases, or words. The contrasting ideas must be balanced to create a harmonious effect, which is achieved through the use of parallelism.

For example, in Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar,” Mark Antony uses antithesis to compare the honorable Brutus to the treacherous Cassius. He says, “Brutus is an honorable man; so are they all, all honorable men,” emphasizing the contrast between Brutus’s character and his actions.

In conclusion, the grammatical structure of antithesis is crucial to its effectiveness. The use of parallelism and contrasting ideas creates a rhythmic effect that draws the reader’s attention and emphasizes the differences between the opposing ideas. By using a balanced grammatical structure, antithesis creates a memorable effect that enhances the impact of the message being conveyed.

Antithesis Examples

Antithesis is a literary device that positions opposite ideas parallel to each other. This section will explore some examples of antithesis in literature, speeches, and everyday life.

Antithesis is widely used in literature to create a contrast between two different ideas. One of the most famous examples of antithesis is found in Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”: “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.”

William Shakespeare also used antithesis in his writing. In “Romeo and Juliet,” he writes, “My only love sprung from my only hate! / Too early seen unknown, and known too late!” This example shows how antithesis can create a powerful contrast between love and hate.

Antithesis is also commonly used in speeches to emphasize opposing ideas. Martin Luther King Jr. used antithesis in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” This example highlights the contrast between living together peacefully and the consequences of not doing so.

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is another famous example of antithesis in speeches. He said, “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us.” This example contrasts the work of those who fought with the work that still needs to be done.

In Everyday Life

Antithesis is also commonly used in everyday life, often without people realizing it. For example, the famous quote by Neil Armstrong , “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” is an example of antithesis. The contrast between the small step and the giant leap creates a powerful image of the significance of the event.

Another example of antithesis in everyday life is the phrase “no pain, no gain.” This phrase emphasizes the contrast between the discomfort of hard work and the benefits that come from it.

In conclusion, antithesis is a powerful literary device that can be used to emphasize contrasting ideas. It is commonly used in literature, speeches, and everyday life to create a memorable and impactful message.

The Impact of Antithesis

On audience.

Antithesis can have a profound impact on an audience. By presenting contrasting ideas in a balanced grammatical structure, it captures the attention of the audience and creates a sense of tension that keeps them engaged. The use of antithesis can also make content more memorable and effective, as it creates a sense of rhythm and imagery that sticks with the audience long after they have finished reading or listening.

Antithesis can be a powerful tool for writers and speakers looking to convey complex ideas in a clear and concise manner. By juxtaposing opposing ideas, it allows them to highlight the differences between them and make their point more effectively. Antithesis can also be used to create a sense of tension and drama in a piece of content, which can help to keep the audience engaged and interested.

When used effectively, antithesis can be a powerful tool for writers and speakers looking to create memorable and effective content. By capturing the attention of the audience and creating a sense of tension and drama, it can help to convey complex ideas in a clear and concise manner. Whether used for rhetorical effect or simply to create a sense of rhythm and imagery, antithesis is a powerful tool that should not be overlooked.

Antithesis and Other Literary Devices

Antithesis is often used in conjunction with other literary devices to create a more impactful effect. One such device is the oxymoron, which is a figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms. An oxymoron can be used to create a sense of irony or to highlight a paradox. For example, the phrase “bittersweet” is an oxymoron because it combines two opposite terms.

Another literary device that can be used in conjunction with antithesis is the foil. A foil is a character who is used to contrast with another character in order to highlight their differences. This can be used to create a sense of conflict or to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of a particular character. For example, in Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet,” the character of Hamlet is contrasted with the character of Laertes in order to highlight their different approaches to revenge.

While antithesis is often used to highlight contrasts and opposing ideas, it can also be used to create a sense of synthesis. Synthesis is the process of combining two or more ideas in order to create a new and more complex idea. For example, the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” combines the idea of writing (which is often associated with intellect) with the idea of physical force (which is often associated with strength) in order to create a new and more complex idea.

Antithesis, oxymorons, foils, and synthesis are all powerful literary devices that can be used to create a sense of comparison and contrast. By using these devices, writers can create more impactful and memorable works that speak to the complexities of mankind.

Common Misconceptions and Overuse

Antithesis is a powerful literary device that can add depth and complexity to writing. However, it is often misunderstood and overused, leading to annoying and cliché writing. In this section, we will address some common misconceptions and overuse of antithesis.

One common misconception is that antithesis must always involve a direct opposition between two ideas or words. While this is often the case, antithesis can also involve a contrast between two related ideas or words. For example, “love and hate” are direct opposites, while “love and indifference” are related but contrasting ideas.

Another misconception is that antithesis should be used in every sentence or paragraph. Overuse of antithesis can lead to annoying and cliché writing. It is important to use antithesis sparingly and only when it adds value to the writing.

Additionally, some writers may try to force antithesis into their writing, resulting in awkward and unnatural phrasing. It is important to use antithesis in a way that flows naturally and enhances the meaning of the writing.

Overall, antithesis is a powerful tool that can add depth and complexity to writing. However, it should be used sparingly and only when it adds value to the writing. Avoid overuse and forcing antithesis into writing, as this can lead to annoying and cliché writing.

In conclusion, antithesis is a rhetorical device that involves the use of contrasting or opposite ideas in a balanced grammatical structure. It is commonly used in literature, speeches, and other forms of communication to create emphasis, contrast, and impact.

Antithesis is often used in conjunction with the thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectic, a process of logical argumentation that involves presenting a thesis, then presenting its opposite (antithesis), and finally synthesizing the two opposing viewpoints to arrive at a new conclusion.

Through the use of antithesis, writers and speakers can create a sense of tension and drama, as well as emphasize the differences between two opposing ideas. It can also be used to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of different arguments and perspectives, and to help readers or listeners come to their own conclusions about a particular topic.

Overall, antithesis is a powerful tool for writers and speakers who wish to make a strong impression on their audience. By using contrasting or opposite ideas in a balanced structure, they can create a sense of tension and drama, emphasize key points, and help their audience come to their own conclusions about a particular topic.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the definition of antithesis?

Antithesis is a figure of speech that contrasts two opposing ideas in a sentence or a phrase. It is often used to create a dramatic effect or to emphasize a point. The term comes from the Greek word “antithesis,” which means “opposition.”

Can you give an example of antithesis in literature?

One famous example of antithesis in literature is the opening lines of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” This sentence contrasts the two opposing ideas of good and bad, wisdom and foolishness, to emphasize the stark differences between the two cities.

How is antithesis different from juxtaposition?

Antithesis and juxtaposition are both figures of speech that involve contrasting two ideas. However, antithesis specifically involves contrasting two opposing ideas, while juxtaposition can contrast any two ideas, regardless of whether they are opposing or not.

What are some common uses of antithesis?

Antithesis is commonly used in literature, speeches, and advertising to create a memorable impact on the audience. It can be used to emphasize a point, create a dramatic effect, or to convey a deeper meaning.

What is the purpose of using antithesis in writing?

The purpose of using antithesis is to create a contrast between two opposing ideas, which can help to emphasize a point or to create a memorable impact on the audience. It can also be used to convey a deeper meaning or to create a dramatic effect.

Can you provide an example of antithesis in a school setting?

An example of antithesis in a school setting could be the phrase “knowledge is power, ignorance is weakness.” This phrase contrasts the two opposing ideas of knowledge and ignorance to emphasize the importance of education.

Related Posts:

Antithesis involves the writer employing two sentences of contrasting meanings in close proximity to one another. Whether they are words or phrases of the same sentence, an antithesis is used to create a stark contrast using two divergent elements that come together to create one uniform whole. An antithesis plays on the complementary property of opposites to create one vivid picture. The purpose of using an antithesis in literature is to create a balance between opposite qualities and lend a greater insight into the subject.

Examples of antithesis:

“To be or not to be, that is the question” – This famous line from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” uses antithesis to contrast the ideas of existence and non-existence, emphasizing the weight of the decision facing the character.

“Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing” – In this sentence, the contrast between the ideal and the real creates an antithesis that highlights the differences between the two concepts.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” – In this famous quote from Neil Armstrong, the contrast between the small step and the giant leap creates an antithesis that emphasizes the magnitude of the achievement.

“Speech is silver, but silence is golden” – This common saying uses antithesis to contrast the value of speaking and staying quiet, emphasizing the idea that sometimes it is better to remain silent.

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools” – In this quote from Martin Luther King Jr., the contrast between living together and perishing together creates an antithesis that emphasizes the importance of unity and cooperation.

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Man proposes and God disposes… Marriage has many pains but celibacy has no pleasures..

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• Figures Of Speech

Antithesis: Meaning, Definition and Examples

Figures of speech , otherwise known as rhetorical devices, are used in the English language to beautify and make your language look and sound a lot more effective rather than a literal presentation of information. Each figure of speech has its function and is meant to perform its roles giving the context a unique effect. In this article, you will learn about one such figure of speech called antithesis. Read through the article to learn more about what antithesis is, its definition and how it differs from an oxymoron. You can also check out the examples and analyse how it is written for an in-depth understanding of the same.

Table of Contents

What is antithesis – meaning and definition, what differentiates an antithesis from an oxymoron, some common examples of antithesis, frequently asked questions on antithesis.

An antithesis is a figure of speech that states strongly contrasting ideas placed in juxtaposition. They contain compound sentences with the two independent clauses separated by a comma or a semicolon , in most cases. However, there are also instances where the antithesis is a compound sentence with a conjunction . An antithesis is mainly used to portray the stark difference between the two opposing ideas.

Antithesis, according to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, is defined as “a contrast between two things”, and according to the Cambridge Dictionary, “a difference or opposition between two things”. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives a more explanatory definition. According to it, antithesis is “the rhetorical contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses, or sentences”.

Knowing the difference between an antithesis and an oxymoron will help you comprehend and use both the rhetorical devices effectively. Take a look at the table given below to learn more.

Here are some of the most common examples of antithesis for your reference.

• Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.
• Keep your mouth closed and your eyes open.
• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.” – Charles Dickens
• “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” – Neil Armstrong
• “Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.” – John Milton
• Speech is silver, but silence is gold.
• “Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.” – William Shakespeare
• Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer.
• “To err is human; to forgive divine.” – Alexander Pope
• Money is the root of all evil: poverty is the fruit of all goodness.

What is antithesis?

An antithesis is a figure of speech that states strongly contrasting ideas placed in juxtaposition. They contain compound sentences with the two independent clauses separated by a comma or a semicolon, in most cases. However, there are also instances where the antithesis is a compound sentence with a conjunction.

What is the definition of antithesis?

What is the difference between antithesis and oxymoron.

The main difference between an antithesis and an oxymoron is that antithesis refers to the use of two contrasting ideas or thoughts conveyed in two independent clauses placed in juxtaposition, separated by a comma, a semicolon or a conjunction; whereas, the term ‘oxymoron’ refers to the use of two opposite words within a phrase to create an effect.

Give some examples of antithesis.

Here are a few examples of antithesis for your reference.

• “Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.” – Goethe
• “Folks who have no vices have very few virtues.” – Abraham Lincoln
• “Man proposes, God disposes.”
• Beggars can’t be choosers.
• Be slow in choosing, but slower in changing.

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Antithesis Examples

Antithesis is the term used to refer to an author's use of two contrasting or opposite terms in a sentence for effect. The two terms are set near each other to enhance or highlight the contrast in opposite meaning.

Sometimes, characters in literary works are the antithesis of each other. The two characters are shown as opposites in order to highlight the good qualities of one and the evil qualities of the other.

1. When he became the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong said that it was a " small step for man, but a giant leap for mankind."

2. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom , it was the age of foolishness ." Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

3. Snow White and the Wicked Queen in Snow White and The Seven Dwarfsare the antithesis of each other.

4. "To err is human ; to forgive, divine ." Alexander Pope

5. The poem "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost sets up a contrast between the terms "fire" and "ice".

6. "And let my liver rather heat with wine than my heart cool with mortifying groans. "The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare

7. Let's agree to disagree .

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Home / Guides / Grammar Guides / Vocabulary Guides / Usage Guides / How To Use Antithesis In A Sentence

How To Use Antithesis In A Sentence

This helpful guide will show you how to use antithesis in a sentence. It will show you the definition of antithesis , as well as synonyms, antonyms, and the type of connotation that the word can carry.

Usage for antithesis

Definition: the opposite of something

Part(s) of speech: noun

Antonyms: same; similar; alike

Synonyms: contrast; inverse; counter

Here are but a few sample sentences of the word in action!

• Peace is the very antithesis of war.
• Our leader’s behavior is the anthesis of the principles that our country was founded upon.
• When I see them mix, it certainly seems like oil is the antithesis of water.
• That movie was the antithesis of great art; what a piece of garbage.
• I truly believe grief is the antithesis of joy. I’m having trouble seeing how you can help me feel better when I’ve just gone through this loss.
• I love when horror movies have elements of comedy because usually one genre is the antithesis of the other.
• In order to pass this bill, we need compromise. You have to understand that Democrats are not wholly the antithesis of Republicans.
• I’ve been a cynic my entire life. How can you expect me to be optimistic at a time like this when it would be the antithesis of my whole personality.
• A high school debate usually involves one side making an argument on a subject and the other side making an argument that is the antithesis argument on the same subject.
• I think Jeremy is good for me right now. He’s the antithesis of my ex-boyfriend, so it’s just what I need.
• People who think comic books are the antithesis of literature clearly have not read enough well-written comic books.
• How can you keep all the presents you bought just for yourself? That kind of attitude is the antithesis of the spirit of Christmas.
• I think you’ll agree; it’s very obvious that fire is the antithesis of ice .
• Some might say television is the antithesis of high art, but they clearly haven’t watched enough HBO.
• Censorship from the government is the very antithesis of a free press; how can you not see that?

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How to Use antithesis in a Sentence

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'antithesis.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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Berkeley Talks: ‘Wave’ memoirist on writing about unimaginable loss

"I'm an accidental writer ... I was writing to make sense of, firstly, what had happened," said Sonali Deraniyagala, whose family died in a 2004 tsunami while on vacation in Sri Lanka.

By Public Affairs

May 31, 2024

Follow  Berkeley Talks , a  Berkeley News  podcast that features lectures and conversations at UC Berkeley.  See all  Berkeley Talks .

Emily Thompson for UC Berkeley

In 2004, Sonali Deraniyagala was on vacation with her family on the coast of Sri Lanka when a tsunami struck the South Asian island. It killed her husband, their two sons and her parents, leaving Deraniyagala alone in a reality she couldn’t comprehend. 

In Berkeley Talks episode 201, Deraniyagala discusses her all-consuming grief in the aftermath of the tragedy and the process of writing about it in her 2013 memoir, Wave.

“Wave was the wave was the wave,” said Deraniyagala, who spoke in April 2024 at an event for Art of Writing, a program of UC Berkeley’s Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities. “What mattered was the loss. It could have been a tree. It just happened to be the wave. I wasn’t that interested in how it happened. It was more this otherworldly situation where I had a life, I didn’t have a life, and it took 10 minutes between the two.

“So that I was trying to figure out, and I think the whole book Wave was trying to: Everything you know vanishes in an instant, literally in an instant, with no warning. … I experienced something that I didn’t have words for. I didn’t know what was happening when it was happening, which is why I was sure I was dreaming.”

Deraniyagala, an economist who teaches at the University of London and Columbia University, described herself as “an accidental writer.” She said her initial goal, at the urging of her therapist, was to write for herself in attempt to make sense of a loss that “one can’t write easily or put into sentences or find words for,” she told Ramona Naddaff, Berkeley associate professor of rhetoric and founding director of Art of Writing, whom Deraniyagala joined in conversation for the event. 

But in the painstaking process of writing and rewriting, Deraniyagala found her voice. And after eight years, Wave was published. It became a New York Times bestseller and won the PEN Ackerley Prize in 2013.

[ Music: “Silver Lanyard” by Blue Dot Sessions ]

Intro:  This is  Berkeley Talks , a  Berkeley News  podcast from the Office of Communications and Public Affairs that features lectures and conversations at UC Berkeley. You can follow  Berkeley Talks  wherever you listen to your podcasts. New episodes come out every other Friday. Also, we have another podcast,  Berkeley Voices , that shares stories of people at UC Berkeley and the work that they do on and off campus.

[Music fades out]

Ramona Naddaff: Hello everyone. Welcome. Thank you for coming. My name is Ramona Naddaff and I’m a professor in the rhetoric department and director of the Art of Writing Program at the Townsend Center for the Humanities. And I’m just going to say the Art of Writing hasn’t hosted its annual lecture since 2019, so it’s a tremendous pleasure today to recommence our annual lecture series with the economist and author, Sonali Deraniyagala. She has taken time to travel and to speak with us today about the process and art of writing of her 2013 bestselling, award-winning Wave.

So since we haven’t had a lecture for a really long time, forgive me. While I thank many people, many people are to thank for making these lectures possible. Present and past deans of the Arts and Humanities, present and past directors, some of whom are here today, present of the directors of the Townsend Center for the Humanities and present and past teams of the Art of Writing and of the Townsend Center. And I want to thank the many faculty, graduate and undergraduate students from a wide range of campus departments who, since 2016, have contributed to and helped shape the program. And really the Art of Writing is a collaborative effort.

And I have one more thanks. I need to thank the Friends of Art of Writing, many of whom are themselves writers and alumni of Berkeley. Today, two such friends are present. Matt and Margaret Jacobson. The Jacobsons have generously established the Professor Michael Rogin Art of Writing Endowment, and Professor Banfield and Michael Rogin’s daughter are here today. And that endowment has made this lecture series possible. Inspired by the pedagogical passions of his father, political science professor Norman Jacobson, and by his long time colleague, Michael Rogin, Matt will now speak to us about how he has united father, colleague, friend and Art of Writing. Thank you, Matt.

Matt Jacobson: So on my way over here, I just realized that it’s been 49 years since my last literature class at Cal, so don’t be so tough on me. Although I did grow up in an academic home, so I was graded every day.

So I’m here to provide a little background on how my wife Margaret and I became passionate supporters of the Doreen Townsend Center for the Humanities and its wonderful Art of Writing program. The story really began when my father joined the faculty of the UC Berkeley Political Science Department in 1951. He continued to teach on campus until his death in 2007. During his career, he was an unusual breed of educator focusing on the humanities side of the social science field that he was in. He was multidisciplinary and did not let academic boundaries define him. He inspired and entertained generations of students with his lectures, which were really essays that he would write in longhand on yellow legal paper. Oddly, I heard at a Townsend Center event yesterday that using an essay to deliver a lecture is not recommended. I guess my dad didn’t get the memo.

After he died, my family was introduced to the Townsend Center as a place on campus where his legacy and passion as a teacher could be passed down to future generations of students. Paul Alpers, the founding director of the Townsend Center and the late husband of Chancellor Carol Christ. In describing the center’s benefactor, Doreen Townsend, wrote that she was “prepared to discover that the faculty, the students, and the center were doing some unusual, and on occasion, incomprehensible thing.” My dad would’ve fit right in.

So prior to the COVID lockdown, Margaret and I had the pleasure of being introduced to an unusual program at the Townsend Center, the Art of Writing. It is designed to help students learn how to take their written voices to a higher level. We attended an event like this one and we were impressed by the elegance of the program and the passion of those involved, both the instructors and the student.

A few years later, then Arts and Humanities Dean Anthony Cascardi, a former director of the Townsend Center himself, asked if we would help with funding for the program. We jumped at the chance. But there was one catch. We wound up with program naming rights.

In a bit of a panic, I rifled through my mental Rolodex until I reached the Rs, which is where I found Michael Rogin. Mike was my father’s colleague in poli sci and a close friend. He was a beloved lecturer, inspirational teacher and an accomplished writer. He, too, worked outside traditional norms of academia by following his own humanist and multidisciplinary path. It is our hope that everyone who becomes aware of the Art of Writing program has the curiosity to learn about him and find something inspirational to work. The Townsend Center and the Art of Writing Program are unusual gems in the UC Berkeley community, hopefully though, not too incomprehensible. We are blessed to have them here. And please sit back and enjoy one of the benefits. Thank you.

Ramona Naddaff: I know this is a little unusual, but haven’t been here since 2019. So I want to briefly introduce our guest today about whom we’re going to learn much more during our conversation today.

Sonali Deraniyagala is an economist by training. Her research focuses on economic development including post-disaster recovery and extreme climate change. And she is, as many of you already know, the author of the memoir Wave, which recounts her experiences of catastrophic loss of family and friends during the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami. Hailed as a “quiet memoir of torturous loss,” Joan Didion, herself a memoirist of extraordinary talent, understatement, called it an amazing, beautiful book. Sonali will today speak to us about the very act and art of writing Wave. My students reminded me last week that grief and grieving are messy. They voiced their amazement at how exquisitely composed and precise with Sonali’s language in describing the state.

So I’m going to ask a few questions and then my Rhetoric 121 students, who have been working hard on their questions, will then continue the interview with their very thoughtful and exciting comments. Allow me to welcome Sonali to the stage.

Sonali Deraniyagala: Well, thank you so much for having me, Ramona, for inviting me, and to the Art of Writing program for hosting me. Thank you. My pleasure to be here entirely.

Ramona Naddaff: Thank you. So before we discuss your art of writing Wave , I want to talk to you about your other life, as it were. You’re an economist, you’ve written a bestselling memoir, which has been praised for its exquisite style and narration. So I’m wondering how has your style of writing and thinking as an economist changed since Wave ? And conversely, how was your identity as an economist influencing your style? I know that there’s a younger generation of social scientists and STEM students in the audience. I know one, in fact, very well, would be keen to know why and how they should care about their writing style and communication skills?

Sonali Deraniyagala: I’ll take your middle question first, how was Wave influenced by me being an economist? I don’t know if it was, to be honest, firstly. I’m not sure if writing a memoir … I mean economics? One thing I got from economics is precision, I would say. But here I was writing a memoir about the most imprecise thing you can ever imagine. So it was the antithesis of precision.

The reason I wrote, if I go back a little, I mean there’s many reasons I wrote. Firstly, I’m an accidental writer, so I never intended to write a book. And I was writing essentially for myself. I was writing to make sense of, firstly, what had happened. It was beyond my … I couldn’t grasp it. So I had to firstly put down very basic things like what happened and what happened to me when I was in the water and what did I remember.

And it was really strange things, like being taken by the water and seeing a flock of birds flying overhead and being so surreal that I identified what kind of birds they were. So that kind of bizarre observation I wrote to put that down just for myself so that I thought maybe one day. And all of this time I was also ambivalent about, am I going to stay alive? I mean, I was determined almost not to stay alive. So I was writing in this kind of … So that was the beginning of writing.

Later on, I think this changed as time went on over the years. So I took about seven, eight years to write it. And I wrote it also in real time as I went along, as to how I was, what I was experiencing, processing and so on. And when I began after some point and also loss of the scale, again, one can’t write easily or put into sentences or find words for, but when I began to craft it, after a point, again, it was essentially for myself, but I began to write what turned out to be chapters, but they were not meant to be chapters, but pieces that I would craft and I would try and find the best way to express it, to find my voice as it were. And so that may be my thinking as an economist came in there, the precision with which to find the best word to talk about.

Ramona Naddaff: Is that what you mean when you say you were trying to find your voice? I’m interested in how you understand that.

Sonali Deraniyagala: That’s a very instinctive thing, isn’t it? A voice when you write, I think it’s totally instinctive. I know when it sounds wrong then you know when it sounds right. I’m not a trained, I haven’t done any courses in writing or I’m not trained as a writer in any way as many people are, but I don’t even think that matters really.

So you know when it sounds right, but you don’t get to that point very easily. It takes a lot of work to get to the point where it sounds right. So for students who are studying writing, I think A, they are blessed to be trained in it, but secondly, it’s how do you hit that note. And you take all the falsity out of your voice. I think that’s when it sounds right. You take the pretension out and then it sounds …

And it should be as clear as possible. I mean, the other thing is clarity. I think Vivian Gornick, who I’ve kind of read a lot now since I wrote my memoir, and not only is she a brilliant memoirist, she writes about writing so well, and she says, “It’s not what has happened to the writer that matters. It’s how the writer figures out what has happened to them, what they make of it.” And I think it’s what they make of it and that’s a real challenge — how do you make something of? And I did most of it subconsciously. I didn’t set how to do it, but it had its own dynamic.

Ramona Naddaff: And maybe you can talk a little bit more about why people in other disciplines should think about their style of writing. And I agree with you, voice comes intuitively, but there must have been things you were reading or listening to that somehow formed your intuition about … I mean, there must have been an education that happened through your reading practices?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Sure. I mean, at the time I was writing, I was mainly reading fiction and poetry. I wasn’t that much of a nonfiction reader. And I certainly hadn’t read memoir and I wasn’t really even interested in reading memoir. So fiction and poetry as opposed to … And I read a lot of politics and economics because I’m an economist, but in terms of material or the way I learned to write, I had to teach myself to write, and I was aware of it. And primarily I think through reading a lot of fiction and contemporary fiction, which now I don’t read that much, but contemporary fiction and a lot of poetry and some nonfiction, but mainly … So it was an education. Yeah, I had to learn and educate myself.

But I think you find any writer that writes lucidly for students, if you’re an engineering student, you should read, I say Natalia Ginzburg, Italian writer who was writing in the 1950s. And no one can write a lucid sentence that she can. So I mean, I think if you want to write an engineering manual, read Natalia Ginzburg and that would help you. So I think there is a lot of cross-fertilization and where you train your mind. Or if you want to be a poet, study Matt Cudby, that could work. So it depends where you can … You can draw your inspiration from or your training from anywhere in a way, as long as it’s within.

Ramona Naddaff: So I know you told me you’ve been teaching on extreme climate change, and that’s obviously a very different way of thinking about the tsunami. If you had to write about what you’re teaching, do you think you would still … would you keep your voice the more so-called objective voice that say you used when you would be writing reports? Or would you try to somehow put in your lyrical literary voice?

Sonali Deraniyagala: No, I don’t at all put in a …

Ramona Naddaff: No, you don’t?

Sonali Deraniyagala: No. I mean, I teach a course called Extreme Climate or Disasters and Economic Development, and I teach it jointly with an earth scientist, with a seismologist. So he does the physics of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, droughts and all of that, and climate science. And I do the post-effects, the social, political effects of it. Of course, when you teach, and even in economics, I mean I always say an economic model is also a story. And there’s a narrative to an economic model. So in that way I try to make it as interesting as possible because we all know when we’re teaching, you want to bring it alive for students.

So I do try to always start my class with this example of so-called witch killings in Tanzania, which is a killing of elderly women by family members, which happened in the early 2000s in Tanzania. And the rate of witch killings really went up in the early 2000s, I’ll tell you very quickly, compared to the other murder rates, regular murder rates.

So the question is, why was this? Was this purely a patriarchal kind of violence or was there something else going on? And what some sociologists found out is that, really, it had to do with extreme weather, too little rain caused a scarcity of food, which led to murder of elderly women within the family. So I always say witch killings and my students, look, “What’s that going to do with anything?” And then of course when you explain, then you set the tone in a way for, how do we break open these phenomena and look at it through a more analytical lens. So that’s an extreme case.

Ramona Naddaff: Well, like you said, you tell them a story.

Sonali Deraniyagala: You tell them a story.

Ramona Naddaff: You tell them a story.

Ramona Naddaff: Which you did with Wave, and I’ll change now in that direction. So it’s been 20 years since the tsunami in Sri Lanka, and it’s been more than 10 years since you published Wave. And I know you’ve told the story many times about how you came to write Wave , and the students will be asking you more about that.

But I want to ask you a little bit of a different question. In an interview, you once said that there was a passage that neither you or anyone else edited or revised, which is an amazing feat as far as I can tell. So was that an act of magical inspiration? Was there something … Because the passage, if I understood correctly, is when you first go back to your home in London in 2008, and it had taken you a while to get back there, and you enter into the house and you start seeing everything was the same as it had been. And I think that’s the passage you … that chapter that you went home to New York and you just wrote it?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Yes. Well, so I didn’t go back to our family home for four years. I was in Sri Lanka when it happened, and eventually I found my way to New York and I would. Even when I went to England, I wouldn’t visit the house. I hardly went to London, I’d stay with people elsewhere and so on. So then suddenly, four years later I said, “OK, I’m going to go back,” and I did. And I went and I spent two days, I didn’t stay in the house, I think, and I came back and I wrote my experience of being there. It was like four pages or something. And when I say I didn’t change it, I mean I write very slowly and I write changing and editing a lot as I go along. So maybe I took a month to write it, maybe I took two or three weeks to write it. It’s not like I sat down and just wrote it.

I chiseled it. I do chisel, I write it very slowly. I get it right. So once I did that and I was OK with it eventually, and then maybe I wrote it sometime in 2008 and it didn’t become a book until 2012, I hadn’t touched it and my editors didn’t touch it either. So in that way it was untouched. But I do myself editing a lot, so I’m a terrible writer. I mean, it takes a long time to get good sentences down or that’s good enough for me at least.

Ramona Naddaff: I’m wondering, because we often use the dictum to our students that good writing is rewriting, and I’d like you to talk to us a little bit more in detail about your revision process and also if there’s a passage in Wave that you wish you could rewrite?

Sonali Deraniyagala: The revision process is quite hard. I mean, that is where intuition,  think … two things when you’re writing, even memoir … A memoir is not really about what happened, what happened, what happened, right? It’s got to have some kind of, I think, analytical thread running through it. So each piece, you’re trying to arrive at something or explore something or explode something for yourself. You’re kind of digging around. And I often can begin with the last sentence or the first sentence that comes to me is like a hook to hang it in. And then you digress and you come back.

So for me at least it’s going somewhere, it’s got some kind of end. So that’s one, the revision process. So that takes a lot of time. And then at the editing stage of my book, Sonny Mehta at Knopf edited Wave.

Ramona Naddaff: Will you tell the audience a little bit about? Because, well, I don’t know, I guess he didn’t die until 20 …

Sonali Deraniyagala: No, he just died two years ago.

Ramona Naddaff: So he had many authors after you?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Yes, he was a great, great editor and he was my primary editor at Knopf, and I had a Canadian editor, too, so the two of them. And so the editing process, by the time I gave it to them, I’d self edited so much that it was quite light. They changed a few words here and there, there was no big chapter change or nothing major at all. So it was for me, entirely pleasurable. I called it The Wave and he took the The out and I was like, “Honey, I think that sounds better,” and he just completely ignored me. So that was …

Ramona Naddaff: Do you remember any other of the editorial?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Very light things. And then my Canadian editor, she was great, too. She asked for stuff I’d written that I had taken out myself because when I told her that I … because it was so pared down when I gave it to them and she added little bits in. So some of my discards came back in as well. Editing was great fun because, for me anyway, it was quite a nice process.

Ramona Naddaff: And you also worked with another writer, right, when you were writing the …

Sonali Deraniyagala: Yeah, well, I was very lucky because literally I didn’t know a single writer. I’m an economist, so I didn’t know anybody who wrote books or even a fiction writer. I had a very small group of friends and my therapist in New York, Mark Epstein, he was my primary reader always. It’s he who told me, “You should write.” And I’m like, “Are you nuts? I’m not going to write.” But he cajoled me gradually into writing. So a lot of the chapters came out of discussions. We’d work on something or we’d talk about. It wasn’t even work, it was really talking about this feeling of shame, for instance, with and why not guilt, why shame? And talking about that a lot. And then I’d write something.

I read somewhere that you always write for one person, and he was probably the primary ear I wrote. And I had a group of three friends say, anthropologists, they were just my friends, they were not writers, and they read. So each thing I’d write and then they would read it and we would move on from there.

And so after many years, the writer, Michael Ondaatje, the Canadian Sri Lankan writer, I’d met him at dinner at my friend’s house in New York, and we got on really well. But that was that, and I didn’t dare tell him that I was writing. And then later my friend said, “Oh, you’ve got to send this to Michael.” I just asked him, “Oh dear, will Michael remember me kind of email.” And I said, “I’ve been writing, would you …” And he said, “Oh, send me 30 pages,” which I did. And then he was in the middle of the book and he said, “I’ll definitely get to it.” And finally he did and he said, “Have you got any more?” So I sent him everything I had. I said, “I’ve got the whole thing.”

And he was so great. He told me, “Come to Toronto tomorrow,” kind of thing. So I went a few days later and he sat with me and he went through this manuscript. I didn’t even know it was called a manuscript then. So we went through it and he gave me the most important note, I think one note I took away was that don’t repeat the same emotion twice and always be ahead of the reader, and he took out a few swear words. And he said, I still remember, he said, “Yeah.” And so I took that away with me and I combed it again and looked at it and looked at it maybe six months later and he said, “Send it back.” And when I sent it back, he said, “There’s nothing more.” And he gave me his agent and then that was …

Ramona Naddaff: So I’m curious, did you repeat certain emotions in the first draft?

Sonali Deraniyagala: I guess I did, right?

Ramona Naddaff: Do you remember which ones they were, other than swearing?

Sonali Deraniyagala: I can’t. He said too many fucks is in. So I took that out. I remember that, he was …

Ramona Naddaff: So the anger was repeated over and over again?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Yeah, a lot, but I took … And to be ahead of the reader.

Ramona Naddaff: What does that mean exactly to be ahead of the reader?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Because emotion, even grief is many faceted, right? There’s grief and there’s grief, and there’s different aspects to it. So don’t repeat boring old grief, go to a newer one and another one and another angle to it. And it becomes interesting even for you, if not, you’re saying the same thing, so you kind of deeper or sideways or whichever way you go. So I think, yeah. And just here and there we took it out. Not much, but that was a very good note.

He told me this thing, and that’s good for students of writing as well. And I’ve read this book, it’s called The Conversations, where it’s between Michael Ondaatje and Walter Murch, who’s a film editor. He did all the great films. And Walter Murch said that they filmed, they want … I don’t know which movie it was in, but the director wanted blue light, so they filmed the whole scene with blue light and it just didn’t work. And then after a point he said, the editor said take out the blue light and you take out the blue light and somehow the blue light is still there because somehow it’s got infused into the situation. So that even, when it comes to writing, you can take something out, you can take a lot out and whatever you need to say is still there.

Ramona Naddaff: And you were not fearful cutting all the time things out? It didn’t feel like you were …

Sonali Deraniyagala: No, no.

Ramona Naddaff: No?

Ramona Naddaff: Well I’m going to switch the topic very dramatically and then open it up to my students. So I feel like it’s inevitable today to talk to you about AI and writing and algorithmic writing and your thoughts about it, about authorship, about human-centric authorship, AI authorship, collaborative authorship.

Vauhini Vara’s 2021 publication of “Ghosts” in the Believer specifically addresses this issue of collaborative authorship. She had been unable to write about the death of her sister and she turned to ChatGPT to help her write the story. And her need of AI was to help her voice her grief. I’m curious what thoughts you might have about it, because I know you struggled so fiercely one-on-one with your grief that to bring another element in, and I just want to read you how she begins her story. “I had always avoided writing about my sister’s death. At first, in my reticence, I offered GPT only one brief, somewhat rote sentence about it. AI matched my canned language, cliches abounded. But as I tried to write more honestly, AI seemed to be doing the same.”

Sonali Deraniyagala: I hate that. I mean really, I just could not. Yikes. No.

Ramona Naddaff: Tell us more. Because we are all, as professors and writers, this AI, ChatGPT has entered into our lives.

Sonali Deraniyagala: You can use a human, right? You can ask somebody, too. We all know someone that we can talk to. I don’t know in terms of creative writing or I mean an essay on how do hurricanes affect GDP growth in Puerto Rico between 1990 and 1997, say? You could maybe ask AI to get some information on that.

But if you are writing anything more meaningful or many creative, nonfiction, poetry … I don’t know how, I am too old maybe, but I’d hate the thought of going to AI. But we go to the internet, of course, we read poetry, we read other things, too, and there’s a lot out there that we don’t need to. What do we do when you want to figure out an emotion? We can go read Joan Didion or we can read poetry or we can read any, there’s lots of fantastic, we can find it. We can read Shakespeare. There is material there, but I personally wouldn’t know how to access AI to do that.

Ramona Naddaff: And you would have no desire is what you’re saying?

Sonali Deraniyagala: I would have absolutely no desire to, no, because I would need a human interaction or other kind of books, literatures journals, whatever. But that’s just me. And maybe in 20 …

Ramona Naddaff: Maybe, well, we’re interested in you today. We’re interesting in your …

Sonali Deraniyagala: Yeah, yeah. So I couldn’t, I mean, I can’t think of anything worse. I mean, I hate them. I can’t. And less personal and I don’t know, it’s kind of, I don’t want to be judgmental, but almost dishonest, isn’t it? If you’re writing about yourself.

Ramona Naddaff: Well, we’re going to be talking next week about authenticity and AI. So when you say it’s dishonest …

Sonali Deraniyagala: No, no, no.

Ramona Naddaff: You don’t have to come to class. When you say it’s dishonest, what exactly …

Sonali Deraniyagala: No, I mean of lacking authenticity somewhere, but maybe people know to use it in better ways than … I don’t know much about it. So maybe. But how do you …

Ramona Naddaff: Well, maybe some of the students will talk to you about their experience.

Sonali Deraniyagala: I mean, certain things you can use it for, I guess, if you’re writing an essay on something pretty technical to start you off. You need two sentences, but then you surely should think of those two sentences yourself. I mean it’s not that difficult too. If you are at Berkeley or Columbia, that you can do. So why do you need … So I don’t know, it’s all … But I’m a luddite maybe on this.

Ramona Naddaff: Well, I won’t have you keep talking about it. I’ll have you talk about Wave . I know you keep telling us you wrote this, Wave, to your therapist, to yourself. You dedicated the book to your children’s best friends to tell them the story. I’m sure you had in mind people who have gone through these type of catastrophes also that you wanted to reach out to them in a way. You didn’t know them. It was an unknown audience.

But I recently heard an interview, there’s a new memoir being written that’s going to come out by a Palestinian who’s in prison for, he’s been accused of murder. And the opening of the book is all about the wall. And so the interviewer, who’s a Lacanian psychoanalyst, which is why she asked this question, was, “Are you speaking to the wall as the symbolic other that is going to send back a message to you?” I’m not going to ask that question. And actually, I don’t even know what the symbolic other is, was or could be.

But I do want to know about how you were addressing, were you addressing Wave ? I kept looking and I saw there was no definite or indefinite article. Did it go from A Wave to The Wave to Wave? I mean, were you talking to the wave also?

Sonali Deraniyagala: No.

Ramona Naddaff: Never?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Never. No, no, not at all. I mean, Wave was the Wave was the Wave. What mattered was the loss. It could have been a tree. It just happened to be the wave. And that’s the way I looked at it anyway. I wasn’t that interested in how it happened. It was more this bizarre, I mean otherworldly situation where I had a life, I didn’t have a life and it took 10 minutes between the two.

So it was, that I was trying to figure out, and I think the whole book Wave was trying to. Everything you know vanishes in an instant, literally in an instant with no warning. It’s not like … even an accident. You know what an accident is? I’d never heard the word tsunami before. And Sri Lanka’s not been a coastline that had … it’s not an earthquake, we are not on any fault lines. We never had tsunamis in the known history of Sri Lanka.

So I experienced something that I didn’t have words for. I didn’t know what was happening when it was happening, which is why I was sure I was dreaming. I was really, when I was in that wave, I was 100% sure I was dreaming because what was this? So no, I wasn’t addressing it to a wave or the wave. It didn’t really matter how. Once it had happened, the how didn’t matter to me at all. It was like, now what do I do? And that was what mattered.

Ramona Naddaff: So now the editor in me is really curious, did you choose your title?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Like I said, I sent it to him with The Wave and he took out and Sonny took out the word “The.”

Ramona Naddaff: Oh. OK. I missed it. Ah, I see. OK, yes, I see now. Excuse me.

Sonali Deraniyagala: But it was very hard to title. I mean, we did try and think of other things, but we just left it in that way. Yeah.

Ramona Naddaff: So I’m going to turn it over now to Rhetoric 121. Most of them are sitting over there. And our first, Dimitri is going to open with a question. Dmitri, could you stand up? And I think I’m going to bring you the mic for now. Thank you very much.

Audience 1: Hi.

Sonali Deraniyagala: Hi, Dimitri.

Audience 1: Thank you first of all for coming out today for this amazing discussion. We noticed while reading that you alternate between past and present tenses quite frequently, you often break the chronology throughout the narration, invoking visions from before the wave and blending moments in time. So we were curious about, was this alternating between tenses and moments or memories, a decision you made while you were writing the book, or did it come about while you were revising or working with your editor?

Sonali Deraniyagala: That’s a lovely question. Thank you. That’s just the way I wrote it. For sure, it didn’t come out of revisions. And I guess it was the mind that’s speaking to myself so that it’s, at any point in time, we are always shifting between, if you follow your thought, your thoughts always shift between going back and now back and now. And I think I was trying to be true to that. And certainly in certain chapters, in certain places, we’re here now, but then you’re talking about something and he did that and I’m doing this.

So it was some way of … Because I also had to figure out suddenly why did my present become my past? So as far as I was concerned, it was almost still my present. And it had suddenly had to become, it was enforced to become, forcibly became a past. So I think maybe subliminally, that’s probably why as well, I don’t know. But now that you ask me and I’m thinking about it could be that, that’s why and I just left it. It felt right. Basically a lot of it is what I felt was OK and it felt right and I left it.

Audience 1: Thank you.

Ramona Naddaff: Do you want to hand the mic to Amber?

Audience 2: Hi.

Sonali Deraniyagala: Hi.

Audience 2: When you encountered the sheet of laminated paper on the beach, it prompted a question about memory and how you frame it as fearful to remember, but also fearful to forget. A few sentences capture your shift in the mindset. “After finding that page, I was no longer afraid of chancing upon our belongings amid this rubble. Now I am wanted to discover more.” Living, remembering and writing about a specific memory is complicated to depict. How did your memory of the specific experience transform in each instance?

Sonali Deraniyagala: How did my memory transform? See, when I wrote, that was an incident where I went back to where it happened and I went with my father-in-law. And my father-in-law said, “I want to stand here under a tree for a moment.” And he went and stood under a tree. And when I went back to him, he said, oh, something fluttered by his foot under the tree. And he looked it up and it was a laminated sheet of paper from a report and he said, “Is this something of Steve’s?” My husband’s, and I looked at it, and he was an econometrician, and it was. So this was in the midst of all the devastations, about six months later, there’d been a monsoon. The rubble had been moved and all of that, and all of that had happened. So I then described that in the book.

And so when I was writing that, all I can say now is I was just trying to be true to what happened and true to how exactly it happened and what I felt at the time. So yes, so with huge, colossal trauma like this, you’re terrified of remembering. I think most people are. You don’t want to remember the good. The bad is not so bad to remember, the wave itself is not so … I’m not traumatized by water or anything like that, the ocean or anything, but I didn’t find any of that traumatic or I was not triggered or any of this.

But what triggered you was good things like a tennis ball or a cricket bat or a nice thing, that would be joy would be more traumatic. So this thing of trying to cut off, trying to shut down memory and then memory comes bursting in with objects like this. So that was what I was trying to capture. Because I think lots of people go through that as well when you’re trying to shut out reality. And then of course it comes bounding in and yeah.

Audience 2: Thank you.

Audience 3: Thank you so much for your time.

Sonali Deraniyagala: Thanks, Anish.

Audience 3: In class, we’ve been discussing the use of memoirs as tools to examine our own inner lives and how an author constructs a character while reflecting and writing about memories. Over the years since Wave ‘s publication, how has your relationship to the person you portrayed in Wave changed …

Sonali Deraniyagala: That’s a good question.

Audience 3: … as your life has progressed and evolved? Does the memoir serve to bring you closer to the person you were at that time? Or do you feel a distance from them?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Good question. Very good. I haven’t thought about that actually. Yeah, it’s very good.

Ramona Naddaff: I’m glad to hear that.

Sonali Deraniyagala: Yeah. Well, like a lot of writers, I mean a lot of writers don’t read the book they wrote ever again. And I haven’t looked at it for 10 years. I don’t know what’s in there.

Ramona Naddaff: I think a lot of professors feel the same way.

Sonali Deraniyagala: Yeah, right? So I think John Banville, the novelist, I read an interview with him where he says, whenever a book comes out, he wants to go into every bookstore and erase the entire book. That’s his urge is, “Oh, my God, I wish I can go in at night and take away all the words and then write it again.” So it is that you don’t want to look at what you wrote again. And with memoir, it’s even more tricky, right? If there was a person there and is that the same person and are you embarrassed? And there’s so many.

But I think you’ve just got to let the book be and let that person be and that was that person and it can’t be that different from who I am now either. But it is … yeah, I think there’s some kind of equilibrium there. You have to allow that book to be and then you’re going to change as well. There is a problem with, I think now when I write and try to write memoir and if I write over time and I look at something I wrote two years ago, I go eeks, because you feel so different even from two years ago. So that is a real problem. And sometimes you got to just hold tight and just go with it and just keep writing. Yeah.

Ramona Naddaff: Ashlyn.

Audience 4: Thank you. So you mentioned writing Wave at the urging of your therapist, but we’re interested in learning more about when in your writing process you considered publishing your book. You write a little bit about this in your memoir, and we wanted to learn more. And then as a follow-up, since publishing Wave, have any reactions surprised you? Have any reviews captured your intentions and emotions better than others? And if so, how?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Firstly, when it became a book, it became a book only a year before it was published. So I had this collection of materials and I kind of almost made new chapters, so it was a book. And then I got an agent and a publisher very quickly. So I was very lucky. I mean, the first publisher, Knopf, took it became a book. So it took, it was bought in August, say, it came out in March, I think, the next year. So it became a book quite … from me, not even thinking it’ll be a book to becoming a book.

So that was … Yeah, I mean, I for one was very surprised at the positive response to it because I was not a writer and I didn’t feel that I was a writer or I didn’t know how to be a writer. So it was all new to me. And no, I mean I think in some reviews you’re quite surprised that they get it better than you do. They say, “Wow, really?” Yeah, no, no. So it was a very positive experience on the whole.

Audience 4: Thank you.

Ramona Naddaff: Well, I think we have a little time for one or two questions from the audience before we have to say goodbye.

Audience 4: I can bring this one over.

Ramona Naddaff: Thank you, Ashlyn.

Audience 5: Hearing about your … Excuse me, sorry.

Sonali Deraniyagala: That’s all right.

Audience 5: Hearing about your story is very interesting to me, especially how you were trained to be an economist, especially at one point I myself was considering to be one. I’m curious now, after you’ve gone through this experience writing this book, being an economist, do you feel now that your calling was to be a writer or do you feel some form of equilibrium between the two lives you’ve led?

Sonali Deraniyagala: Good question. It’s actually much easier to be an economist than to be a writer, that is … especially if you’re trained to be an economist. Writing is a very self-conscious act, isn’t it? I find writing very hard to do because you’re always conscious. If you’re writing fiction, it may be different, but I don’t think I can write fiction. But if you’re writing anything in the realm of nonfiction where you are part of it, I think that’s quite hard to trust it. I think that’s a very difficult thing to do. Whereas being an economist is an easy, you’re in a relatively easy act.

Coming back to my friend Michael Ondaatje, he has got a very new book of poems out. And I did a Q&A with him last week in New York on the book. And there are some gorgeous poems and there’s one called “Definition.” And in that it’s about a Sanskrit dictionary and only a poet can say, looking at words in a Sanskrit dictionary, there’s a word for an alcove where coin washers sit and the fingers are glinting and silver and so on.

And he’s got a line in there which says, “Definitions push open. Everywhere you look, definitions push open a door.” Now that’s in poetry, in fiction, in even creative nonfiction. And for economists, I said to him, it’s completely the opposite. We use definitions to bolt the doors shut so that it’s really, what we are saying is very precise.

So it’s a very different way of thinking. But so if I say write about, I don’t know, poverty rates in South Sudan between 2000 and 2005, you’re only going to write about poverty rates. If you write about inequality, I didn’t ask you about inequality, so we are using definitions and we are bolting the door shut. Whereas here is a case of opening doors, and I think there’s a difference there.

Audience 6: Full disclosure. The questions you were asked for workshop, this one isn’t. So forgive me, but I hope you’ll appreciate the honesty. You’ve mentioned throughout the discussion that in memoir it’s not what happened, but what someone made out of the experience that matters. And I wrote that down, specifically thinking about part one in your memoir where you’re in the hospital and you’re almost hesitant to even acknowledge questions about the experience and almost refusing to talk about it because it would have an impact on the reality of what was happening. And you mentioned that you were in effect trying to shut out reality.

But there was a specific passage in part one where you started looking up images of tsunamis and videos of these things to make it real, you mentioned in your memoir. So I’m wondering, did seeing these images add a deeper layer to what you were feeling and help you in the grieving process? And then furthermore, as you were writing and you published, did writing about this experience ever establish a disconnect between you and the experience? Perhaps by talking about it too much and it becoming almost a narrative, I’m interested in that relationship between the conversation and reality.

Sonali Deraniyagala: Great question. Very good. Looking at images, I think probably it’s quite a superficial thing. It doesn’t deepen your understanding of what happened. So probably not. I mean that was just something you do because you don’t know what else to do in that moment. So you kind of look at images and then I’m sure people who go through various violent situations may seek images and so on. I would say it doesn’t do anything. Might make it a bit more real, but probably not because your idea of it is very different to a photographer’s idea of what happened. And you never see a tsunami like this show in a photograph because taken from a different place and so on.

About does it make you detach by writing about it? Actually, I’d say it makes you attach more rather than detach because to write about it deeply, to write about anything deeply, you really have to get close to it and descend and descend and descend. And so I mean, I did it to the best of my ability. I really did get really trying to recall what exactly did it feel like, what exactly it was, and noting. I noted down things very early on, not knowing that I’m going to use it for anything, just for my own sake, that, “Oh God, this completely biblical otherworldly thing happened to me. Let me just at least write some basic comments about what happened.”

And it’s very important just as a human being to attach to these experiences in a way rather than, that’s my feeling, detach from it because then that makes you not bond with it, but understand it in a deeper way. And yeah, you cohere rather than be this disjointed person that cannot cope with this or that. I find personally I had to cohere with the worst reality on the planet and that was what enabled me to stand up again. So that was …

Audience 6: Thank you.

Sonali Deraniyagala: Yeah.

Ramona Naddaff: We have one last question here.

Audience 7: Hi. Thank you very much. My question concerns adaptation. How would you feel if your work was adapted for theater, movie, TV, etc. How would you feel about that? And if you did go forward with that, what would be your motivation knowing that the work is very personal.

Sonali Deraniyagala: Actually, I had a blanket “no” to any adaptation. So from the moment the book came out, and I also didn’t do any press, I didn’t do any talk shows or interviews. I did a couple of interviews, I think one with the  Guardian . But I was really protected from all of that. So no, I’d hate to see today …

Audience 7: Thank you.

Ramona Naddaff: Well, thank you everyone for being here. And thank you, Sonali.

[ Music: “Silver Lanyard” by Blue Dot Sessions ]

Outro:  You’ve been listening to  Berkeley Talks , a  Berkeley News  podcast from the Office of Communications and Public Affairs that features lectures and conversations at UC Berkeley. Follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can find all of our podcast episodes, with transcripts and photos, on  Berkeley News  at news.berkeley.edu/podcasts.

Watch a video of the April 10 conversation, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Learn more about the Townsend Center for the Humanities’ Art of Writing program.

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