Writing Help 129 | - ☆ Freelance Writer
Mar 25, 2013 | #1
Using Advanced Rhetorical Devices to Surprise and Delight
More general than other effects of repetition like anaphora and epistrophe discussed previously, parallelism is a broad device that makes the structures of sentences and clauses stand out through consistent ordering, rather than the repetition of specific words or phrases. In other words, while the aforementioned devices rely on the repetition of a given word or phrase at the beginning or the end of a sentence, clause, or line, parallelism depends instead on the repetition of a grammatical structure across successive clauses or sentences.
In one sense, parallelism can be considered apart from its rhetorical elements, because it is one of the cornerstones of good grammar. Parallel structure is a term used in grammar to describe the proper way of laying out successive items around various conjunctions, with and being the most common. In the following sentence, we see parallel structure used correctly: "The handler trained his lions fantastically with great enthusiasm, his dogs adequately with little excitement, and his rabbits poorly with no effort at all." Here we have three distinct though linguistically complex items listed in parallel fashion. The common stem which is understood to apply to each item, though it only appears before the first, is The handler trained; when the parallel structure is done correctly, you should be able to read these three words in front of each item listed, and form a complete sentence. The example passes this preliminary test, assuring us that, no matter what else is going on here, the sentence is grammatically correct.
Looking even more closely, we can see the parallels between the three items are significant. Each begins with the name of an animal in the plural (lions, dogs, rabbits), followed by an adverb describing how they are being trained (fantastically, adequately, poorly), the preposition with, and an adjective coupled with a noun describing the trainer's level of involvement (great enthusiasm, little excitement, no effort at all). This extended parallelism ensures grammatical accuracy while pleasing the ear, but it also goes much further in affecting how we read the sentence and what we take from it.
One of the most important effects of parallelism is the way it keeps the general categories in question lined up, allowing us to see subtle differences between the items in context. In the example above, we can clearly see a progression occurring on several levels. First, the order of the animals goes from largest to smallest, from regal to rodent. Second, the quality of training goes in the reverse order, from excellent to excrement. Finally, the level of intensity the trainer brings to his work trails off, beginning at the peak and sliding down the sink. Because the items are ordered in a parallel manner, we can see the progressions here very clearly, and although little is stated directly, we can draw many solid inferences from this short passage. For example, the trainer prefers large animals to small ones, and spends most of his time on them, neglecting his duties with the smaller ones. We imagine that if he had rats to train they would rank below the rabbits, and if he had wolves they would occupy a place between the lions and the dogs.
Because of its ability to create patterns and exploit the differences between entities of the same class, parallelism is a favorite device of politicians and polemicists of all kinds. It is an efficient way to draw comparisons between competing ideas, and it opens up the potential for wit. As we will see in upcoming articles, parallelism is a necessary foundation for many other devices; the creation of an established pattern is absolutely necessary if you desire to set up certain expectations and then surprise the reader by going against them, or (even better) by meeting them in unexpected ways. As with most of the devices which operate based on a patterned order, parallelism loses is power if it is overused, and even worse, it grows monotonous. So, use the device sparingly, and it will have the powerful impact it should.
Parallelism
More general than other effects of repetition like anaphora and epistrophe discussed previously, parallelism is a broad device that makes the structures of sentences and clauses stand out through consistent ordering, rather than the repetition of specific words or phrases. In other words, while the aforementioned devices rely on the repetition of a given word or phrase at the beginning or the end of a sentence, clause, or line, parallelism depends instead on the repetition of a grammatical structure across successive clauses or sentences.
In one sense, parallelism can be considered apart from its rhetorical elements, because it is one of the cornerstones of good grammar. Parallel structure is a term used in grammar to describe the proper way of laying out successive items around various conjunctions, with and being the most common. In the following sentence, we see parallel structure used correctly: "The handler trained his lions fantastically with great enthusiasm, his dogs adequately with little excitement, and his rabbits poorly with no effort at all." Here we have three distinct though linguistically complex items listed in parallel fashion. The common stem which is understood to apply to each item, though it only appears before the first, is The handler trained; when the parallel structure is done correctly, you should be able to read these three words in front of each item listed, and form a complete sentence. The example passes this preliminary test, assuring us that, no matter what else is going on here, the sentence is grammatically correct.Looking even more closely, we can see the parallels between the three items are significant. Each begins with the name of an animal in the plural (lions, dogs, rabbits), followed by an adverb describing how they are being trained (fantastically, adequately, poorly), the preposition with, and an adjective coupled with a noun describing the trainer's level of involvement (great enthusiasm, little excitement, no effort at all). This extended parallelism ensures grammatical accuracy while pleasing the ear, but it also goes much further in affecting how we read the sentence and what we take from it.
One of the most important effects of parallelism is the way it keeps the general categories in question lined up, allowing us to see subtle differences between the items in context. In the example above, we can clearly see a progression occurring on several levels. First, the order of the animals goes from largest to smallest, from regal to rodent. Second, the quality of training goes in the reverse order, from excellent to excrement. Finally, the level of intensity the trainer brings to his work trails off, beginning at the peak and sliding down the sink. Because the items are ordered in a parallel manner, we can see the progressions here very clearly, and although little is stated directly, we can draw many solid inferences from this short passage. For example, the trainer prefers large animals to small ones, and spends most of his time on them, neglecting his duties with the smaller ones. We imagine that if he had rats to train they would rank below the rabbits, and if he had wolves they would occupy a place between the lions and the dogs.
Because of its ability to create patterns and exploit the differences between entities of the same class, parallelism is a favorite device of politicians and polemicists of all kinds. It is an efficient way to draw comparisons between competing ideas, and it opens up the potential for wit. As we will see in upcoming articles, parallelism is a necessary foundation for many other devices; the creation of an established pattern is absolutely necessary if you desire to set up certain expectations and then surprise the reader by going against them, or (even better) by meeting them in unexpected ways. As with most of the devices which operate based on a patterned order, parallelism loses is power if it is overused, and even worse, it grows monotonous. So, use the device sparingly, and it will have the powerful impact it should.