Often associated with the comedian Yakov Smirnoff, this joke involves flipping the subject and object around to create a simple chiasmus. In Soviet Russia, Party always finds you! This iconic line sums up the anti-consumerist morality espoused by Tyler Durden in Fight Club. In general, chiasmus is a form of parallelism — that is, the two parts of the chiasmus use the same sequence of parts of speech in the same order.
To go back to our first example:. Notice that the Gandhi quote from Section 2 is an example of a chiasmus without strict parallelism — can you see why? Antithesis is also a two-part structure, and it can look very similar to a chiasmus.
Here are a few examples of antithesis:. Notice that the underlined terms are actually replaced, rather than just being switched around as they would be in a chiasmus. A small step is the opposite of a giant leap; human is the opposite of divine, etc. If the examples were chiasmic instead, they would read:. Often, a chiasmus juxtaposes two images.
The Gandhi quote from Section 2 is a good example. When these two images are juxtaposed, it creates a powerful moral image. It forces us to come to terms with the question of whether our wealth and prosperity has been bought at the expense of impoverished people all over the world, and in our own cities and towns. List of Terms Action. Ad Hominem. Alter Ego. APA Citation. Comic Relief. But once I started researching, I became enthralled. A reversal of the same words is called antimetabole.
The Iliad and the Odyssey use chiasmus. In chiastic structure, it would look like this: In her beat up Mustang, Caroline enters the story. Caroline leaves the story on a jet airliner.
Making sense? Want another one? Genesis And all flesh died that moved upon the earth , both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast , and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
Thoughts and ways Heavens and earth. Is this making sense? Act 1: It begins with Noah and his sons. The state of the earth is cursed. Inciting incident: God calls Noah to build an ark. We see the story world: food, man, and animals dwelling together.
Act 2: Noah enters the ark, the rain comes and water increases, the mountains are covered. X is the turning point. The God Factor. God remembers Noah. In your story, this would be the Man in the Mirror Moment. Or the Moment of Truth. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play. Sign Up. Already have an account?
Sign in. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this entire guide PDF. Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? Our Teacher Editions can help. Chiasmus Definition What is chiasmus? Some additional key details about chiasmus: Symmetry is key to chiasmus, but the repeated phrases need not be exactly symmetrical.
So, a latter phrase might be a much longer elaboration of the preceding phrase that it echoes. Chiasmus is related to the figure of speech antimetabole. Chiasmus derives from the Greek for "a placing crosswise, diagonal arrangement.
The "Repeated Concepts" in Chiasmus Can Be Contrasting While many examples of chiasmus use synonymous concepts, chiasmus can also involve opposite or contrasting concepts.
The next sentence, on the other hand, is a case of chiasmus that uses concepts that contrast with one another: My heart burned with anguish, and chilled was my body when I heard of his death. Chiasmus Depends on Inverted Word Order One reason chiasmus is rare is that it depends on inverting the order of related concepts. For instance, it's tempting to think this Walt Whitman quote is chiasmus: I may be as bad as the worst , but, thank God, I am as good as the best. If Concepts Aren't Related, It's Not Chiasmus An important rule to keep in mind when trying to identify examples of chiasmus is this: it's not chiasmus unless the concepts involved are somehow related.
Related Concepts in Chiasmus Can Get Creative In chiasmus, related concepts might not be as simple as "heart" and "love," or "burned" and "chilled. Take a look at Genesis And all flesh died that moved upon the earth , both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man : All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
Chiasmus Can Sound Old Fashioned When Yoda gives advice to Luke Skywalker, what makes his advice memorable is its curious grammar as in, "When you look at the dark side, careful you must be". Notice the Yoda-esque quality of the second phrase here: She went to church , but to the bar went he. Chiasmus vs. Antimetabole Chiasmus is closely related to another figure of speech called antimetabole. Here are the key differences between the two terms, summarized: Antimetabole involves the inverted repetition of words or phrases.
Chiasmus involves the repetition of similar concepts within a repeated and inverted grammatical structure , but not necessarily the repetition of the same words. The two sides of the argument can be summed up in this way: Stricter definitions of chiasmus maintain that it never involves the repetition of the same words, which would mean that antimetabole could not be a type of chiasmus.
Most definitions of chiasmus hold that it can involve the repetition of words, in which case antimetabole would be a type of chiasmus. Chiasmus Examples Chiasmus Examples in Literature Chiasmus is not a particularly common figure of speech in literature because it can often create language that feels formal or even stilted.
Adam , first of men , To first of women , Eve The excerpt from Paradise Lost below also has a pleasing sense of unity. In his face Divine compassion visibly appeerd Love without end , and without measure Grace Chiasmus in Walt Whitman's Song of Myself In this excerpt from one of Whitman's most famous poems, he brings in chiasmus at the close of a number of other lines that use different figures of speech related to balance and repetition in this case parallelism and diacope : The city sleeps and the country sleeps, The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time, The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife; And these tend inward to me , and I tend outward to them.
Chiasmus in Shakespeare's Othello In this example from Othello , Iago plants the notion in Othello's mind that his wife is unfaithful. Chiasmus Examples in Speeches The most common use of chiasmus is as antimetabole that appears in speeches. Here are a few examples of chiasmus that are also examples of antimetabole from famous speeches: "Let us never negotiate out of fear , but let us never fear to negotiate.
Kennedy "We shape our buildings , and afterward our buildings shape us. Chiasmus in Psalms These verses from Psalm 3 give a more complex example of chiasmus. Chiasmus in the Quran, This example of chiasmus in the Quran is also an example of antimetabole. Why Do Writers Use Chiasmus? Chiasmus Can Present, then Deepen, an Idea When chiasmus involves repeated concepts rather than simply repeated words as in antimetabole , the structure can allow an idea to be deepened or expanded in the latter clauses.
Take this sentence: All the schoolchildren were cruel. Chiasmus is a Persuasive, Dynamic Tool of Rhetoric Like all figures of speech based on repetition, chiasmus can be a tool to craft persuasive rhetoric. Star Tribune Article : A clever, light piece on the difference between antimetabole and chiasmus.
Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon by John W. Welch: Although only about appearances of chiasmus in the the Book of Mormon, this well-written article explores the interesting effects of chiasmus.
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