How Does An Author Use Parallelism

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Authors use parallelism to create balance and force in their writing. They can use parallelism in words, phrases, or clauses to emphasize, contrast, or connect ideas. Although parallelism may be hard to incorporate and identify in literary works, it communicates the idea of the sentence in a more clear and efficient way. The clarity of the sentence that results from parallel structure makes it easy for the reader to identify the connections that the author makes between ideas. Similar to other literary concepts, parallelism has many subdivisions. An anaphora is a specific type of parallelism that occurs when authors repeat a word or a phrase at the beginning of consecutive phrases. An anaphora usually is used to create periodic sentences since it can be used to create tension and suspense, making the reader wait until the end of the sentence to discover the main idea. Another branch of …show more content…

An antimetabole is created when an author repeats words in the opposite order of which they first appeared. This form of repetition emphasizes the central idea of the sentence and makes it easy to remember because it gives the reader two opportunities to comprehend it. The first part of the sentence illustrates the central idea of the sentence, and the second part places emphasis of the idea, imprinting the pattern of the sentence on the reader’s mind. In addition to an anaphora and antimetabole, parallelism can contain an antithesis by harboring contrasting sets of ideas. The parallelism creates a clear comparison between the two ideas to emphasize their distinctions. Instead of choosing contrasting pieces of evidence that are not parallel, an author incorporates an antithesis when he wants the contradiction between two ideas to be the main focus of the sentence. Finally, an author can use a zeugma in parallelism when he uses different words that are grammatically

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