Antithesis is the opposite of something and is used in linguistics and literature to portray two opposites. In rhetoric, it is used to put forward an argument and its opposite. The Hegelian dialectic involves an intellectual attack on someone’s thesis and a defense of said thesis.
The antithesis of something is its opposite. In linguistics, it is a direct contrast similar to an opposite. It is also used to indicate an opposing position or counter position in speech. Antithesis is used in a general sense to say that something or someone is the opposite of something else; “He was the antithesis of everything she stood for.”
The antithesis is used in literature to portray two opposites. This usually takes the form of two characters with opposite personalities, but can also apply to places and objects. In novels with simplified characters, sometimes called two-dimensional characters, this can be the simple use of good and evil archetypes.
JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” is a good example of more complex antithetical characters. There are several opposing pairings including Legolas the Elf and Gimli the Dwarf and the good and evil wizard pairing of Gandalf and Saruman. One pairing in particular is noteworthy: Theoden, king of Rohan, and Denethor, High Steward of Gondor. Both characters see their ultimate destiny and the futility of fighting it, but both react in different ways. Theoden finds courage in fate and in Anglo-Nordic fashion decides to fight fate regardless of the odds of victory, while Denethor surrenders to fate and kills himself.
If the two men, Theoden and Denethor, were scholars, they would have argued over someone’s reaction to fate. Antithesis occurs when a perfectly sane, but opposite argument is given to counter another perfectly sane argument. This exchange of positions is called the Hegelian dialectic, after Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
In such a Hegelian dialectic, the antithesis is an intellectual attack on someone’s thesis, and the rhetoric is the defense of said thesis. It’s a two-way process. Hegel is also wrongly associated with the three-way process of intellectual discourse. In the system outlined by Heinrich Moritz Chalybaus, the first element is the thesis, the second is the antithesis and the last element is the synthesis. In the final element, a sort of concord is achieved between the thesis and the antithesis.
The antithesis has also long been used in rhetoric. In pure rhetoric which is not part of the Chalybaus-Hegel system, it is used by the speaker to put forward an argument and its opposite. It can also be used to inspire such as calling for freedom or death. The use of the opposite highlights the attractiveness of the proposition.
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