Parataxis is the use of simple declarative sentences or independent clauses placed side by side, creating a powerful effect. It can focus on a particular idea, emotion, or setting and is useful for describing an environment or a rapid succession of thoughts. It is the opposite of hypotaxis, which uses complex sentences to relate different ideas.
Parataxis in writing refers to the use of simple declarative sentences or independent clauses, placed side by side. They can be written with or without conjunctions. As a literary device, it can focus the reader on a particular idea, emotion, or setting. Each sentence reinforces the impression made by the previous one, creating a powerful overall effect.
Derived from a Greek expression meaning “side by side,” parataxis strings together a set of clauses that can stand alone. Rather than mixing longer and shorter sentences, it gets its effect by holding propositions together, letting them explain each other as an idea. For example, Julius Caesar aptly summed up his power with the paratactic statement “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
Parataxis is also a useful device for describing an environment. It is used in the Bible’s Book of Genesis to describe the creation of the world from nothing. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was formless and empty; and darkness covered the face of the deep.”
American novelist Raymond Chandler uses parataxis in Farewell, My Lovely to encapsulate the weary state of mind of his protagonist private detective. “I needed a drink, I needed life insurance, I needed a holiday, I needed a house in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.”
Paratactic sentences are also effective in describing a rapid succession of thoughts. They can evoke the way things seem to happen all at once. In Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion writes: “I was late to meet someone, but I stopped on Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and stopped on the corner to eat it and I knew I had come from the West and reached the mirage”.
The often staccato rhythm and repetition of the paratactic language can strengthen a perception. In Sula, American writer Toni Morris describes a character seemingly without a past or future by repeating all the things he doesn’t have. “… without a past, without a language, without a tribe, without a source, without a faded postcard, without soap, without a key, without tobacco.”
Parataxis is the opposite of hypotaxis which uses complex sentences to relate different ideas and meanings to each other within a sentence. It is also used to explain or expand on the concept contained in the sentence. Hypothesis is often employed as a rhetorical device in speeches.
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