The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language : Chapter XV - Contrast

Too Long; Didn't Read

In all effective writing contrast is far more than a figure of speech: it is an essential element in making strength. A work of literary art without contrast may have all the elements of construction, style, and originality of idea, but it will be weak, narrow, limp. The truth is, contrast is the measure of the breadth of one's observation. We often think of it as a figure of speech, a method of language which we use for effect. A better view of it is as a measure of breadth. You have a dark, wicked man on one side, and a fair, sunny, sweet woman on the other. These are two extremes, a contrast, and they include all between. If a writer understands these extremes he understands all between, and if in a story he sets up one type against another he in a way marks out those extremes as the boundaries of his intellectual field, and he claims all within them. If the contrast is great, he claims a great field; if feeble, then he has only a narrow field.