Writing in “High” Style

An excerpt from Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” rewritten in the “high” style of Winston Churchill:

The woman arrives with two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She places the felt pads and the beer glasses on the table, then she looks at the man and the girl. The girl is gazing at the line of hills. They are white in the sun, and the country is brown and dry.

‘They look like white elephants,’ she says.

‘I’ve never seen one,’ the man drinks his beer.

‘No, you wouldn’t have.’

‘I might have,’ says the man. ‘Just because you say I wouldn’t have doesn’t prove anything.’

Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”

In Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”, the central meaning of the story can be found in the dialogue that takes place between the “American” and Jig. At first their conversation is aimless however the manner in which the two interact with each other provides insight towards their individual characters as well as their relationship.

The repetition of phrases and roundabout nature of their conversation adds to the uneasiness of the couple and the tension that wavers- but never actually builds- through the scene. Back and forth, they each attempt to dissuade the other’s concerns and inadvertently their own as well: “And afterwards they were all so happy,” “...if I do it you’ll be happy” and “I don’t care about me,” “well I care about you,” “oh, yes. But I don’t care about me...”

Jig seems to be younger than the man and almost childlike in the way she says the hills look like “white elephants” and compares the alcoholic drink to licorice. Jig’s talkative manner suggests a quality of naivety and innocence, sharing her thoughts out loud as they come to mind and also voicing her demands whether it be a glass of Anis del Toro or that her companion, “...please please please please please please please stop talking.”

Among the details about the characters provided outside of their dialogue is Jig’s tendency to gaze into the distance, “...and the girl looked across at the hills.” This could either be an avoidance of the subject of conversation or simply a sort of denial that the problem even exists. On the other hand, Jig’s melancholy demeanor seems to suggest a quality of wishfulness exclusive to someone who hasn’t yet let go of their youth, “We can have everything... We can have the whole wide world.”

Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"

In his essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell discusses the deterioration of the English language. Orwell criticizes political prose writing by analyzing examples and pointing out the main causes for their failure- dying metaphors, verbal false limbs, pretentious diction, and meaningless words.

Despite his criticism of political prose Orwell demonstrates persuasion tactics often found in paratactic sentence structures, for example, his use of repetition in words and rhythm:

Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.

Another pattern Orwell demonstrates in his construction of sentences is the use of interrupting modifiers:

Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse.

In addition to pointing out where English prose are unsuccessful, he further proves his argument by explaining how one can improve of them. Orwell also takes the opportunity to further prove his point by following these rules within his essay.

In consideration of reversing the decline of the English language, Orwell offers a solution by listing the rules for acceptable prose writing.

Analysis of Sentence Structure in James Joyce's Grace

Paratactic sentence structure that demonstrates movements towards the verse:

The man, without answering, began to twirl the ends of his mustache. He made light of his accident. It was nothing, he said: only a little accident. He spoke very thickly.

No one knew; a voice said:

'Give him air. He's fainted.'

Hypotactic structure because that demonstrates subordination in a complex sentence:

As it passed the Ballast Office the clock showed half-past nine.

Parataxis in the use of short, simple prose that maintain a rhythmic nature through the paragraph:

His collar was unfastened and his necktie undone. He opened his eyes for an instant, sighed and closed them again. One of the gentlemen who had carries him upstairs held a dinged silk hat in his hand. The manager asked repeatedly did no one knew who the injured man was or where had his friends gone...

Compound sentence with elliptical construction:

His inexplicable debts were a byword in his circle; he was a debonair young man.

Nabokov’s Lolita & The Art of Styling Sentences

Let me therefore primly limit myself, in describing Annabel, to saying she was a lovely child a few months my junior. Her parents were old friends of my aunt's, and as stuffy as she. They had rented a villa not far from Hotel Mirana. Bald brown Mr. Leigh and fat, powdered Mrs. Leigh (born Vanessa van Ness). How I loathed them! At first, Annabel and I talked of peripheral affairs. She kept lifting handfuls of fine sand and letting it pour through her fingers. Our brains were turned the way those of intelligent European preadolescents were in our day and set, and I doubt if much individual genius should be assigned to our interest in the plurality of inhabited worlds, competitive tennis, infinity, solipsism and so on. The softness and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain. She wanted to be a nurse in some famished Asiatic country; I wanted to be a famous spy.

All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other's soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do. After one wild attempt we made to meet at night in her garden (of which more later), the only privacy we were allowed was to be out of earshot but not out of sight on the populous part of the plage. There, on the soft sand, a few feet away from our elders, we would sprawl all morning, in a petrified paroxysm of desire, and take advantage of every blessed quirk in space and time to touch each other: her hand, half-hidden in the sand, would creep toward me, its slender brown fingers sleepwalking nearer and nearer; then, her opalescent knee would start on a long cautious journey; sometimes a chance rampart built by younger children granted us sufficient concealment to graze each other's salty lips; these incomplete contacts drove our healthy and inexperienced young bodies to such a state of exasperation that not even the cold blue water, under which we still clawed at each other, could bring relief.

-V. Nabokov, an excerpt from Lolita

Analysis

Let me therefore primly limit myself, in describing Annabel, to saying she was a lovely child a few months my junior. [Pattern 13; a single modifier out of place for emphasis]

Her parents were old friends of my aunt's, and as stuffy as she.

They had rented a villa not far from Hotel Mirana. [Pattern 17, dependent clause as a subject, object, or complement]

Bald brown Mr. Leigh and fat, powdered Mrs. Leigh (born Vanessa van Ness). [Pattern 5; a series with a balanced pair]

How I loathed them! [Pattern 19; short, simple sentence for dramatic effect]

At first, Annabel and I talked of peripheral affairs. [Pattern 13; a single modifier out of place for emphasis]

She kept lifting handfuls of fine sand and letting it pour through her fingers. Our brains were turned the way those of intelligent European preadolescents were in our day and set, and I doubt if much individual genius should be assigned to our interest in the plurality of inhabited worlds, competitive tennis, infinity, solipsism and so on. [Pattern 15A; complete inversion of normal pattern/ pattern 7; an internal series of appositives or modifiers]

She wanted to be a nurse in some famished Asiatic country; I wanted to be a famous spy. [Pattern 1; a compound sentence that makes use of a semicolon instead of a conjunction]

All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other [pattern 6; an introductory series of appositives]; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other's soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do.

Richard Lanham & Bill Clinton's Inaugural Speech

-How does Clinton use various sentence types?

-What persuasion techniques does he use?

-Comment on the effectiveness of repetition; vocabulary/word choice.

Based on the prose analysis theories of Richard Lanham, Bill Clinton’s inaugural speech demonstrates the grammatical sentence structures parataxis, hypotaxis, and asyndeton. He uses each manner of coordinating phrases throughout, however often focusing on one for a certain number of paragraphs.

An example of Clinton’s use of parataxis can be found in paragraph #14, “But when most people are working harder for less; when others cannot work at all; when the cost of health care devastates families and threatens to bankrupt many of our enterprises, great and small; when fear of crime robs law-abiding citizens of their freedom; and when millions of poor children cannot even imagine the lives we are calling them to lead—we have not made change our friend.” These prose often exhibit similar colloquial tendencies of spoken language or “train of thought”. The short clauses create a steady rhythm that escalates from the beginning of the speech to the end (but not from sentence to sentence). Each point is delivered with the intent to remind, motivate, or promise.

Clinton uses repetition as a means of psychological persuasion, and demonstrates this method in various ways. While it can be demonstrated in the parataxis construction of sentences, another example of repetition is through the asyndetic coordination of clauses. Towards the end of his speech, Clinton uses asyndetic phrases one after another; a choice which reflects the manner of listing conjunctions in a series that the style follows. “Our hopes, our hearts, our hands, are with those on every continent who are building democracy and freedom,” (36); “And you have changed the face of Congress, the presidency and the political process itself,” (37), “But no president, no Congress, no government, can undertake this mission alone,” (38).

The third type of sentence coordination is called hypotaxis. Hypotaxis demonstrates a pairing of clause with “unequal” constructs by manipulating the order of a sentence so that the explanatory prose comes before of the action. This type of structure forces the audience to wait until the end of the sentence for a sense of resolution. “...But, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we spring forth,” (2) and “To renew America, we must be bold,” (21) are both examples of hypotaxis.

Parataxis & Hypotaxis

Woody was fourteen years of age when Pop took off with Halina, who worked in his shop, leaving his difficult Christian wife and his converted son and his small daughters. He came to Woody in the back yard one spring day and said, “From now on you’re the man of the house.” Woody was practicing with a golf club, knocking off the heads of dandelions. Pop came into the yard in his good suit, which was too hot for the weather, and when he took off his fedora the skin of his head was marked with a deep ring and the sweat was sprinkled over his scalp—more drops than hairs. He said, “I’m going to move out.” Pop was anxious, but he was set to go—determined. “It’s no use. I can’t live a life like this.” Envisioning the life Pop simply had to live, his free life, Woody was able to picture him in the billiard parlor, under the “L” tracks in a crap game, or playing poker at Brown and Koppel’s upstairs. “You’re going to be the man of the house,” said Pop. “It’s O.K. I put you all on welfare. I just got back from Wabansia Avenue, from the Relief Station.” Hence the suit and the hat. “They’re sending out a caseworker.” Then he said, “You got to lend me money to buy gasoline—the caddie money you saved.” (Excerpt from "A Silver Dish" by Saul Bellow)

Fiction: A Silver Dish: newyorker.com

Analysis

The story by Saul Bellow, "A Silver Dish," explores a sense conflict thematically and stylistically. As the protagonist, Woody, struggles psychologically and as a member of society, the structure of the text demonstrates similar patterns. The text combines elements of colloquial speech with philosophical musings about human nature, and also incorporates the emotions of the main character. The result are conversational prose that mirror the back and forth movement of the story. The paratactic rhythm creates a flow, stringing the prose together. Bellow's prose frequently lead into verse, doing so without interrupting the overall movement of the text.