Rhetorical Devices--Syntax

“He wept silently, after the custom of shamed and angry men, so that when the pursuit party came tumbling, pounding, scrabbling down the trail, past the fold in which he and Hillel stood concealed, he could hear the creak and rattle of their leather armor with its scales of horn" (Chabon).

• Periodic Sentence

• Cumulative Sentence

• Antithesis

• Chiasmus

• Ellipsis

“To err is human; to forgive divine” (Pope).

• Chiasmus

• Cumulative Sentence

• Periodic Sentence

• Antithesis

• Listing

In the baseball game, our team scored four homeruns, the other team, only two.

• Ellipsis

• Chiasmus

• Antithesis

• Listing

• Anadiplosis

"Ecstatic with my AP score, I let out a loud, joyful shout!"

• Cumulative Sentence

• Ellipsis

• Anadiplosis

• Polysyndeton

• Periodic sentence

"In the pre-capitalist stages of society, commerce rules industry. In capitalist society, industry rules commerce." (Marx)

• Anaphora

• Ellipsis

• Chiasmus

• Polysyndeton

• Anadiplosis

“This is the villain among you who deceived you, who cheated you, who meant to betray you completely…” (Aristotle).

• Polysyndeton

• Asyndeton

• Anadiplosis

• Anaphora

• Epistrophe

Every single day you let me down. Every single day you make me mad. Every single day you do such silly things!

• Anadiplosis

• Epistrophe

• Antithesis

• Chiasmus

• Anaphora

“I said, ‘Who killed him?’ and he said ‘I don’t know who killed him, but he’s dead all right,’ and it was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights or windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff and went out and found my boat where I had her inside Mango Key and she was right only she was full of water.”

• Polysyndeton

• Anaphora

• Asyndeton

• Anadiplosis

• Epistrophe

Should I be elected President, it would be my intention to ask the ablest men in the country to make whatever sacrifice is required to bring to the Government a ministry of the best talents available . . . For no government is better than the men who compose it, and I want the best, and we need the best, and we deserve the best.

• Anaphora

• Anadiplosis

• Parenthetical Aside

• Epistrophe

• Polysyndeton

“Don’t you surrender! Suffering breeds character; character breeds faith; in the end faith will not disappoint. You must not surrender….” (Jesse Jackson).

• Anadiplosis

• Anaphora

• Epistrophe

• Chiasmus

• Antithesis