Why use paradoxes

In the television show House , the main character is a rude, narcissistic, and abrasive man who constantly alienates those around him. Thus, he combines a gruff, mean exterior with a deep sense of compassion and morality. I close my eyes so I can see Fugazi, Shut the Door. However, this is merely a literary paradox or an oxymoron, since it employs a double entendre. Terms: self-fulfilling prophecy, dilemma, irony, oxymoron and juxtaposition.

Because time-travel paradoxes are so common in popular culture, we often confuse them with self-fulfilling prophecies. However, traveling or looking forward in time can produce a self-fulfilling prophecy. A scientist peers into the future and sees a terrible apocalypse.

When he returns, he tries to warn humanity, but everyone laughs at him and in his anger he turns on them with his machines, thus causing the very destruction that he witnessed in the future.

A time traveler from builds a time machine in order to assassinate Hitler and prevent the second world war. He succeeds, meaning that the war never happened and he in would have had no reason to build the time machine in the first place, meaning Hitler was never assassinated.

A dilemma is a difficult choice , whereas a paradox is a violation of logic itself. For example, say a single dad wants to provide for his kids with a better job, but in order to do that he needs to go back to school, which will take him away from his kids.

Should he spend more time with them? Or go back to school, get a better job, and give them a better life? But there is neither a logical paradox nor a literary paradox in this situation. Irony or, to be precise, situational irony is an event or circumstance that violates our expectations. However, it is not a violation of logic, so it is not a logical paradox. He believes the murder will be for her own good. It's common to confuse a paradox with an oxymoron. Both are found in literature and everyday conversation.

Here's the difference between the two:. Oxymorons are often referred to as a "contradiction in terms. A word or two that bounce off each other. Paradoxes, however, are entire phrases, sentences or quotes. In truth, both achieve the same result. Examples of oxymorons include bittersweet, jumbo shrimp, only choice, and sweet sorrow.

Paradoxes have important implications in the world of literature. They take aim at the overall theme. Take George Orwell, for example.

Animal Farm was all about class distinctions and inequalities. With one paradoxical line, he highlighted what was true for him. To make sure your next paradox aligns with the theme of your story, take a look at these Examples of Theme in Literature.

All rights reserved. The paradox is that asking out of missions is seen as a sane act, because only a sane person can perceive the danger; a crazy person would never make the request. Thus, Yossarian is pronounced sane and made to continue to fly.

One of the most famous paradox examples in literature, the term entered our shared lexicon as shorthand for a paradox. The paradox is meant to illuminate the hypocrisy inherent in ruling systems that claim egalitarianism while erecting unjust hierarchies.

Below it is articulated in the trailer for the animated film version. Both Heller and Orwell created paradoxes as a way to express the absurdity of war and oppression.

Other important literary devices for conveying difficult ideas with which every storyteller should be familiar include allegory , oxymoron, and irony. Time travel is a favored premise of science fiction. The best sci-fi movies often use time travel as a way to dramatize temporal, or time, paradoxes and conjecture about what could happen if they played out. Many movies dramatize time paradoxes.

Examples include:. Movies typically present two kinds of time paradoxes according to physics: consistency — or grandfather — paradoxes; and causal loops. Let's review those paradox examples one at a time. Imagine a character traveling back in time to kill her grandfather as a young woman. Why would she do this? As a screenwriter, the possibilities are endless.

Maybe her grandfather turned out to be a genocidal dictator, or the inventor of glam rock. Who knows? And how is that possible if she killed her grandfather? This video provides one possible way to reconcile this paradox. How would your character visit the past in the first place? Paradox is sometimes structured differently in poetry than in prose literature, and it can often have multiple layers of meaning expressed in fewer words.

Poetry writers usually employ paradox to create an unusual thought or visual image with words. The same words would often otherwise read as ordinary and unremarkable when placed in a different combination or context. Some types of paradox in poetry are meant to convey a tone of irony as well as lead to reader contemplation on the subject of a certain poem.

This kind of irony from a paradoxical poem normally generates feelings of intrigue in readers' minds and causes them to read with a greater amount of focus as well as a deeper level of contemplation.