Antithesis

Antithesis is a stylistic figure of the sharp opposition of concepts, images, characters or states that emphasises contrast and heightens the expressiveness of the utterance. Antithesis is built on antonymy and often has a symmetrical syntactic structure in which the opposing members balance one another. It helps to sharpen a contradiction, to delineate more clearly opposing life positions, to lend a thought an aphoristic, chiselled quality. Antithesis is widely represented in folklore, proverbs, oratorical speech and the poetry of all ages. On its basis entire compositional structures of works may be built, where the opposition of two worlds or two destinies becomes the organising principle.