Everything Carries the Same Weight

In coordinative style, or parataxis, everything carries the same weight. Every bit of information in the sentence is parallel. While each little piece is not absolutely necessary for the sentence to function in a base way, they are additive and carry the same importance and purpose. A good example of an author who uses this style, one of my favorites, is Ernest Hemingway. I chose to analyze his sentence structure, picking a sentence from The Old Man and the Sea, the novel written by Hemingway while in Cuba and published in 1952. Here’s the sentence I chose to dissect (the first sentence in the quote below), taken from the end of the novel, after the old man had returned from his taxing journey on the water, back to his home and back to the boy:

He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out at the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.

Wow. Breathe that in, that slow, timely building of the story. That’s what it is; Hemingway tells the story of the old man and of the sea in that first sentence. He is a carpenter, driving in screws to hold together the house. He is an artist, putting down deliberate brush strokes of contrasting color, highlighting the brighter picture. Each thing the old man used to dream of is right there, the storms, great occurrences, great fish that pull him along over the sea for days as he holds tight to the fishing rod and his hands crack and blister and bleed, fighting to be stronger than the fish, man beats beast. With one carefully crafted sentence, Hemingway tells you a story of an old man, one who is tired, and one who has seen much in his long life. Using the word “nor” he adds each element to the sentence. Other words can do this, to create this heavy list – words like “and”, “or”, maybe even “so” in some circumstances. In this example, I think choosing the word “nor” was a fantastic choice. Hemingway says “he no longer dreamed.” Using “nor” repeatedly holds the point that the old man has changed. He no longer dreams of those things; he only dreams of warm places he hasn’t been and the big cats in Africa.

Puttin’ On the Ritz: Sentences Edition

A good example of hypotaxis, or subordination, would be the following quote from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, written in 1847 :

If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.

This sentence is so powerful because it defines exactly what Jane feels, and what she struggles with throughout the novel. Love of the self and self-confidence, self-assurance, are fairly prevalent ideas in the novel. This sentence expresses those exact sentiments.

So let’s digest what Brontë does rather than says, let’s see if we can describe how she constructs this important sentence. The sentence is an “if, then” statement. It is a causality form of subordination. Arranging the sentence in a simpler format, it would read “If all the world hated you, while your own conscience approved of you, you would not be without friends.”  What I thought of when I read this quote from the Victorian Era novel was another quote by Oscar Wilde: “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” This is also a “if, then” or, more accurately, a “cause, effect” statement, but a less complex sentence. Brontë arranges the actions just so, stating if one thing happens, while this thing is happening, then this other thing will happen. That’s confusing, I know. Let me be clearer. Brontë starts off with a hypothetical situation, laying it all out before you like a possible evening gown. “If all the world hated you and believed you wicked…” Alright, so there is your dress, possibly what you will wear, but maybe the gold one in the wardrobe would look better with your hair. It hasn’t got any bells and whistles yet, though. Just the dress, just a possibility of what you will don for the evening. So let’s try for some accessories. “…while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt…” The ribbon tied around your waist would look nice, and a matching one for your hair. Maybe this outfit really could work. “…you would not be without friends.” Slipping on the shoes, you find that, yes, this is the perfect dress, this is the one you’ll wear tonight and dazzle everyone with your self-confidence and honed heel-walking abilities. Like the contemplating of an outfit and arranging the elements in a certain manner, Brontë creates her sentence. She follows the cause and effect model, starting off with a hypothetical situation, throwing in some clarifying information, and ends with the conclusion that draws her point to a close.