8.7–Analyzing Nonfiction through Tropes and Schemes

In addition to examining sentences in terms of modifiers and branching, a sentence-level analysis of nonfiction literature also encompasses the use of tropes and schemes. In this particular context, tropes refer to the manners in which writers alter, manipulate, or play with the literal meanings of words. Schemes, by contrast, refer to syntactical patterns the writer employs to create a particular rhythmic effect in a text. Both tropes and schemes contain different subcategories within themselves, which signify their particular mechanisms and effects.

Tropes

Just as in fiction, nonfiction writers use tropes to expand and alter the meanings of words for several purposes: to clarify, to entertain, and to consolidate. There are more specific types of trope than this chapter could possibly cover, but it’s very helpful to be aware of three major categories of trope types. These are listed below.

Tropes of identification encompass metaphors, similes, and analogies, among others. These tropes link two distinct subjects with one another in order to make a comparison. These comparisons often accentuate certain aspects of each subject that the writer wants the reader to understand. Different tropes of identification also create different levels of distance between the two subjects compared. For example, a simile (“He was as unstable as a powder keg”) creates more distance between subjects than a metaphor ( “He was a powder keg”). Be mindful that no comparison is perfect, so all similes will be imperfect on some level. For example, life is like a game of chess in that being strategic and goal-oriented are good qualities, but unlike chess, people don’t start life with equitable resources, and sometimes “winning” is not about defeating an opponent.

Tropes of substitution also link two subjects; however, these two subjects already have a concrete connection with one another. The most common tropes of substitution are metonymy and synecdoche (external vs. internal substitutions, respectively). Metonymy can manifest in a number of external substitutions such as:

• Container for contained: That was such a tasty dish.
  • This substitution classifies a wide variety of meals and cuisines under one category, emphasizing its status over origin or type.
• Controller for controlled: Putin invaded Ukraine.
  • This substitution calls attention to the man responsible for the invasion, rather than the soldiers carrying out his orders.
• Action for actor: That biker has a sweet ride.
  • This substitution makes the subject of the biker look more active, and is less formal than “motorcycle.”
• Effect for cause: They took a swig of confidence to get on the dance floor.
  • This substitution highlights the reason why this person is drinking alcohol in a tense or nervous situation.
• Building for organization: The White House is taking a hard stance on the crisis.
  • This substitution provides a shorthand for all the parties responsible in the executive branch and forms them into a cohesive whole that also signifies their locale.

Synecdoche, by contrast, is most often a substitution of a part for the whole, such as when a body part stands in for the entire person. As a result, synecdoches are often more intimate or visceral than metonymies are (“He has my heart” or “I can’t stand that neckbeard” or “The hands left the factory”).

Tropes of inversion alter the literal meaning of a word, usually for dramatic or sarcastic effect. Irony is the most common of these types of tropes, and typically inverts the meaning of a word. Variants of irony, like hyperbole or litotes (understatement), alter literal meaning by degrees. Still other tropes of inversion, like periphrasis, discuss a subject in a deliberately long-winded and vague manner to create a particular rhetorical effect.

Frederick Douglass employs tropes from all three categories in “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” to great effect:

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day…

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival…

The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery.

In this passage, Douglass uses an analogy to frame the importance of the 4th of July as a day of emancipation. This analogy, which compares the day to Passover, not only links the nation to Judeo-Christian beliefs, but also foreshadows Douglass’s later points on the feelings of enslaved Black people. He also uses the synecdoche “your minds” to sharpen the focus on his audience’s imaginations. In the next section, he uses hyperbole and irony to illustrate how hypocritical the 4th of July’s celebration of freedom from tyranny is. Finally, in the third section of the quote, he uses the metonymy “American church” as a substitution for American Christians; this metonymy emphasizes the institution on a large and small scale.

Schemes

The rhythmic patterns that schemes create in a nonfiction text can vary in type, degree, and intensity. Some, like parallelism, are barely noticeable at times; others, like anastrophe, inherently call attention to themselves. Below are the major categories of schemes, with some textual examples to demonstrate how they function.

Schemes of balance are syntactical patterns that create symmetry on the word, phrase, and clause levels. These schemes create fluidity when information is stacked, making it easier for readers to process new information. For example, parallelism can be found in a text as mundane as a shopping list (“I need bread, milk, and chocolate chips”). If all of the items are of the same syllabic length, then you would have both a parallelism and an isocolon (“I need bread, milk, and eggs”). Another type of balance scheme, antithesis, uses symmetry to highlight contrasting elements (“All is fair in love and war”).

Schemes of repetition create a rhythmic emphasis at key points in a sentence to stimulate recall and amplify the repeated words’ or phrases’ importance. Sometimes each instance of the repetition maintains equilibrium with the others, such as anaphora or epistrophe (when a word or phrase is repeated either at the beginnings or ends of sentences, respectively). Other times, the repetition crescendos in length and intensity, as we see with the climax scheme.

Schemes of omission remove words and phrases that would ordinarily appear in a sentence, but only to a degree where the sentence is still comprehensible to the reader. Removing these parts of a sentence can streamline its readability, shift the emphasis in a sentence, and create other unique rhythmic effects. For example, applying ellipsis to “She loves me, and I love her” results in a more poetic sentence: “She loves me, and I her.” Other schemes of omission include asyndeton, which omits conjunctions (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) and polysyndeton, which adds them (“Neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”).

Schemes of unusual word order, as the name implies, rearrange the syntax of a passage in an unconventional way, or otherwise disrupt the flow of a sentence. Rearranging the words of a sentence via anastrophe, for instance, can make an otherwise plain passage stand out: “the three brothers” versus “the brothers three.” Parenthesis alters the sentence as a whole by interjecting an aside phrase or clause (like this one) somewhere in the middle.

These four scheme types overlap frequently in nonfiction literature. Passages in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense frequently demonstrate this layering:

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom…

Going through this passage bit by bit, we can see quite a few schemes operating in conjunction with one another here. “A thing wrong” is an example of anastrophe, and the pairing of “wrong” and “right” is an antithesis (a scheme of balance). “Gives it a…” and “raises at first…” is an example of parallelism that gives equal weight to both actions.

As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry), and as the King of England hath undertaken in his own Right to support the Parliament in what he calls Theirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either.

In this longer sentence, each repetition of “as” is an anaphora that also begins a parallelism, which helps the reader intuit that each of these adverb clauses is building towards the independent clause at the end of the sentence (which in turn functions as the climax). The parenthesis of (“and in Matters too…”) adds context to the first clause while clearly demarcating the interjection.

Combined, our being able to identify each scheme and the effects they create give us a greater understanding of Paine’s intentions in terms of motivating his readers to take action, as well as a greater appreciation of Paine’s craft as a writer.