For my first example of an oxymoron, I chose to look in Invisible Man by Ralph Waldo Ellison (my favorite book we read last year). In the very first few pages of the novel, the invisible man says that he can “see the darkness of lightness” (Ellison 6). This whole book had a lot of oxymorons concerning visibility and darkness, actually. In Romeo and Juliet, there’s this entire passage filled with oxymorons.
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything, from nothing first create,
O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
(Shakespeare, Act 1. Scene 1. 175-182)
Okay, so all of my examples are coming from books I read last year (except Romeo and Juliet), but hey, at least I enjoyed some books we were forced to read. This first paradox comes from a close second for my favorite English III book is Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. In chapter 12 (one of those weird in-between chapters that didn’t directly focus on the Joads), a character says “[California] ain’t that big. The whole United States ain’t that big. It ain’t that big. It ain’t big enough. There ain’t room enough for you an’ me, for your kind an’ my kind, for rich and poor together all in one country, for thieves and honest men. For hunger and fat,” which certainly fit the requirements for a paradox to me (Steinbeck 80). Clearly both California and the entire United States are large enough to hold a couple of people, but once the voice explains that the rich and poor and hungry and fat can’t ever truly coexist, it makes sense. Next there’s a pretty significant paradox in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain in Chapter 18: “I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft,” (Twain 126). The paradox within this passage is the comparison of the raft to a home; of course, Huck hadn’t really had a proper home, so this makes sense given his personal circumstances. To Huck, home was just a place of comfort with someone he loved (Jim).
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