What is an Oxymoron?

Find out what an oxymoron is, how writers use oxymorons and how you can analyse them in any English exam, whether you’re studying AQA GCSE English Literature Paper 1, or preparing for Edexcel A Level English Language. We also include some of literature’s finest examples of oxymorons, with our own expert analysis.

Written by: James Alsop

Published

13 August 2024

Read time

7 minutes

Contents

What is an oxymoron?

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that juxtaposes two contradictory words or concepts, like "bittersweet", or “awfully good”. Oxymorons are often used to convey complex emotions, but can also create humour, a sense of irony or a dramatic effect. Some of the most recognisable oxymorons occur as adjective or adjective-noun pairs, such as in this example from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:

“Parting is such sweet sorrow” — Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2

In this example, Shakespeare combines the contradicting terms “sweet” and “sorrow” to reflect Juliet’s rush of emotions. Although she finds Romeo’s departure painful, she also knows that the separation will make it all the sweeter when they reunite (especially because their next meeting will also be their secret wedding!).

However, oxymorons are also used over the course of longer clauses or sentences. In these oxymoronic phrases, the contradicting terms do not need to be next to one another. For example, Thomas Wyatt’s poem, ‘I Find no Peace’, consists almost entirely of oxymoronic phrases that describe the pain of unrequited love:

"I find no peace, and all my war is done.
I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice.
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise"

— Sir Thomas Wyatt, ‘I Find no Peace’

By placing contrasting ideas next to one another (burning, freezing, fearing, and hoping), Wyatt expresses how emotionally and physically confusing love can be. Love makes him feel as though he can “fly", but the despair caused by not being loved in return leaves him feeling weighed down, unable to "arise”. There is even another contrast to be found within the first oxymoron: Wyatt juxtaposes poetic, conventionally romantic imagery with a double entendre (a sexual double meaning) that hints at how, without his lover, Wyatt is unable to “arise”.

Etymology of the word oxymoron

The word oxymoron comes from the Greek words ὀξύς (oxús, “sharp, keen, pointed”) and μωρός (mōrós, “dull, stupid, foolish”). Literally, the word translates to something like "sharply-dull", meaning that the word "oxymoron" is itself an oxymoron.

Why do writers use oxymorons?

Oxymorons can very effectively help writers by intensifying the meaning of descriptions, revealing deeper meanings, or communicating complex sensations and feelings in a concise way. For example, the oxymoronic phrase, “deafening silence”, can be used to express the sensation of a silence so painfully noticeable that it has the same effect as a deafening sound.

Oxymorons can sometimes be found in advertising and marketing, where the use of contrasting words, or contradictory terms, is used to create a sense of interest or excitement. They are most commonly used, however, in creative writing, where they allow writers to play with language and express their creativity in unconventional and memorable ways. Consider the following example, again from Romeo and Juliet, in which Romeo describes his feelings for his first love, Rosaline:

"Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first created!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!"

— Act 1, Scene 1, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Here, Romeo uses an extended sequence of oxymorons to describe love, hate, and heartbreak. Romeo’s first oxymorons establish that love and hate can spring from one another — a comment both on the public brawl between the Montagues and the Capulets from earlier in the scene, and also on the pain and pleasure of love. These oxymorons also foreshadow the play’s doomed romance between Romeo (and Montague) and Juliet (a Capulet), and the tragic ending in which love leads to their deaths.

What is the difference between oxymoron and paradox?

Oxymorons are often confused with paradoxes. Both are similar in the sense that they explore contradictions, but they are very different in terms of presentation and usage. While an oxymoron is a literary technique that juxtaposes two opposing words in a concise manner (such as “bittersweet”), a paradox focuses on the contrast between two complete ideas in the form of a statement or paragraph that technically contradicts itself. There is never a “correct” way to interpret a paradox; their purpose is to cultivate the reader’s critical thinking skills, or present a fresh new perspective on an idea.

One of the most famous examples of a paradox is The Liar Paradox, which goes as follows:

“This sentence is false”

If we understand the sentence to be true, then we must accept it to be false. However, if the sentence is false then we cannot believe its meaning and it cannot therefore be true. But if the sentence is truly false, then by describing itself as false it is in fact telling the truth…

The statement, then, has no clear end or answer! It is a paradox that demonstrates the limits of language, and the way that the meaning of words can be manipulated.

Examples of oxymorons and how to analyse them

Like analysis of other language techniques, it is always important to comment on the effects of the oxymorons you find in your texts, not simply to spot them. Comment on the additional meaning a writer is trying to convey when they use oxymorons: can you interpret those deeper layers of meaning and their connotations?

Oxymoron

Analysis

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air” — Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2

Here, Shakespeare uses oxymorons to convey the sense of confusion and deception that permeates Macbeth — a play in which that nothing is as it seems:

Macbeth is King Duncan’s most trusted general, but his “fair” guise masks his “foul” and murderous ambition
Lady Macbeth advises her husband to look like “the innocent flower” but be the “serpent underneath’t”
The witches’ predictions convince Macbeth that his best friend, Banquo, is his enemy
The witches, of course, delight in the “foul” elements of the tragedy, and seem to enjoy their involvement in Macbeth’s downfall

“Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square” — To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 1

In these lines, the American writer Harper Lee describes the long, hot summers of Maycomb, Alabama. The oxymoron of “sweltering shade” indicates how uncomfortable the weather is: even the shade, an ostensibly cool location, is “sweltering”. The sibilant “s” that connects these words compounds the impression that the heat is inescapable

What is an Oxymoron?

What is an oxymoron?

Etymology of the word oxymoron

Why do writers use oxymorons?

What is the difference between oxymoron and paradox?

Examples of oxymorons and how to analyse them

Further reading

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Author: James Alsop

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