What is an example of using an oxymoron for a motif?

Answer 1

This can be seen in Henry James' book 'The American' (1877). Lee Clark Mitchell, writer, editor and critic, identified and expounded on this feature of James' style in this novel, saying:

The motif* of marital possession has been frequently seized by critics to investigate other implications in a marriage of polar opposites (American entrepreneur, French countess). Yet few note that wedding the incongruous defines not only the novel's plot but also its dominant rhetorical figure, oxymoron, which winds obsessively through a narrative that everywhere presents experience paradoxically. Moreover, oxymoron is registered differently throughout, serving sometimes as sign of naivety, at others as mark of sophistication, at still others as token of an ability to resist possession at another's hands. In a novel where possibilities of mutual possession are so exhaustively explored, no single reading ensues from the oxymoronic contortions that mark this theme rhetorically. At the level of character development, however, one nicely teleological progression does develop: Christopher Newman's response to an exotic Parisian milieu, traceable as an arc that extends from his delight in the vividly oxymoronic Claire de Cintre to his later renunciation of such... (Extract from Lee Clark Mitchell's review entitled 'A Marriage of Opposites: Oxymorons, Ethics, and James's 'The American', published in the Henry James Review - Volume 19, Number 1, Winter 1998, pp. 1-16)

Mitchell draws attention to Henry James' frequent use of oxymoronic 'marital' motifs throughout this book which has become a classic.

In analysing James' style, Mitchell observes that Henry James not only paints a tale of a wedding of opposites, but also draws our attention to the very fact that oxymorons permeate James' novel, and that the author is making outstanding use of this 'oxymoronic' style in order to develop the plot and all its implications.

Mitchell also suggests that the story be read more than once in order to appreciate the 'bigger picture' that James was revealing by the frequent use of oxymorons. Mitchel highlights the fact that James' 'marriage of opposites' oxymorons occurs not only with respect to literal marriages but also in his literarymarriages of words and ideas, pairing apparently incongruous concepts in order to convey greater truths. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

*A motif in this context refers to a distinctive or dominant idea, a recurring concept, that runs through a literary work. ---- For more information see Related links below this box.