SYNTAX--Parallel Structure or Parallelism

FENCES: The Case of the Watermelon



Let's reopen the case of the watermelon, the story of Brownie attempting to hide a watermelon from boss man Mr. Rand, as related by Troy to Bono at the play's opening:

TROY:

Ain't said nothing. Figure if the n***** too dumb to know he carrying a watermelon, he wasn't gonna get much sense out of him. Trying to hide that great big old watermelon under his coat. Afraid to let the white man see him carry it home.

Can you crack, slice, quarter, or otherwise solve this case??? What is missing in these four sentences???

subjects verbs both none of the above Check Answer   Answer Both--Subjects AND Verbs are missing... The first two sentences leave out the subject "Mr. Rand" and the second two sentences leave out the subject "Brownie" as well as the verb, "was." The characters use this non-standard English dialect throughout the entire play, but what's important here is the effect, particularly in the last two sentences, of using parallel structure: each "sentence" begins with the description of Brownie's comical character. Look how the consistent rhythm of the underlined excerpt connects the two lines: [Brownie was] "Trying to hide that great big..." [Brownie was ] "Afraid to let the white man..." The repitition (parallel use) makes for more effective storytelling, no? What's also notable is Bono's line afterwards: "I'm like you [Troy]...I ain't got time for them kind of people [Brownie]." One might say Troy and Bono aren't ashamed of their cultural heritage whereas Brownie tries to hide it from the white man's view.

So, Troy's storytelling pattern, playwright August Wilson's careful arranging of words, phrases or sentences with some grammatical or structural similarity, establish two things: rhythm and equality of ideas.

Speaking of equality, both Bono and Troy dismiss Brownie's actions as foolish...neither seems ashamed of his cultural heritage as Brownie appears to be.

Here's another example of PARALLEL STRUCTURE/PARALLELISM:

What's repeated in parallel form here??? “She hated everything about him – the smoking, the fighting, the lying, the cheating.”

gerunds infinitives both none of the above Check Answer   Answer Gerunds--Which are verbs (verbals) functioning as nouns.

All the terms used to describe the man are in the same form, GERUNDS....smoking, fighting, lying, cheating.

Whoo-wee! He's a RANDY (course, lustful) character, no, a real jackal!

Now, how effective is the following line, when there is little parallelism in the writing:

"She hated everything about him - the smoking, all the fights, lies, and him cheating on her all the time."

Doesn't the powerful tone and voice of the 1st example fizzle in the 2nd sentence? What happened?


Look at how the RHYTHM changed:

SMOKing, FIGHTing, LYing, CHEATing...all of these words have the same rhythm: STRESSED syllable followed by an unSTRESSED syllable--this beat or foot of rhythm is know as a TROCHEE (TRO key).

In the 2nd sentence, there is no pattern in the rhythm of the words so when one reads the line, the words don't PULSATE like the ANGer, HATRed, FURy of the scorned woman. The second sentence falls flat.

NEXT: Lesson 4 Language Study--Putting on the Breaks