The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse

An oxymoron is a literary device in which two words that contradict each other in meaning are placed within the same phrase. Its purpose is to grab the reader’s attention and to demonstrate a paradox (see below). Oxymorons appear throughout the story. For example, Aram describes his family as living in “amazing and comical poverty” (2). Poverty is generally believed to be negative, or tragic. Therefore, using the words “amazing” and “comical” to describe poverty is oxymoronic. Its purpose may be to call attention to the enormous poverty that their family has experienced or possibly to call attention to the young narrator’s hyperbolic worldview. It also calls attention to the fact that things are not always what they seem—that events may have dual meanings or interpretations—a central theme of the story. A second example of oxymoron is “There was a pious stillness and humor in each of them” (3). Stillness can certainly conventionally be described as “pious,” but “pious humor” is an oxymoron. Typically, when one thinks of someone as being pious, that person is serious, quiet, and reverential, not humorous or silly. Once again, this statement is an oxymoron, pointing to the theme of