CHIASMUS

WHAT IS CHIASMUS?

In rhetoric, chiasmus, or less commonly chiasm, (Latin term from Greek χίασμα, "crossing", from the Greek χιάζω, chiázō, "to shape like the letter Χ") is the figure of speech in which two or more clauses are presented to the reader or hearer, then presented again in reverse order, in order to make a larger point.
A figure of speech in which a second clause or phrase inverts the order of words used in the first, as in "Man must eat in order to live and not live in order to eat." Dictionary of Critical Theory, Penguin Reference, 2000.

DEFINITION OF CHIASMUS

Chiasmus is a Greek term meaning “diagonal arrangement.” It is used to describe two successive clauses or sentences where the keywords or phrases are repeated in both clauses, but in reverse order. For this reason, chiasmus is sometimes known as a criss-cross figure of speech.

For example, consider the common phrase:

When the going gets tough,

the tough get going!

“Going” and “tough” are reversed in successive clauses, while the other words (when, the, gets) bind them together and often include straightforward repetition (the, get/gets).

In the general pattern, when your first clause contains two words A and B, then the second clause contains the same words, but in reverse order:

[1] … A… B…
[2] … B… A…

Each of “A” and “B” can be either a single word or a group of words. Graphically, it looks like above.

Chiasmus from John F. Kennedy

Chiasmus was a common technique used by John F. Kennedy (or perhaps his speechwriters). We include just a few of his chiastic phrases here.

For example, the most famous line from his Inaugural Address (January 20, 1961) reverses your country and you in successive parallel clauses:

Ask not what your country can do for you
— ask what you can do for your country.

In the same speech, he says:

Let us never negotiate out of fear.
But let us never fear to negotiate.

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 1961, he repeats that line, slightly massaged to reflect his audience and his relationship to it:

[…] we shall never negotiate out of fear,
we shall never fear to negotiate.

The same speech includes:

Mankind must put an end to war,
or war will put an end to mankind.

Finally, his 1963 address on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty includes:

Each increase of tension has produced an increase of arms;
each increase of arms has produced an increase of tension, by Andrew Dlugan.