Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition is "an act or instance of placing two elements close together or side by side," often done to compare or contrast the two, to show similarities or differences. In literary terms the article defines it as the comparison of words or concepts by placing them side by side or close together, and across the arts the same move does the same work: the technique is used to elicit a response in the audience's mind, creating meaning from the contrast, whether as montage in film, abrupt change of elements in music, or deliberate contrast in painting and photography. Rhetoric valued it too, and the article cites John F. Kennedy as a speaker particularly fond of the device.

For a novelist juxtaposition is an ordering decision that carries meaning: which scene follows which, whose chapter comes next, what sits on either side of a section break. The foil is juxtaposition cast as character, two figures set side by side so their shared traits and their differences read as significance, and the oxymoron compresses the same move into a single phrase. Dramatic irony runs on juxtaposition in time, appearance set against outcome, and a repeated pairing hardens into a motif the reader learns to watch. The craft test is simple: if nothing changes when the two elements swap places, the contrast is decorative.