Much of Lockwood's description of Heathcliff and Wuthering
Heights employs parataxis (non-subordinated clauses):
The apartment, and furniture would have been
nothing extraordinary stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs, set out to advantage in
knee-breeches, and gaiters. Such an individual, seated in his arm-chair, his mug of
ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six
miles among these hills, .... He is a dark skinned gipsy, in aspect, in dress, and
manners, a gentleman, that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather
slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss, with his negligence, because he has an erect
and handsome figure -- and rather morose -- possibly, some people might suspect him of a
degree of under-bred pride -- I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it is
nothing of the sort; I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy
displays of feeling -- to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He'll love and hate,
equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence, to be loved or hated again
-- No, I'm running on too fast -- I bestow my own attributes over liberally on him.
Mr Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the way,
when he meets a would-be acquaintance, to those which actuate me. Let me hope my
constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should never have a
comfortable home, and only last summer, I proved myself perfectly unworthy of
one.
Notice Lockwood says
"No, I'm running on too fast -- I bestow my own attributes over liberally on him." This
is indicative of parataxis: the free association listing of items without coordination
or subordination.
Hypotaxis, on the other hand, is more
thoughtful and ordered:
On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B. I dine
between twelve and one o'clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady taken as a fixture
along with the house, could not, or would not comprehend my request that I might be
served at five.) On mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the
room, I saw a servant-girl on her knees surrounded by brushes, and coal-scuttles; and
raising an infernal dust as she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders. This
spectacle drove me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four miles' walk,
arrived at Heathcliff's garden gate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of
a snow shower.
Notice the
subordinating and coordinating phrases and clauses: "and," "however," etc... Here,
there is spatial and temporal organization.
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