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Reversal pattern

Structure
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A formal design in which the order of elements (words, lines, stanzas) is inverted or mirrored

Detailed Definition
A reversal pattern is a structural or thematic device where expectations are inverted—such as a happy ending turning tragic or a speaker’s stance flipping—to create irony, surprise, or critical insight; common in sonnets and dramatic monologues, it uses the volta or narrative twist to reframe prior assumptions and deepen interpretive complexity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” reverses victim/perpetrator roles; e.e. cummings’ “(listen)” reverses syntax for emphasis; W.S. Merwin’s “For the Anniversary of My Death” inverts expectation of mourning; Anne Carson’s “The Gender of Sound” reverses mythological narratives.
Additional Notes
Reversal pattern flips syntactic order, perspective, or expectation mid-poem to create surprise or critique; often marks the volta in sonnets or ironic turns in satire.
Also Known As
Inversion pattern flipped sequence mirrored turn structural reversal Anadromê Mirror-image verse
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