O'Brien recalls something he learned in the war, he says, “. . .you're never more alive then when you're almost dead.” This is clearly a [PARADOX] and is used to illustrate an indelible truth, in less words it; essentially explains how we take life for granted and it isn't until we are very near death that we realize how alive we truly are.
Just a few paragraphs later O'Brien shows what I think is a good example of syntactic fluency. He says, “The old rules are no longer binding, the old truths no longer true. Right spills over into wrong. Order blends into chaos, love into hate, ugliness into beauty, law into anarchy, civility into savagery. The vapors suck you in. You can't tell where you are, or why you're there, and the only certainty is overwhelming ambiguity.” This is a very complex type of syntax that corresponds to the complex message it delivers. It is also so complicated because it is explaining that during war everything becomes its opposite. It would seem that all this is impossible and that is why it is so complex and a little bit difficult to fully comprehend.
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