Literary notes about Alarming (AI summary)
The term "alarming" is employed with remarkable versatility in literature, where it often intensifies both physical and psychological states as well as broader social or political anxieties. It can vividly depict bodily reactions—a swollen condition described in an almost humorous yet vivid way ([1]), or a sudden flush that betrays a character’s inner excitement ([2])—while simultaneously conveying forebodings of danger or crisis. Authors use it to emphasize unsettling revelations or rapid changes, as when it conveys the swift spread of distress in landscapes of political turmoil ([3]) or looming military threats ([4]). Thus, the adjective enhances narrative tension, bridging the personal with the historical and the immediate with the abstract.
- This is true, for my testicles were swollen in an alarming manner.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous - Mr. Tulliver was getting excited, and an alarming flush was on his face.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot - Nothing can be more alarming than the excessive latitude with which political offences are described in the laws of America.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville - — And hardly had those words been uttered when there sounded the cry once more, and longer and more alarming than before—also much nearer.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
