Literary notes about Apoplexy (AI summary)
The term "apoplexy" finds versatile usage in literature, serving both as a clinical reference to a sudden stroke and as a metaphor for extreme emotional upheaval or outrage. In some works, authors invoke it to denote actual physical collapse or death—for instance, when a character is described as dying of apoplexy in a matter-of-fact manner ([1], [2], [3]). In other contexts, it is employed hyperbolically to capture bursts of intense anger or bewilderment, as when a character is nearly driven to a state resembling apoplexy due to overwhelming frustration ([4], [5]). This dual application—grounded in medical reality on one hand and exaggerated for dramatic or ironic effect on the other—illustrates how writers have exploited the term’s rich connotations to enhance both character portrayal and thematic texture ([6], [7]).
- The medical evidence showed conclusively that death was due to apoplexy.
— from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - He died one morning of apoplexy, as he was going to open his outer door.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - He died of apoplexy in the twentieth year of his confinement, and seventy-eighth of his age.
— from The Wye and Its Associations: A Picturesque Ramble by Leitch Ritchie - In two or three years’ time apoplexy will carry you off, or else I’ll blow your brains out, my pet.
— from Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - You see this is a fit of apoplexy, and he might be saved if he could but be bled!”
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - For indeed it is of apoplexy, so to speak, and a plethoric lazy habit of body, that Churches, Kingships, Social Institutions, oftenest die.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - English was to her an “apoplexy of a language,” and she rather made a point of not knowing any.
— from Honor Bright: A Story for Girls by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
