Literary notes about Castigation (AI summary)
In literature, castigation is a multifaceted term that can denote both physical punishment and moral or self-imposed reproach. Authors sometimes employ it to depict harsh, corporeal chastisement, as seen in narratives where characters endure severe corporal punishment ([1], [2], [3]), while in other works, it symbolizes a deeper, internal self-admonishment leading to confession or personal reckoning ([4], [5], [6]). Additionally, castigation is often used as a vehicle for broader social or ethical critique, offering a metaphorical rebuke that underscores the consequences of vice or the severity of societal judgment ([7], [8], [9]). This varied use enriches literary language, providing a powerful term that encapsulates both the physical and psychological dimensions of reproof.
- For this unpardonable breach of discipline the young tiger received so sound a castigation as to cripple the poor fellow for life.
— from Travels and adventures in South and Central America. First series Life in the Llanos of Venezuela by Ramón Páez - They stripped him naked, bound him to a tree, and ten of them, with hickory whips, gave him a tremendous castigation.
— from Life of Joseph Brant—Thayendanegea (Vol. II) Including the Border Wars of the American Revolution and Sketches of the Indian Campaigns of Generals Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne; And Other Matters Connected with the Indian Relations of the United States and Great Britain, from the Peace of 1783 to the Indian Peace of 1795 by William L. (William Leete) Stone - An unruly slave receives his castigation at the jail when it is found inconvenient to perform the operation under his master's roof.
— from The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba by Walter Goodman - The need for a certain amount of self-castigation is implanted in all of us, and it is satisfied in the form of confession.
— from The Patient Observer and His Friends by Simeon Strunsky - She was in a very paroxysm of self-castigation, and, concluding, she looked with defiant resolution at the elder.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The very pain my conduct gave myself, persuaded me that it must be heroic, just as a devotee is satisfied after a severe self-castigation.
— from A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance by Charles James Lever - They all pitied me and tried to console me, and were sad in view of the castigation that awaited me, except Kentucky John.
— from Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup - When he attacked meanness, fraud, or vice, he was powerful, merciless in his castigation."
— from Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, Volume 2 (of 2) by William Henry Herndon - War cannot bear the terrible castigation of comedy, the ruthless light of laughter that glares on the stage.
— from Heartbreak House by Bernard Shaw
