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Literary notes about Claim (AI summary)

The word "claim" in literature serves as a versatile marker of entitlement, assertion, or right, whether it is in matters of inheritance, political authority, or personal honor. In some narratives it adopts a legalistic tone, as characters assert their ownership or duty—for instance, a man declaring his filial sympathy or the rightful claim to a throne ([1], [2]). In other works it expresses personal conviction or moral justification, with authors using the term to convey both internal strength and external challenge ([3], [4]). Sometimes, "claim" even illustrates broader societal debates about power and legitimacy, highlighting the tension between established authority and individual self-assertion ([5], [6]).
  1. He was a man, not wise in his generation, yet could he claim a filial sympathy with "the dayspring on high."
    — from Villette by Charlotte Brontë
  2. I claim by the right of inheritance and possession, and who shall dare to extort you from my hands?
    — from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
  3. I hate to claim to mean well, but I really did mean honestly and simply well, and I want you to know it.'
    — from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  4. I only add that if it is any claim on you to be in earnest, I am in thorough earnest, dreadful earnest.'
    — from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  5. The conventional authority does claim some popular mandate; the unconventional authority does not.
    — from What's Wrong with the World by G. K. Chesterton
  6. They claim that all just government must derive its power from the consent of the governed.
    — from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I

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