Literary notes about Concealment (AI summary)
Literature employs “concealment” in a variety of nuanced ways that both reflect and complicate themes of secrecy, protection, and moral ambiguity. In some works, concealment is depicted as a deliberate act that masks true intentions or emotions—an admission of internal conflict or even a tactic to safeguard one’s self—illustrated in discussions of deceit and the suppression of truth [1, 2, 3]. In other contexts, it serves as a physical or metaphorical refuge, a hidden sanctuary offering safety amid chaos or political turbulence [4, 5]. Moreover, thinkers like Aristotle connect concealment with the natural byproduct of fear, while narrative figures in novels often confront its consequences in their quests for honesty or liberation [6, 7, 8]. Thus, “concealment” operates as a versatile motif that invites readers to explore the boundaries between appearance and reality, security and exposure [9, 10].
- Here, too, open dealing is lacking; concealment and the darkened room are Christian.
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - If I am angry with you, it is that you seem not to see how any concealment divides us.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - He made no concealment of these vainglorious boasts, and thus gave us the full key to his future designs.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. Sherman - At last he took refuge in the deep dark hollow of an old beech tree, which offered shelter, concealment—perhaps even safety, but who could tell?
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame - With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato - It is a property of him also to be open, both in his dislikes and his likings, because concealment is a consequent of fear.
— from The Ethics of Aristotle by Aristotle - Now, my good friend, speak out; for the time for any palliation or concealment is past, and nothing will avail Ralph Nickleby now.’
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens - Why did Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment?
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no concealment possible.
— from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle - Besides this, as it is always seeking concealment, as soon as it feels that it is understood, it changes its form.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
