Literary notes about Control (AI summary)
The term "control" in literature stretches across personal discipline to the orchestration of larger power structures. It can refer to an internal struggle—characters striving to manage their emotions or impulses, as when one tries to conceal delight or hold back overwhelming passion [1, 2, 3]—and simultaneously serve as a metaphor for external authority, where forces such as governments or institutions command order and direct outcomes [4, 5, 6]. In some works, the idea of control becomes a dualistic notion that involves both self-regulation and the imposition of order on society, highlighting a tension between innate instincts and structured systems [7, 8]. Even in depictions of historical or strategic scenarios, control is key, whether in navigating the physical environment or consolidating power across groups and nations [9, 10]. Thus, literature repeatedly underscores control as a multifaceted concept, integral to both personal identity and broader social governance.
- she seemed to make an effort to control herself, to try not to show these signs of delight, but they came out on her face of themselves.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - "Listen to me," she said, considerately avoiding all notice of my loss of self-control.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - “I feel weak, Dounia, I am very tired; and I should have liked at this moment to be able to control myself.”
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The absence of any similar French force gave the entire control of the sea to the English until the arrival of Suffren, nearly three years later.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. Mahan - This was one of the futile provisions by which Spain attempted to control both the ambition and the avarice of her colonial captains.
— from A History of the Philippines by David P. Barrows - The movement of New York had become planetary--beyond control--while the task of Washington, in 1900 as in 1800, was to control it.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams - The rational philosophy of control of Self and of adjustment to the Whole implies an asceticism of the emotional and the sensitive life.
— from The Enchiridion by Epictetus - Control then denotes the process by which he is brought to subordinate his natural impulses to public or common ends.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey - Was Ayrton no longer at the corral, or if he was still there, had he no longer control over his movements?
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne - She assumes a control over Emile because she doubts her control of herself; she turns the one against the other.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
