Literary notes about Controlled (AI summary)
The term “controlled” appears across literature with a remarkable range of meanings, sometimes referring to the self-restraint of characters and at other times to the governance of larger forces. In narratives, we often see individuals exercising self-control—as in moments where emotions are tempered for the sake of decorum or survival ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8])—highlighting a personal struggle to master inner impulses. In other contexts, “controlled” takes on an institutional or systemic aspect, describing how public opinion, law, or economic power dictates behavior or outcomes ([9], [10], [11], [12], [13]). At times the term carries a charged connotation, as when it is used to denote oppressive influences, illustrated by politically or ideologically motivated references such as the “Jew-controlled press” ([14], [15], [16], [17], [18]). Moreover, its use extends even to technical or mechanistic scenarios, where “controlled” can literally mean regulated by design or equipment ([19], [20], [21]). This multifaceted employment of “controlled” demonstrates literature’s ability to work with both the literal and metaphorical forces that shape human behavior and societal structures.
- For many hours Margaret did nothing; then she controlled herself, and wrote some letters.
— from Howards End by E. M. Forster - “Oh, well”—she controlled herself with difficulty.
— from Howards End by E. M. Forster - I controlled my features and tried to speak seriously.
— from My Ántonia by Willa Cather - By a violent effort I controlled myself and touched her hand.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - He controlled himself and said with tranquil severity,— “Gossip Jacques, you enter very abruptly!”
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo - she said, when she had so far controlled the angry heavings of her breast, that she could trust herself to speak.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - So nervous was I that I controlled an impulse to headlong flight with the utmost difficulty.
— from The island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells - At one point he seemed about to jump up and cry out, but controlled himself and only shrugged his shoulders disdainfully.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - "The history of an institution," he writes, "which is controlled by public opinion and regulated by law is not natural history.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - In the former case, all local authorities are subordinate to the supreme; and may be controlled, directed, or abolished by it at pleasure.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison - Chestnut blight has been controlled in western North America, where chestnut orchards and plantings are not numerous.
— from Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting - The contents of this Manual should be carefully controlled and should not be allowed to come into unauthorized hands.
— from Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States. Office of Strategic Services - English freebooters controlled the oceans, and in 1610 the Dutch appeared in the East, never to withdraw.
— from A History of the Philippines by David P. Barrows - Let him recall to his mind the capitalists who have been held up to public scorn in the Jew-controlled press
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous - These papers, it is charged, were really German editions of the Jew-controlled press of the Allied countries, and their purpose was the same.
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous - "Look at the newspapers owned and controlled by Jews," they say; "see how they differ in policy!
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous - The Jew-controlled melodrama made the farmer a "rube," and Jew-made fiction presented him as a "hick," causing his sons to be ashamed of farm life.
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous - Undoubtedly that would be the case were all the papers controlled.
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous - This is the procedure ordinarily used for our controlled pollinations.
— from Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting - The coating on the drum is controlled or regulated by a spreader.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - The motion of the second is controlled by the first, and hence the oblique line in which the planets are supposed to move becomes a spiral.
— from Timaeus by Plato
