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Literary notes about Convulsion (AI summary)

The term "convulsion" is frequently used in literature to evoke a sense of overwhelming rupture—whether in the human body or within larger societal forces. Authors employ it to depict sudden, violent physical reactions, as when an old man is overtaken by a convulsion ([1]) or when limbs jerk uncontrollably in the midst of battle ([2]). At the same time, it extends to describe inner, emotional turmoil; a convulsion of despair may cross a character’s face in a moment of existential crisis ([3]), while the term also paints a picture of nature’s own tumultuous upheaval, from geological tremors on a vast scale ([4]) to the seismic disruptions in political life ([5]). This dual capacity to illustrate both the visceral and the metaphorical makes the word a powerful literary tool for conveying disruption and transformation.
  1. A violent convulsion attacked the old man.
    — from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  2. There was a sudden jerk, a terrific convulsion of the limbs; and there he hung, with the open knife clenched in his stiffening hand.
    — from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
  3. A convulsion of despair crossed the love-beaming face of Adrian, while with set teeth he murmured, "Yet they shall be saved!"
    — from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  4. The convulsion spread across the Atlantic.
    — from The English in the West Indies; Or, The Bow of Ulysses by James Anthony Froude
  5. The period now arrived when the great national convulsion burst forth.
    — from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman

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