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Literary notes about Exclaim (AI summary)

The word "exclaim" serves as a powerful literary device, capturing spontaneous outbursts that reveal sudden emotion or heightened awareness. Authors deploy it to imbue dialogue with urgency or fervor, whether the cry expresses joy, outrage, or deep contemplation. In some passages, it illuminates moments of dramatic farewell or defiant protest, as seen when a character laments their tragic fate [1] or challenges circumstances with wit and indignation [2]. Other instances reveal how declarations of astonishment can punctuate critical turning points in a narrative, lending voice to both private despair and public rallying calls [3] [4]. This versatile verb thus enriches dialogue and narrative by conveying raw, unmediated human reaction.
  1. Cutler and Brutus, dying, both exclaim, “Virtue! and wealth!
    — from An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope
  2. In any crisis of this nature, Bella would suddenly exclaim aloud, 'Oh you ridiculous old thing, what do you mean by that?
    — from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
  3. I went down at the moment another projectile struck the Nautilus, and I heard the Captain exclaim: "Strike, mad vessel!
    — from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne
  4. Mrs. Nickleby would exclaim in great astonishment; ‘I declare I never did!
    — from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

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