Literary notes about Fatigue (AI summary)
Literary writers employ the term “fatigue” in diverse ways to convey not only physical exhaustion from arduous journeys or labor ([1], [2], [3]) but also deep emotional and mental weariness that reflects a character’s inner struggle or the burdens of life ([4], [5]). At times, fatigue is depicted almost as an inevitable force that both yields to a much-needed rest ([6], [7]) and serves as a metaphor for the cumulative, often existential pressure of human experience ([8], [9]). Its usage ranges from the literal—such as the bodily depletion after endless travel ([10], [11])—to the symbolic, capturing the human condition in states of vulnerability, disillusionment, or a bittersweet release from relentless responsibilities ([12], [13]).
- Jean did the same yesterday and the preceding days, and the fatigue has cost her her life.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain - Though he was almost falling from fatigue, he went a long way round so as to get home from quite a different direction.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The fatigue, too, of so long a journey, became soon no trifling evil.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - Think of the task you undertook—one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the strong, and you are weak.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted fatigue.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - But under the influence of fatigue, a sleepless night, and the wine he had drunk, his sleep was sound and untroubled.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - “Adieu, gentlemen,” said the count; “I am going to sleep twenty-four hours; I am just falling down with fatigue.”
— from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - The fatigue of the organ of consciousness, as long as we wake, continually increases, and the work of attention augments as continually.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James - He no doubt got bewildered and lost, and Fatigue delivered him over to Sleep and Sleep betrayed him to Death.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain - His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six miles' walk.
— from The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - And amid the various cries one heard disputes, reproaches, groans of weariness and fatigue; the voices of most of them were hoarse and weak.
— from The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells - I sobbed; I was beyond regarding self-respect, weighed down by fatigue and wretchedness.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
