Literary notes about Gate (AI summary)
The word "gate" in literature often transcends its literal meaning to embody transitions, thresholds, and moments of change. It can denote a grand entrance into a fortified palace or a spiritual realm, as when a divine or royal domain is introduced to evoke majesty and solemnity [1, 2, 3]. At other times, the gate marks a boundary between familiar domestic life and the uncertain or supernatural, such as in narratives where characters pause before an entrance that promises new beginnings or unexpected consequences [4, 5, 6]. In this way, the gate becomes a potent symbol of both protection and passage, linking the mundane with the mystical and the known with the unknown [7, 8].
- There mansions rose with four wide halls, And elephants and chargers' stalls, And many a house of royal state, Triumphal arc and bannered gate.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - Then the guards of the gate went, and told it within in the king's palace.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - 167 The Peasant in Heaven Once on a time a poor pious peasant died, and arrived before the gate of heaven.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm - Cursing my want of success, I was going out of the gate when all at once I stumbled on Mr. Kirillov.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Once, I opened the yard-gate, and looked into the empty street.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - Result: the gate was only a flimsy structure of wood—we would break it down.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain - It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass.
— from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass - At the gate, a group of officers were looking at the fire; removed from them, a group of soldiers.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
