Literary notes about Involuntarily (AI summary)
Writers use "involuntarily" to underline actions and reactions that escape conscious control, conveying a profound sense of instinct or compulsion. In narratives, it can depict sudden physical movements or emotional responses that arise without deliberation, as when a character’s body reacts reflexively in a moment of crisis or intense emotion [1, 2]. At other times, it emphasizes a deep inner conflict or uncontrollable sentiment, such as hesitant speech or an unbidden glance that betrays hidden feelings [3, 4, 5]. This adverb thus functions as a subtle cue to readers that certain behaviors—whether a spontaneous exclamation or a subtle shift in demeanour—are not the result of reasoned decisions but of an overwhelming, almost involuntary impulse [6, 7, 8].
- When he strangled, quite involuntarily his arms and legs clawed the water and drove him up to the surface and into the clear sight of the stars.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London - The blood rushed to Natásha’s face and her feet involuntarily moved, but she could not jump up and run out.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - "Donc je n'y serai pas," declared I, involuntarily.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë - ‘Funny!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick involuntarily.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - I exclaimed involuntarily, "What will he do when you are gone!"
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens - Involuntarily, he bent over a branch of red roses, and took them softly between his hands—those murderous, bloody hands!
— from Complete Prose Works by Walt Whitman - Everything happens quite involuntarily, as if in a tempestuous outburst of freedom, of absoluteness, of power and divinity.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche