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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].
  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. "Donc je n'y serai pas," declared I, involuntarily.
    — from Villette by Charlotte Brontë
  4. ‘Funny!’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick involuntarily.
    — from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
  5. Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button.
    — from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy
  6. I exclaimed involuntarily, "What will he do when you are gone!"
    — from Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  7. 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
  8. 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

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