Literary notes about OBSTACLE (AI summary)
Writers employ the term "obstacle" to evoke both a tangible barrier and a metaphor for internal or societal impediments. In some works, such as those by Edgar Allan Poe ([1]) and Jules Verne ([2]), the term describes physical blockades that challenge the characters’ progress or resolve, whether it is the hard resistance encountered in a moment of violence or a barrier that must be blown up in pursuit of an adventure. Meanwhile, authors like Elizabeth Gaskell ([3]) and Leo Tolstoy ([4]) use it to signify setbacks in personal ambition or social aims, illustrating how obstacles can inhibit growth or shift the course of events. Additionally, the term is often invoked to represent abstract challenges—ranging from commercial difficulties ([5]) to interpersonal conflicts ([6]), and even as obstacles that, once overcome, strengthen an individual’s determination as in narratives of persistent progress.
- I then forced the blade of my pen-knife through them, until I met with some hard obstacle.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - Let us blow up the obstacle that stands in our way."
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne - If it had been otherwise, he would have felt it as an obstacle in his progress to the object he had in view.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell - he heard shouts from a knot of men—he knew they were his friends in the regiment—who were standing at the obstacle.
— from Anna Karenina by graf Leo Tolstoy - This is necessarily a great obstacle in commercial intercourse.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - " It was as if the eager current of her being had been checked by a sudden obstacle which drove it back upon itself.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
