Literary notes about Obsess (AI summary)
In literature, "obsess" is often used to evoke a sense of all-consuming fixation that invades the mind and alters behavior. Authors deploy the term to illustrate how a single idea, emotion, or external force can dominate one's consciousness—as when a dangerous thought or desire gradually takes over an individual's mind [1, 2, 3]. At times, it describes an internal struggle where thoughts, memories, or fears echo relentlessly, preventing a person from escaping their grip [4, 5, 6]. In other contexts, "obsess" broadens its scope to depict how societal or cultural phenomena capture public attention and even dictate collective actions, hinting at a kind of mental siege that extends beyond the individual [7, 8, 9]. Whether referring to haunting recollections, overpowering passions, or the pervasive influence of external events, the word serves as a powerful metaphor for a psychological state where normal thought processes are overwhelmed by a fixation that is both compelling and, at times, destructive [10, 11, 12].
- IN FACT COURTREY, BURNING WITH THE NEW DESIRE THAT WAS BEGINNING TO OBSESS HIM, WAS WORKING OUT
— from Tharon of Lost Valley by Vingie E. (Vingie Eve) Roe - The more he imagines himself in love, the more completely does the idea obsess him from morning to night—plain as the nose on your face.
— from Murder in Any Degree by Owen Johnson - A dangerous thought had come to him and begun to obsess his mind.
— from Aladdin of London; Or, Lodestar by Max Pemberton - Then more tender memories would obsess her.
— from Revelations of a WifeThe Story of a Honeymoon by Adele Garrison - That question seemed to obsess his thoughts.
— from Mrs. Bindle: Some Incidents from the Domestic Life of the Bindles by Herbert George Jenkins - The memory seemed to obsess him with other ideas, for he turned away gloomily.
— from A Prince of Dreamers by Flora Annie Webster Steel - You see that war will soon obsess rich and poor, alien and neutral and belligerent, pacifist and militarist.
— from The Desert of Wheat by Zane Grey - The beast was beginning to obsess the minds of men; and, here and there, fields were lying waste, uncultivated, through fear of it.
— from Anecdotes of Big Cats and Other Beasts by David Alec Wilson - Be cast out of this thing that you love, that you obsess over, that you worked for.
— from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow - I’m always solitary and never alone here; you haunt and obsess me.
— from Twilight by Julia Frankau - Its pride in its pork-pies is a cult in Beckenhampton—they obsess the local mind—but there are pies and pies, and Perrin's are the pinnacle.
— from The Quaint CompanionsWith an Introduction by H. G. Wells by Leonard Merrick - So completely did this obsess him that no one, not even his secretaries (whom he changed constantly), had the slightest inkling of his plans.
— from The Sixty-First Second by Owen Johnson
