Literary notes about Thread (AI summary)
The word thread serves as a multifaceted symbol in literature, ranging from a literal tool for sewing or weaving to a metaphor for continuity and fate. It appears in descriptions of physical materials that bind or repair, as when a worn garment is noted to have every thread faded [1] or when a tailor guards his needle and thread in domestic bliss [2]. At the same time, thread carries an abstract significance, symbolizing the delicate fabric of life or the continuity of thought—a life that hangs by a thread [3, 4] or a conversation that loses its thread [5, 6]. In some narratives, a thread even guides the progression of ideas or events, weaving together disparate moments to form a cohesive whole [7, 8].
- Every thread of that old attire has become faded and thin under the stroke of raindrops, the burn of sunbeams, and the stress of winds.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy - The tailor locked away needle and thread, yard-measure and goose, in a press, and lived with his three sons in joy and splendour.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm - "My brother," she cried, "protector of my childhood, dear, most dear Lionel, my fate hangs by a thread.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Herbert’s life hung on a thread, and this thread might break at any moment.
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne - This drunken Caderousse has made me lose the thread of my sentence.”
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - Ivan Dmitritch suddenly lost the thread of his thoughts, stopped, and rubbed his forehead with vexation.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - "May she not," remarked madame Hsing, taking up the thread of the conversation, "be ailing for some happy event?"
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao - I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë
