Literary notes about bedevilment (AI summary)
The term "bedevilment" is employed to convey persistent trouble, mischief, and sometimes even supernatural interference in literary narratives. In some instances, it highlights the everyday nuisances that disrupt social or professional life, as seen when railway workers suffer from the continuous interference of troublesome individuals ([1], [2]). In other contexts, however, it takes on a more abstract or moral dimension, describing the corruption of ideals or the psychological torment of characters—illustrated by the distortion of legal merits into chaos ([3], [4]) or by portraying internal conflicts and the ominous approach of misfortune ([5], [6]). Additionally, its usage extends to imbuing settings with an uncanny quality, where both human temperament and mysterious forces contribute to a pervasive sense of disturbance ([7], [8], [9]).
- But there were some men in Benkleton who thought they were bad, and these were a source of constant bedevilment to the railroad men.
— from Held for Orders: Being Stories of Railroad Life by Frank H. (Frank Hamilton) Spearman - It is pretty obvious that the mischievous and idle youth was at the bottom of all this bedevilment.
— from Devonshire Characters and Strange Events by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould - "The lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared from the face of the earth.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens - "The lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared.
— from The World's Greatest Books — Volume 03 — Fiction - The approaching bedevilment, streaming dust at every pore, bestrode (or, better, bewheeled) one rail of the track.
— from Trolley Folly by Henry Wallace Phillips - He felt as in some hideous dream—long-involved—a maze of delusion and bedevilment, from which there was no escape.
— from Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 3 of 3 by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon - When once the word "kîrât" is mentioned, flee the place, for you may be assured that it is the abode of all bedevilment.
— from Oriental Encounters: Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 by Marmaduke William Pickthall - That bedevilment by sex ideas which punishes continence, so abhorrent to nature, is converted into a moral frenzy, pathological in the end.
— from Prejudices, First Series by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken - And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's?
— from Last Poems by A. E. Housman by A. E. (Alfred Edward) Housman
