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Literary notes about bereavement (AI summary)

In literature, the term bereavement is used to evoke a deep and multifaceted sense of loss that is both personal and communal. It can express raw, pervasive sorrow beyond mere mourning, as seen where the emotional pain of losing a loved one is depicted with intense sensitivity (e.g. [1], [2]), yet it can also be used to suggest a transformative or redemptive quality even in the face of great suffering (e.g. [3], [4]). At times, the term captures the struggle and the overwhelming nature of grief that disrupts normal life (e.g. [5], [6]), while in other passages it portrays bereavement as a shared, communal trial that elicits sympathy and solidarity (e.g. [7], [8]). This layered usage allows writers to explore a spectrum of human responses to absence and loss, weaving together personal despair and, occasionally, even a sense of renewal amid the pain.
  1. No words can express the terrible bereavement of his family.
    — from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) by Ida Husted Harper
  2. The latter’s distraction at his bereavement is a subject too painful to be dwelt on; its after-effects showed how deep the sorrow sunk.
    — from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
  3. Bereavement gives us spiritual surprises, and death becomes the servant of life.
    — from My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year by John Henry Jowett
  4. Williams not only got over his bereavement easily, but soon began to wish for another wife.
    — from The Lonely Island: The Refuge of the Mutineers by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
  5. Lahiri Mahasaya's cheerful mood was incomprehensible; I was still in the unassuaged agony of bereavement.
    — from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
  6. The blow of her bereavement seemed to have destroyed her reasoning faculty.
    — from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
  7. There was bereavement, but there was not solitude;—sympathy was at hand, and it was accepted.
    — from The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 2 by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
  8. Almost in silence he advanced to Inez and took her hand in a manner that plainly showed his sympathy in her bereavement.
    — from Gold of the Gods by Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve

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