Literary notes about bluster (AI summary)
In literature, bluster is often employed to characterize loud, overbearing rhetoric or physical noise that ultimately conceals an underlying insecurity or lack of genuine force. Writers use the term to depict characters whose booming declarations mask vulnerability or aim merely to intimidate without substantive backing [1, 2, 3]. At the same time, bluster can describe the natural or social tumult—a chaotic wind or a heated conflict—that, despite its fierce appearance, may yield little real impact [4, 5]. Even when a character’s pretentious swagger is intended to assert authority, the bluster is frequently portrayed as empty and transient, emphasizing the hollowness behind the bravado [6, 7].
- That bluster of his is to drown tears, Ruth; I saw it to-night.
— from The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter - And the moment after he would splurge and bluster to reassert his dignity.
— from The House with the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown - Oh, you may bluster, but you won't change my view of things, I can tell you.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, July 23, 1887. by Various - From all the interwoven forest arose the smoke and bluster of the battle.
— from The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane - There was the beating of rain on her windows, for the snow had ceased, and a wind from the south-west was beginning to bluster outside....
— from Peter by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson - Or do you perhaps believe the whole matter to be already closed?" His quiet insistence made Archer feel the clumsiness of his own bluster.
— from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton - Instead, it went out with a wild, white bluster and blow.
— from Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery
