Literary notes about cataclysm (AI summary)
Authors deploy "cataclysm" to capture the overwhelming force of both natural disasters and profound personal or societal change. In many narratives, the term evokes literal devastations—such as torrential floods or earthquakes that reshape entire landscapes and histories [1, 2, 3]—while in others it symbolizes inner upheaval or a turning point in life that alters a character’s destiny [4, 5]. This dual usage intensifies the narrative’s stakes by merging the tangible with the metaphorical, thereby underscoring the transformative power of sudden, catastrophic events [6, 7, 8].
- According to these documents, the Noah of the Mexican cataclysm was Coxcox, called by certain peoples Teocipactli or Tezpi.
— from The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, November 1879 by Various - I told him I don't want to keep quiet, and he talked about the geological cataclysm ...
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - A cataclysm occurred—floods, earthquakes.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - I was down there to recover from a cataclysm which had changed—my life.
— from Contrary Mary by Temple Bailey - And then as he but looked at her in silence: “You’ve been in love, and it hasn’t meant such a cataclysm, hasn’t proved the great affair?”
— from The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James - The gradual rise of the waters gave place to a cataclysm.
— from Memoirs of Life and Literature by W. H. (William Hurrell) Mallock - As Hedge had shown, the object would re-enter space already occupied by matter, and the cataclysm would be beyond belief.”
— from The Variable Man by Philip K. Dick - The aftermath of the war is a spiritual cataclysm such as civilized mankind has never before known.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park
