Literary notes about challenges (AI summary)
The term "challenges" in literature often functions as a multifaceted symbol, simultaneously designating tangible contests and abstract trials that characters must confront. It appears in depictions of physical duels and combative encounters [1, 2, 3], as well as in discussions of intellectual and moral tests that push individuals toward self-discovery and societal progress [4, 5, 6]. Authors use it to evoke the unpredictable obstacles found in nature or society [7, 8], while also employing it as a metaphor for the internal struggles against fate or personal limitations [9, 10]. In this way, "challenges" becomes a vehicle for exploring themes of conflict, growth, and the relentless pursuit of resolution across genres and historical periods.
- Nothing is so cruel as love if a rival challenges it to combat.
— from The Little Minister by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie - Turnus challenges Aeneas to a single combat: articles are agreed on, but broken by the Rutuli, who wound Aeneas.
— from The Aeneid by Virgil - “I see a barrack-room, with a mess-table, and a group of intoxicated Celtic officers telling funny stories, and giving challenges to duel.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales by Bret Harte - The form of the dream is itself, therefore, by no means without significance and challenges interpretation.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud - Whatever they undertake is important, and challenges our attention.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume - Our thoughts and beliefs 'pass,' so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James - To the open mind, nature and social experience are full of varied and subtle challenges to look further.
— from How We Think by John Dewey - But we have also faced world commodity shortages, natural disasters, agricultural shortages and major challenges to world peace and security.
— from State of the Union Addresses by Jimmy Carter - In each of them the soul of man challenges fate with its terrors: it dares all, it risks all, it invades and defeats the darkness.
— from Old and New Masters by Robert Lynd - It comes when he is abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope and youth, holds him unresisting.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce
