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Literary notes about confront (AI summary)

In literature the term “confront” is employed to convey a direct encounter with formidable challenges—whether these be tangible adversaries or internal conflicts. Writers use it to indicate moments when characters must meet their foes head-on, as seen in high-stakes duels ([1], [2]) and even in the quiet intensity of personal reckoning ([3], [4]). Sometimes it describes the inevitable clash with external forces like the relentless pressures of society or nature ([5], [6]), while at other times it marks an intellectual or moral struggle in which ideas or emotions collide ([7], [8]). This versatility in usage enriches the narrative, imbuing both physical encounters and introspective battles with a sense of urgency and dynamism.
  1. ‘Confront me with him,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘that is all I ask, and all I require.
    — from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
  2. The prosecutor turned to Nikolay Parfenovitch and said to him impressively: “Confront him with it.”
    — from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  3. I clenched my teeth hard, staring into the mirror and trying to force myself to turn and confront, not the reflection, but the reality.
    — from The Haunting of Low Fennel by Sax Rohmer
  4. I felt willing rather to starve at sea than to confront such perils.
    — from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
  5. But until now life had chosen to confront him with no problem more pressing than one of cricket or hunting.
    — from The Best Short Stories of 1917, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
  6. Next he seeks the battle and extinguishes it within himself because weariness and boredom confront him.
    — from Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
  7. Thus, you see what doubts here confront the practical application of our interpretation.
    — from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
  8. He turned to confront his antagonist, and behold, there stood his old master's next door neighbor!
    — from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet A. Jacobs

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