Literary notes about deceiver (AI summary)
In literature, deceiver is a multifaceted term that evokes both personal and philosophical dimensions of betrayal and manipulation. It is employed to designate characters who seduce, betray, and downplay the truth—often with a beguiling charm that conceals their ulterior motives, as seen when a character is labeled a deceiver in acts of seduction and moral subversion [1],[2]. At times, the word underscores the broader theme of divine or natural trickery, suggesting that even the sacred or the self can be entangled in falsehood, as in references to deceivers in religious and philosophical reflections [3],[4],[5]. Moreover, writers have deftly turned the label into a tool for ironic critique or dramatic tension, where the deceiver’s downfall is both inevitable and emblematic of the larger conflict between appearance and truth [6],[7],[8].
- At first they called me a deceiver, a seducer and a blasphemer.
— from George Fox: An Autobiography by George Fox - This girl, whom he had believed to be the fairest and sweetest among women, was but a more skillful deceiver than the rest.
— from Dora Thorne by Charlotte M. Brame - Our Lord and Saviour is "that one," "such a one," "a fool," "the leper," "the deceiver of Israel," etc.
— from Secret societies and subversive movements by Nesta Helen Webster - o be a deceiver about beauty or goodness or justice in the matter of laws 2 .
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato - If there were not another life wherein to satisfy it then God would be a deceiver.
— from A Cynic Looks at Life by Ambrose Bierce - The perfidious deceiver was, as may plainly be perceived, already sacrificing, in intention, the poor girl in order to obtain Milady, willy-nilly.
— from The three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - For each deceiver to his cost may find That marriage frauds too oft are paid in kind.
— from The Way of the World by William Congreve - The deceiver is sure to be overtaken by his own deceit.
— from The Eliminator; or, Skeleton Keys to Sacerdotal Secrets by Richard B. (Richard Brodhead) Westbrook
