Literary notes about enormity (AI summary)
The term "enormity" in literature is often employed to stress not only physical scale but—more importantly—the moral and emotional weight of an act or circumstance. Writers use it to underscore the gravity of crimes or transgressions, as seen when a betrayal or offense is depicted as overwhelmingly severe or shameful [1, 2, 3]. In many texts, the word also conveys the crushing burden of guilt or the awe-inspiring magnitude of nature and destiny [4, 5, 6]. In other contexts, "enormity" takes on a more ironic or hyperbolic tone, highlighting the absurdity or exaggeration of a situation, as when it is invoked to describe an outrageously disproportionate demand or action [7, 8, 9]. Across these varied usages, "enormity" serves as a powerful tool to evoke a sense of overwhelming magnitude—whether moral, physical, or emotional—in the reader's mind [10, 11, 12].
- ‘Then that was another crime, and her solemn promise to love and honour him was another, that only increased the enormity of the last.’
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë - No, some other method of punishment must be found to bring Anne to a proper realization of the enormity of her offense.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery - I wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens - He remained there until daylight, in the same attitude, bent double over that bed, prostrate beneath the enormity of fate, crushed, perchance, alas!
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - The breeze hollowed out undulations in the magnificent enormity of the chestnut-trees.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - The enormity of this revelation engrossed me with an almost painful activity of thought.
— from The Blue Germ by Maurice Nicoll - Your language is insulting and your demand an enormity.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain - "And what a literary enormity this is," she said, as she glanced into the pages of Solomon's Song.
— from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy - He is a mean, mercenary rascal, who would scruple at no enormity, provided he was paid for it!”
— from Pelham — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron - My detestation of slavery, already great, rose with this new conception of its enormity.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass - In looking at the recent black law of Illinois, one is struck dumb with its enormity.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass - He realized that he was safe and only then did he appreciate the full enormity of what he might have incurred.
— from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald