Literary notes about evade (AI summary)
In literature, “evade” is a versatile term that captures both the literal and figurative acts of avoidance. Authors employ it to convey characters dodging direct confrontation or responsibility, as when a person deliberately skirts answering probing questions to shield themselves from suspicion [1][2]. At times, the term underscores the physical act of eluding capture or detection, illustrating a tangible escape from imminent peril [3][4][5]. In other contexts, “evade” takes on a more metaphorical nuance, reflecting the internal struggle to confront difficult truths or fulfill moral obligations, as characters attempt to sidestep the weight of destiny or societal expectations [6][7][8]. By using “evade” in these varied ways, writers enrich their narratives with a complex interplay of action and inaction, highlighting humanity’s perpetual tension between the desire to avoid discomfort and the necessity to face reality [9][10][11].
- His violence so alarmed her that at first she attempted to evade direct answers to his questions, which only served to increase his suspicions.
— from Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup - 9 At this point I can no longer evade a direct answer to the question, how one becomes what one is.
— from Ecce Homo by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - There was but one way to evade or to check him.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë - "The only thing is that crowds of people are ever passing from there, and how will it be possible for me to evade detection?" "Set your mind at ease!"
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao - By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home.
— from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce - Though this leads to spitefulness, it does not arise from it, but from the desire to evade a disagreeable control.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - One would like to evade the will, as also the willing of a goal and the risk of setting oneself a goal.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Nietzsche - Those who believe in the Absolute, as the all-knower is termed, usually say that they do so for coercive reasons, which clear thinkers cannot evade.
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James - If the right bank slope downward at this place, To the next Bolgia [614] offering us a way, Swiftly shall we evade the imagined chase.’
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri - He foresaw his own death, and sought by hiding to evade it; but his wife revealed his hiding-place, and he was forced to join in the siege.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri - Destiny is all-powerful and it is difficult to evade the consequence of our past actions.
— from The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1
