Literary notes about exasperate (AI summary)
The word "exasperate" has been wielded as a versatile literary tool to build tension and reveal character emotions, ranging from weary frustration to explosive anger. In poetic works such as Pushkin’s, it intensifies the bitterness of personal despair [1]. Meanwhile, in narratives by Dumas, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov, characters articulate irritation and growing vexation through dialogue, as when a character claims, "you exasperate me!" [2, 3] or notes how a simple paragraph might provoke anger [4]. Moreover, its application extends to both individual and collective reactions—illustrated by instances where a character's endeavors are thwarted by repeated annoyances [5] or even where a crowd's frustration escalates dramatically [6]. Overall, literature has harnessed "exasperate" not just as a descriptor of irritation but as a means to dramatize interpersonal dynamics and underscore moments of emotional climax [7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16].
- Those tears of yours Tend not my heart to mitigate, But merely to exasperate; Judge then what roses would be ours, What pleasures Hymen would prepare
— from Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin - But do sit down, I beg you, oh, how you exasperate me!”
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Don’t fuss round me like that, Evgenie Pavlovitch; you exasperate me!
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - “You may think my departure strange and foolish,” said the young man; “you do not know how a paragraph in a newspaper may exasperate one.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - And they did exasperate him enough at one time to make him burn a good deal of his work.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - But this last and dreaded resource served only to exasperate the multitude.
— from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - I am firm, and your words will only exasperate my rage.”
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Now it does nothing but bore and exasperate me.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - They all were shouting, "At Philippo Argenti!" And that exasperate spirit Florentine Turned round upon himself with his own teeth.
— from Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell by Dante Alighieri - But she may exasperate me, and then it will matter.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - But she was thinking how well she remembered that trick of his—the trick of interrupting her—and of how it used to exasperate her six years ago.
— from Bliss, and other stories by Katherine Mansfield - The furious behavior of an angry man is more likely to exasperate us against himself than against his enemies.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - The cavalier laughed aloud, which appeared to exasperate Milady still more.
— from The three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - I am firm, and your words will only exasperate my rage."
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Bendel would shrug his shoulders, grin, and exasperate his wife.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - They do exasperate me.
— from Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery
