Literary notes about impuissance (AI summary)
In literature, the term impuissance is evoked to capture a multifaceted sense of powerlessness—be it political, emotional, or existential. Writers use it to cast light on both personal suffering and broader institutional failure. For instance, the word underscores individual vulnerability and the inefficacy of personal remedies in rare moments of despair [1, 2, 3], while critics and historians deploy it to condemn governmental or societal incapacity [4, 5]. It also serves as a poignant expression of the conflict between the ideal and the real, as seen when it denotes the irony of couched strength in the face of unfulfilled potential or duty [6, 7].
- Car même l'impuissance de semblables remèdes qui m'ont empêché de vous écrire plutôt, m'ont arrêté dans le désir de venir près de vous à
— from The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 1 by Stephen Lucius Gwynn - I knew, impotent as I was, that I could play it—I could feel the sense of power tingling through my own impuissance.
— from The Making Of A NovelistAn Experiment In Autobiography by David Christie Murray - She turned away however, as the gong sounded, with a light laugh, despite the dull heavy sense of her own impuissance.
— from Miss Hildreth: A Novel, Volume 1 by Augusta de Grasse Stevens - The sheriffs dared not enforce their claims, and the evident impuissance of government made the Regulators bold.
— from The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, Vol. 2 (of 2) or, Illustrations, by Pen And Pencil, of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the War for Independence by Benson John Lossing - Roubaud ( De l'Impuissance , 1855, p. 38) stated that the question is so difficult as to be insoluble.
— from Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in Women by Havelock Ellis - Votre drapeau est un guenille, une impuissance.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - But Balzac wisely says: 'Qui dit doute, dit impuissance.'
— from Whirlpools: A Novel of Modern Poland by Henryk Sienkiewicz
