Literary notes about muddled (AI summary)
In literature, “muddled” functions as a versatile descriptor for both mental and physical disorder. Writers employ it to illustrate a state of confusion where thoughts, emotions, or surroundings become disorganized. For instance, characters are often portrayed as mentally adrift, their ideas entangled to the point that logical thought becomes elusive [1][2][3]. At the same time, the term delineates environments or circumstances marked by chaotic disarray—whether in nebulous investigations or the jumble of daily life [4][5]. Such usage emphasizes the intricacies of human experience and the inevitable confusion wrought by overwhelming emotion or circumstance [6].
- Robinson Crusoe —God knows how—had got into my muddled old head.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins - wept Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “Stay,” he stopped them again, “you keep interrupting me, and my ideas get muddled....
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - He was so muddled and bewildered that on getting home he sat for a quarter of an hour on the sofa, trying to collect his thoughts.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - It was found that all his property had been muddled away in speculations, and was represented by valueless shares in different bubble companies.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - There was a muddled maze of dusty furniture—the breakfast-room furniture from the old home where they had lived all their lives.
— from The Railway Children by E. Nesbit - I knew that she would perhaps be muddled and not take it all in exactly, but I knew, too, that she would grasp the gist of it, very well indeed.
— from White Nights and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
