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Literary notes about overwhelm (AI summary)

In literature, the term "overwhelm" is used to evoke the sensation of being completely overpowered—whether by external forces, internal emotions, or even by strategic maneuvers. Authors often employ it to describe the crushing impact of nature or military might, as when waves threaten to engulf an island or arrows fail to subdue an opponent ([1], [2], [3]). Equally, it serves as a metaphor for the flood of feelings that consume a character's inner world; a torrent of sorrow or an avalanche of happiness can leave individuals feeling almost submerged by their own emotions ([4], [5], [6]). Moreover, the word is adaptable in contexts where the accumulation of words or actions creates a sense of sensory or cognitive inundation ([7], [8]). Thus, across genres and epochs, "overwhelm" functions as a powerful descriptor for both literal and figurative experiences of being utterly engulfed or overpowered.
  1. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought, threatened to overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche.
    — from Villette by Charlotte Brontë
  2. The Midgard serpent, placing himself by the side of the wolf, vomits forth floods of poison which overwhelm the air and the waters.
    — from The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson by Sæmundur fróði
  3. In the meantime every moment threatened to be our last—every mountainous billow hurried to overwhelm us.
    — from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Edgar Allan Poe
  4. Then a flood of sorrow invaded his heart, a torrent of despair which seemed to overwhelm him and drive him mad.
    — from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant
  5. New torrents of delight overwhelm my soul.
    — from The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  6. She sat down on the bed, and began to overwhelm me with apologies.
    — from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova
  7. In the continual flow of words with which you overwhelm them, do you think there is none which they get hold of in a wrong sense?
    — from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  8. He paused, and looked round the room like an orator who is about to overwhelm his audience.
    — from Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

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