Literary notes about ruination (AI summary)
Writers often deploy "ruination" as a vivid metaphor to signify an irreversible collapse or decay, whether in personal lives or entire societies. In some works, the term underscores the tragic unraveling of an individual’s fortune or morality, as when a character narrowly escapes complete despair [1] or is defined by a past turning point [2]. In political and social narratives, it can illustrate the disintegration of broader institutions or cultural ideals—for instance, depicting national decline or the catastrophic end of an era [3][4]. At times, the term also carries an ironic tone, suggesting that even aspirations or seemingly benign traits, when taken to extremes, lead to ultimate downfall [5][6].
- For you’ve saved me from ruination, and snatched the infant from want and woe.
— from The Boys of Grand Pré School Illustrated by James De Mille - It was a working plumber was my ruination when I was pure.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - But on this day he chose to preach a ferocious harangue against divorce as the chief peril, the ruination of modern society.
— from We Can't Have Everything: A Novel by Rupert Hughes - Ruination is now knocking at the English gates.
— from Indian Home Rule by Mahatma Gandhi - Modesty, the virtue which is said to have been “the ruination of Ireland,” is the rock against which my soaring ambition has dashed itself.
— from The Mimic Stage A Series of Dramas, Comedies, Burlesques, and Farces for Public Exhibitions and Private Theatricals by George M. (George Melville) Baker - * * * In love, as in all things, indecision spells ruination.
— from Hints for Lovers by Arnold Haultain
