Literary notes about screeching (AI summary)
The term "screeching" is deployed in literature to evoke a sense of abrupt intensity and raw, often unsettling sound. Authors use it to mirror natural phenomena as well as human emotional extremes. One writer portrays chaotic nature with "pirate birds... screeching among the leaves of the palms" [1], while another intensifies a moment of terror with the description of a character "screeching most horribly" during a crisis [2]. Meanwhile, the word captures both the wild, uncontrolled calls of animals and the keening of distressed voices, as seen when a frantic voice "screeches" for help and when eerie sounds haunt children into seclusion [3, 4]. Such usage not only sharpens the auditory imagery, immersing readers in the scene, but also lends a visceral rhythm to the narrative that underscores emotional and atmospheric extremes.
- The pirate birds were screeching among the leaves of the palms.
— from The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham - They said he had caused the fire in some way; be that as it may, he was screeching most horribly.
— from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - At the sound of the screeching, children are taken into a room, to avoid its furtive and injurious gaze.
— from Omens and Superstitions of Southern India by Edgar Thurston - ‘I was lifting supper when old Mrs. Shimerda came running down the basement stairs, out of breath and screeching: ‘“Baby come, baby come!”
— from My Ántonia by Willa Cather
