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Literary notes about sergeant (AI summary)

In literature, the term “sergeant” is employed not only as a rank denoting military or police authority but also as a symbolic figure of discipline, order, and at times, human vulnerability. In adventure and historical narratives, authors such as Dumas and Victor Hugo use the sergeant to evoke a sense of martial duty and hierarchical structure—as in the diligent, commanding figures seen in his works ([1], [2], [3], [4]). Meanwhile, in detective stories and social observations, like those penned by Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy, the sergeant can also embody moments of levity or complexity, oscillating between strict enforcement and humorous relatability ([5], [6], [7], [8]). Thus, across genres—from military histories to gothic tales—the sergeant becomes a multifaceted literary device, highlighting themes of authority, resistance, and the paradoxical nature of human character ([9], [10], [11]).
  1. The first row, seeing their sergeant stop, stopped in their turn, and so on to the very last.
    — from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  2. If you speak a single word to anyone before going aboard ship, my sergeant will blow your brains out.
    — from The three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  3. The sergeant and his men took possession of the little garden.
    — from Twenty years after by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
  4. Louis Napoleon sent a sergeant to drive them away.
    — from The History of a Crime by Victor Hugo
  5. A weary-looking police-sergeant reclined in the corner.
    — from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
  6. So you actually were not able to see that that man was a sergeant of Marines?”
    — from A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
  7. Sergeant Troy was one.
    — from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
  8. " "What sort of a man is this Sergeant Troy?" said Gabriel.
    — from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
  9. By Philip W. Sergeant , Author of “The Last Empress of the French,” etc.
    — from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud
  10. On the return journey, a European Sergeant of the Police expelled some Indian gentlemen from a railway-carriage with great insolence.
    — from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore
  11. THE RECRUITING SERGEANT.
    — from Paradise Lost by John Milton

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