Literary notes about shrink (AI summary)
The term “shrink” in literature is employed in a diverse set of ways that stretch from literal physical contraction to metaphorical withdrawal or recoiling in the face of emotional or moral challenges. In some works, it describes a tangible reduction in size or form—as when garments are not expected to diminish under certain conditions ([1]) or a tail painfully “shrinks up” into legs during a transformation ([2]). In other texts, the word captures the notion of retreat, whether it be characters physically recoiling in fear or metaphorically avoiding responsibility and painful truths ([3], [4], [5]). It thus serves as a multifaceted device, conveying both the reduction of physical substance and the symbolic contraction of spirit or will in response to daunting circumstances ([6], [7], [8]).
- Wash in cold water, very soapy, hang them up dripping wet, and they will not shrink.
— from Boy Scouts Handbook by Boy Scouts of America - Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. Andersen - It was best that it should shrink and hide itself.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - Everyone seemed to wince and as it were shrink together.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - “In the name of Heaven,” I said, “what does it mean?” He seemed to shrink from answering the question.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins - Much may be pardoned to men who shrink from seeming to countenance a violent social revolution.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon by J. B. Lightfoot - Could you shrink from so simple an adventure?
— from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen - ‘Prepare yourself for intelligence which, if you have any human feeling in your breast, will make even you shrink and tremble.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
