Literary notes about tangled (AI summary)
The word "tangled" in literature is a versatile descriptor that conveys both physical disarray and metaphorical complexity. Authors often use it to illustrate chaotic, intertwined settings—whether in natural landscapes where undergrowth or branches form a literal labyrinth ([1], [2]), or in more abstract representations of emotion and circumstance, as when confusions in life or character dilemmas are depicted as messy knots to be untangled ([3], [4], [5]). In some narratives, its use extends to evoking the disorder of historical progression or the complexity of human deceit, as in the proverbial tangled web of lies ([6], [7]), while in other works it paints vivid imagery of unkempt appearances and the wildness of nature itself ([8], [9], [10]). This multifaceted usage enriches the text by inviting readers to unravel both tangible and intangible intricacies within the story.
- Passing through the battery, we clambered up the hill behind, through a tangled brake of ferns and creepers.
— from A Diplomat in Japan by Ernest Mason Satow - Our path was bordered by hopelessly tangled bushes, formed from snarls of shrubs all covered with little star–shaped, white–streaked flowers.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - Now it was all so tangled, so hopeless—much worse than it was before, because she had the semblance of aid in her hand which she could not use.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser - “I was only thinking how tangled things are.
— from Howards End by E. M. Forster - As a matter of fact, his greatest joy was to labour at a tangled case, and successfully to unravel it.
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol - "O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!"
— from No Hero by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung - "Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive!"
— from The Girl Scout Pioneers; Or, Winning the First B. C. by Lilian Garis - His golden locks were tangled, his clothes were all awry, and everything about him betokened sorrow and woe.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle - The garden-gate was gone, and the place a tangled wilderness.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray - All is silence now, and ashes, and tangled weeds.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois