All 5 Uses of
despair
in
The Scarlet Letter
- To say the truth, there was much need of professional assistance, not merely for Hester herself, but still more urgently for the child—who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother's system.
p. 50.3despair = distress
- With the superstition common to his brotherhood, he fancied himself given over to a fiend, to be tortured with frightful dreams and desperate thoughts, the sting of remorse and despair of pardon, as a foretaste of what awaits him beyond the grave.
p. 115.6 *despair = hopelessness
- "Woman, I could well-nigh pity thee," said Roger Chillingworth, unable to restrain a thrill of admiration too, for there was a quality almost majestic in the despair which she expressed.
p. 116.7despair = distress
- "None—nothing but despair!" he answered.
p. 129.3despair = distress (at inability to fix a bad situation)
- Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers--stern and wild ones--and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
p. 135.5
Definitions:
-
(1)
(despair as in: she felt despair) hopelessness; or distress (such as extreme worry or sadness from feeling powerless to change a bad situation)
-
(2)
(despair as in: do not despair) lose hope or feel distress
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(3)
(despair as in: she was the despair of the team) something that causes hopelessness or great distress
- (4) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)