All 42 Uses of
despair
in
Crime and Punishment, by Dostoyevsky
- And as though in despair he laid his head down on the table.
Chpt 1.2despair = hopelessness
- "He's drunk it! he's drunk it all," the poor woman screamed in despair—"and his clothes are gone!"
Chpt 1.2despair = distress (at inability to improve a bad situation)
- I was in despair myself, but what could I do?
Chpt 1.3despair = distress (at not knowing how to improve a bad situation)
- I was in despair; I dared not write to you the truth because you would have been very unhappy, mortified and indignant, and yet what could you do?
Chpt 1.3
- Filled with despair he went straight to meet them, feeling "come what must!"
Chpt 1.7
- Suddenly he shuddered all over with horror; "My God!" he whispered in despair: "what's the matter with me?"
Chpt 2.1despair = hopelessness
- And she wrung her hands in despair.
Chpt 5.4 *despair = distress (at not knowing how to improve a bad situation)
- Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds which he heard every night, indeed, under his window after two o'clock.†
Chpt 2.1
- But his laughter was quickly followed by despair.†
Chpt 2.1
- But he was possessed by such despair, such cynicism of misery, if one may so call it, that with a wave of his hand he went on.†
Chpt 2.1
- How he is bleeding," she said in despair.†
Chpt 2.7
- Katerina Ivanovna walked to the window, laid her head against the window frame and exclaimed in despair: "Oh, cursed life!"†
Chpt 2.7
- Timidly and noiselessly a young girl made her way through the crowd, and strange was her appearance in that room, in the midst of want, rags, death and despair.†
Chpt 2.7
- "Nothing would induce me to go," she whispered in despair to Razumihin.†
Chpt 3.1
- You may laugh at me, but my mother is here," he turned suddenly to Porfiry, "and if she knew," he turned again hurriedly to Razumihin, carefully making his voice tremble, "that the watch was lost, she would be in despair!†
Chpt 3.5
- "You, too, want to torture me!" he screamed, with such bitter irritation, such despair in his eyes that Razumihin's hands dropped.†
Chpt 3.6
- I ought to have known beforehand....Ah, but I did know!" he whispered in despair.†
Chpt 3.6
- Sonia said this as though in despair, wringing her hands in excitement and distress.†
Chpt 4.4
- At one minute she is worrying like a child that everything should be right to-morrow, the lunch and all that....Then she is wringing her hands, spitting blood, weeping, and all at once she will begin knocking her head against the wall, in despair.†
Chpt 4.4
- "Oh, I don't know," cried Sonia, almost in despair, and she put her hands to her head.†
Chpt 4.4
- He read it all in her face; so she must have had that thought already, perhaps many times, and earnestly she had thought out in her despair how to end it and so earnestly, that now she scarcely wondered at his suggestion.†
Chpt 4.4
- This conjecture had begun to grow strong the day before, in the midst of all his alarm and despair.†
Chpt 4.5
- We dined and he talked and talked away, and I could only throw up my hands in despair!†
Chpt 4.5
- The agonised, wasted, consumptive face, the parched blood-stained lips, the hoarse voice, the tears unrestrained as a child's, the trustful, childish and yet despairing prayer for help were so piteous that everyone seemed to feel for her.†
Chpt 5.3
- "What have you done—what have you done to yourself?" she said in despair, and, jumping up, she flung herself on his neck, threw her arms round him, and held him tightly.†
Chpt 5.4
- What would it matter to you," he cried a moment later with a sort of despair, "what would it matter to you if I were to confess that I did wrong?†
Chpt 5.4
- Why did I let her know?" he cried a minute later in despair, looking with infinite anguish at her.†
Chpt 5.4
- "Well, what am I to do now?" he asked, suddenly raising his head and looking at her with a face hideously distorted by despair.†
Chpt 5.4
- "It will be too much for you to bear, too much!" she repeated, holding out her hands in despairing supplication.†
Chpt 5.4
- She too joined in the singing, but broke down at the second note with a fearful cough, which made her curse in despair and even shed tears.†
Chpt 5.5
- I am broken!" she cried with vindictive despair, and her head fell heavily back on the pillow.†
Chpt 5.5
- Your article is absurd and fantastic, but there's a transparent sincerity, a youthful incorruptible pride and the daring of despair in it.†
Chpt 6.2
- He got up again as though he meant to go away, but sat down again in evident despair.†
Chpt 6.2
- Perhaps it was only fatigue, despair; perhaps it was not Svidrigailov but some other whom he needed, and Svidrigailov had simply presented himself by chance.†
Chpt 6.3
- Thank God, the details of the interview were of little consequence, if only he could get at the root of the matter; but if Svidrigailov were capable...if he were intriguing against Dounia—then... Raskolnikov was so exhausted by what he had passed through that month that he could only decide such questions in one way; "then I shall kill him," he thought in cold despair.†
Chpt 6.3
- "Let me be," she cried in despair.†
Chpt 6.5
- Never?" he whispered in despair.†
Chpt 6.5
- A strange smile contorted his face, a pitiful, sad, weak smile, a smile of despair.†
Chpt 6.5
- And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled.... Svidrigailov came to himself, got up from the bed and went to the window.†
Chpt 6.6
- Why, you have shed blood?" cried Dounia in despair.†
Chpt 6.7
- "Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice and fear of death to make him live?" she thought at last in despair.†
Chpt 6.8
- There was a look of poignant agony, of despair, in her face.†
Chpt 6.8
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
-
(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)