Literary notes about rap (AI summary)
The word "rap" serves a diverse role in literature, functioning both as a literal sound and as a metaphor for swift, decisive action. In many texts it denotes a sharp knock—heralding the arrival of a visitor or signaling an event, as when a rap announces dinner or interrupts the quiet of a room ([1], [2], [3]). At the same time, it is employed figuratively to suggest a form of reprimand or corrective action, a verbal or physical reminder of accountability—as when characters threaten a rap on the knuckles to enforce discipline ([4], [5], [6]). Moreover, the term’s percussive quality is used to heighten narrative tension or to punctuate transitions, enriching the auditory imagery in the prose ([7], [8]).
- A wooden rap on the balustrade announces that dinner is ready.
— from The World I Live In by Helen Keller - She had determined to ring her bell, when there came a rap at the door.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - At the same moment there came a rap upon the door.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales by Bret Harte - “They’ll have to get a hard rap on the knuckles over this affair.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad - He doesn't care a rap for you—under his very nose…"
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - If the subordinate’s knuckles deserved a rap, the principal’s deserved as many as a couple of them.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain - Slowly and carefully each man shot his shafts, and so deep was the silence that you could hear every arrow rap against the target as it struck it.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle - The finger came down on the desk with a smart rap.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
