Literary notes about Atrocious (AI summary)
In literature, "atrocious" emerges as a forceful descriptor that encapsulates both moral repugnance and the sheer intensity of negative experience. Authors use it to underscore acts of brutal cruelty or wickedness, as in the depiction of inhuman social practices and severe crimes ([1], [2], [3]), while others deploy it to heighten the emotional landscape of a scene, imbuing everyday conditions or personal betrayals with an almost unbearable sense of revulsion ([4], [5], [6]). Moreover, in political or philosophical discourse, the word connotes an excess of immorality and injustice, prompting readers to confront the darker facets of human nature and social institutions ([7], [8], [9]).
- He seemed to sniff the tainted air of social cruelty, to strain his ear for its atrocious sounds.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad - They in consequence became finally so brutalised, that no Greek city has ever witnessed a longer series of the most atrocious crimes.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius - The commutation of his death sentence had been due to some doubts as to his complete sanity, so atrocious was his conduct.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - From time to time I squeezed it tighter; its heart beat faster; this was atrocious and delicious.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - “And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head?
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The atrocious woman, in the paroxysm of her wrath, not content with murdering her victim, literally mangled her face, and broke her breast bone.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass - —Philosophy, as I have understood it and lived it up to the present, is the voluntary quest of the repulsive and atrocious aspects of existence.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche - The rescue of the man is, in the case supposed, only the necessary first step of an act far more atrocious than leaving him to drown would have been.
— from Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill - And to this combat of the three twin-brothers there was added another atrocious and horrible catastrophe.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine
