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Literary notes about Capricious (AI summary)

In literature, "capricious" is often deployed to highlight unpredictability and sudden change, whether referring to the natural world or human character. It appears when authors describe individuals whose moods or actions defy stable patterns—as seen in the portrayal of volatile personalities [1] and impulsive behavior in characters [2]—while the term can equally evoke the ever-changing aspect of nature, such as in descriptions of rugged landscapes [3] or erratic weather patterns [4]. In a broader sense, its use enriches narratives by suggesting that both the forces of nature and the whims of human disposition are inherently unstable and subject to unforeseen shifts.
  1. That girl's hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex.”
    — from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  2. Let us go, Alexey Fyodorovitch, she is too capricious to-day.
    — from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  3. The first thing I noticed was a range of mountains about two thousand feet high, the shapes of which were most capricious.
    — from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne
  4. Above all, the rain is capricious; there are long periods during which it seems to have disappeared for ever.
    — from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

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