Literary notes about Discarded (AI summary)
The word "discarded" is employed in literature with considerable versatility, often denoting the act of letting go—whether of tangible objects, physical garments, or abstract ideas and traditions. In some works, it literally describes abandoned items, such as a dress carefully set aside [1] or a set of worn-out tools considered no longer useful [2]. In other texts, the term conveys a more figurative dismissal, as seen when outdated social customs and formalities are cast aside [3] or when long-held beliefs and aspirations are intentionally left behind [4][5]. Thus, "discarded" becomes a potent metaphor illustrating transformation, the evolution of identity, and the breaking away from the burdens of the old to embrace the new [6][7].
- " "Oh, you never mean a fiddlestick's end!" said Priscilla, as she arranged her discarded dress, and closed her bandbox.
— from Silas Marner by George Eliot - His thick arms rested abandoned on the outside of the counterpane like dropped weapons, like discarded tools.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad - With the decline of feudal courts and the rise of empires of industry, much of the ceremony of life was discarded for plain and less formal dealing.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post - The anxiety dream is ofttimes an undisguised wish-fulfillment, not, to be sure, of an accepted, but of a discarded wish.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud - We could therefore convince ourselves that the same man took up and discarded his critical attitude innumerable times in the course of the analysis.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud - Then money that was to have come to me went elsewhere, and she discarded me.
— from She by H. Rider Haggard - The structure, in becoming an ornament, ceased to be anything else and could be discarded by any one whose fancy preferred a different image.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
