Literary notes about Dishevelled (AI summary)
The term "dishevelled" is often used to evoke both physical and emotional disorder, painting characters and scenes with a brush of neglect or inner turmoil. In some works, it describes characters with unkempt appearances that mirror their disrupted inner lives, as seen with the maid servants whose unruly state reflects moral decay [1] or an investigator whose disarray hints at his troubled quest [2, 3]. In other passages, the word contributes to a broader atmospheric decay—the dilapidated shrine where even deities appear mutilated and unkempt [4] or the formidable sense of degradation projected by a terrifying figure [5]. Thus, "dishevelled" serves as a powerful literary tool, encapsulating both outward neglect and the internal chaos of its subjects.
- Idle maid servants, sluttish and dishevelled, leaned far out of the upper windows of the houses to gaze at the pageant beneath them.
— from The Northern Iron by George A. Birmingham - My harassed face struck me as revolting in the extreme, pale, angry, abject, with dishevelled hair.
— from Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - With the same amazement he stared at Raskolnikov, who lay undressed, dishevelled, unwashed, on his miserable dirty sofa, looking fixedly at him.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The shrine was thick with the dust of years; the three gods were dishevelled and mutilated; no sheaves of joss sticks were smouldering on the altar.
— from An Australian in ChinaBeing the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma by George Ernest Morrison - The Thénardier, dishevelled and terrible, set her feet far apart, threw herself backwards, and hurled the paving-stone at Javert’s head.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
