Literary notes about Inert (AI summary)
In literature, the term inert often conveys a sense of lifelessness and unresponsiveness—whether discussing physical matter or human character. Writers use it to signify bodies or substances that lack the vitality or dynamism of life, as when a physical mass is depicted as immovable or devoid of energy [1][2][3]. At the same time, inert serves as a metaphor for intellectual or social stagnation, highlighting aspects of being unyielding, static, or resistant to change—qualities that can render traditions, ideas, or even individuals emotionless or unproductive [4][5][6]. This dual usage enriches the narrative, creating a striking contrast between the animated forces of life and the barren, inert elements that impede progress.
- Then the body will become to the soul what, as we have just seen, the garment was to the body itself—inert matter dumped down upon living energy.
— from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson - As it sank he became less and less frenzied; and just as it dipped he slid from the hands that held him, an inert mass, on the floor.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker - She was left broken, breathless, inert, sobbing in a low voice, with flowing tears.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams - Utility makes small headway against custom, not only when custom has become religion, but even when it remains inert and without mythical sanction.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - Nevertheless, in desperate situations even the most inert characters are sometimes capable of desperate resolutions.
— from The King James Version of the Bible
