Literary notes about Insubordinate (AI summary)
Literature employs "insubordinate" to denote a defiant stance against established authority in various settings. It characterizes figures and groups who resist obedience—ranging from the unruly behavior of hardened convicts [1] and discontented soldiers [2][3], to the rebellious spirit evident in both youthful defiance and obstinate creatures [4][5]. Authors use the term not only to depict literal noncompliance, as when crews and armies are shown to balk at commands [6][7], but also to evoke broader themes of individual autonomy and the clash between personal will and societal order [8][9]. This multifaceted use of "insubordinate" enriches narratives by highlighting the tensions between control and free expression in both human and natural realms.
- [194] cupied by the worst characters, the most insubordinate and incorrigible members of the prison population.
— from Spanish Prisons The Inquisition at Home and Abroad, Prisons Past and Present by Arthur Griffiths - Moreover, the Spaniards were highly disciplined and experienced troops; while his own soldiers were mercenaries, already clamorous and insubordinate.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-84) by John Lothrop Motley - What if he told them that two insubordinate seamen had been roughly handled by their officers?
— from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs - There he had half killed an insubordinate young elephant who was shirking his fair share of work.
— from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling - As the sheep need the shepherd, so the boy needs a master; for he is at once the most cunning and the most insubordinate of creatures.
— from Laws by Plato - Upon this the natives became insubordinate, and one night made an attack upon the enfeebled force with poisoned arrows, killing a number of them.
— from Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 2 (of 8) Spanish Explorations and Settlements in America from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century - The long inaction brought its moral consequences, and the troops became demoralized and insubordinate from their enforced idleness.
— from The Lion of the North: A Tale of the Times of Gustavus Adolphus by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty - In glass it was insubordinate; it was renaissance; it asserted his personal force with depth and vehemence of tone never before seen.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams - The army, both European and native, had fallen into a very insubordinate and mutinous state.
— from The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, Vol. 2 (of 3) Collected from the Family Papers Communicated by the Earl of Powis by John Malcolm
