Literary notes about Obnoxious (AI summary)
Literary authors employ "obnoxious" to evoke a powerful sense of repulsion or disregard toward characters, actions, or even abstract ideas. Writers often use the term to denounce personalities whose behavior disrupts social harmony or public decency, as when a character’s traits or claims become inherently irritating or contemptible [1, 2]. At the same time, "obnoxious" appears in descriptions of oppressive policies, laws, or institutional actions—highlighting the author's disapproval of measures they deem unjust or irksome [3, 4, 5]. Whether targeting individuals or the broader cultural and ideological milieu, the word is deftly manipulated to invite the reader’s disapproval and emotional distancing, as seen in its use across various literary contexts [6, 7, 8].
- He had little steadiness of purpose, and was particularly obnoxious to female influence.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 by James Tod - We swept on, and I felt that I was highly obnoxious to Camilla.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution."
— from Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and CabinetAn Autobiography. by John Sherman - On the first supposition, it will be restrained by that dependence from forming schemes obnoxious to their constituents.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison - The House, therefore, at every moment, incurs the hazard of becoming obnoxious to its constituents.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12) by Edmund Burke - He called the footman (or LITTLE MAN ...) and bade him reach down the obnoxious placard.
— from The Public School Word-book A conribution to to a historical glossary of words phrases and turns of expression obsolete and in current use peculiar to our great public schools together with some that have been or are modish at the universities by John Stephen Farmer - Meaningless at first, it gradually became menacing, obnoxious, portentous with evil.
— from A Room with a View by E. M. Forster - Sacrifice for sin, and in its most obnoxious and barbarous form: sacrifice of the innocent for the sins of the guilty!
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
