Literary notes about Outside (AI summary)
In literature, the word "outside" functions as a versatile signifier, marking both concrete boundaries and abstract separations. It often denotes a physical space beyond an established barrier—such as a spot beneath a tree or a location just beyond town limits [1, 2, 3]—while also evoking metaphors of moral or existential distance, as when the corrupt exterior contrasts with an inner purity [4, 5]. At times, "outside" hints at what lies beyond the familiar realm, whether it is an unexplored territory, a deviation from societal norms, or an intrusion that interrupts the everyday [6, 7, 8]. Thus, the term not only grounds the reader in a tangible setting but also invites them to consider the larger realms and boundaries that define human experience.
- No, it was much worse, he was outside, standing just under the linden-tree.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. Andersen - These roads unite just outside the town.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. Grant - So”—here he shut the dark slide of his lantern—“now to the outside.”
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker - And the Lord said to him: Now you, Pharisees, make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter: but your inside is full of rapine and iniquity.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - P. 196: "The moral instinct is absolute, and its requirements are peremptory, without any object outside itself."
— from The Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer - For the integral picture does not exist in his mind; he is in it, and cannot see the whole from the outside.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski - All the love, the magnificent new order was going to be lost, she would forfeit it all for the outside things.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence - Outside the window Jimmy Bean stirred suddenly.
— from Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
