Literary notes about Scorched (AI summary)
The term "scorched" is employed in literature both as a literal descriptor and a potent metaphor. Writers use it to depict the physical devastation wrought by fire—from fabric singed by a slight flame [1, 2] or landscapes reduced to lifeless, burnt remnants [3, 4, 5] to harsh climatic assaults that wither vegetation [6, 7]. Simultaneously, "scorched" conveys emotional intensity and irreversible change, as when a character’s skin feels burned by a hostile gaze or inner torment [8, 9, 10, 11]. This dual application enables authors to evoke a vivid sensory experience while also symbolizing transformation and loss, thereby deepening the narrative’s thematic impact [12, 13, 14].
- I thought afterwards that his clothes might have got scorched, you know—if Hades is all it's supposed to be—before I shifted him.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - The lighted match burnt away till it scorched my fingers, forcing me to drop it; but still I stood and stared at myself in the glass, and reflected.
— from She by H. Rider Haggard - The candles suspended among the evergreens had burnt down to their sockets, and in some cases the leaves tied about them were scorched.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy - And there the trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only herbage was this scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - The unreaped corn was scorched and shed its grain.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - I rose one morning with the sun—it scorched my face, but shone not.
— from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll - Bruja got stuck in the sky: he was scorched by the glowing sun.
— from Filipino Popular Tales - Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses against my scorched skin.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - It was a dreadful hour—an hour from which she emerged shrinking and seared, as though her lids had been scorched by its actual glare.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton - I am too hot and scorched with mine own thought: often is it ready to take away my breath.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Shatov looked passionately and defiantly at him, as though he would have scorched him with his eyes.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Thaddeus at once seized it, aimed, and shot; he missed, but he deafened and scorched the Major.
— from Pan Tadeusz; or, The last foray in Lithuania by Adam Mickiewicz - Scorched by the fiery God of Day, High on this mighty hill I lay.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - The miscreant, a bony young man scorched black by the sun, rose to greet her with the courtesy of a host and the assurance of a relative.
— from A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
