Literary notes about Vacant (AI summary)
The word “vacant” is used in literature to evoke both physical emptiness and a sense of emotional or mental absence. It describes deserted spaces—such as emptied houses ([1]), unoccupied thrones ([2], [3]), and barren landscapes ([4])—as well as the blank, disconnected expressions of individuals, illustrated by vacant stares or smiles ([5], [6], [7]). Moreover, “vacant” extends its reach to abstract settings like unfilled posts and positions ([8], [9]) and even emptied sentiments in poetry and prose ([10], [11]). In each case, the term deepens the narrative by highlighting what is missing, creating atmospheres that range from eerie desolation to reflective melancholy.
- He comes again by and by, and the house is vacant.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain - The secret was betrayed by the queen to her lover, who shot the bird with an arrow and thereby slew the king and ascended the vacant throne.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - Gordian, who had already received the title of Cæsar, was the only person that occurred to the soldiers as proper to fill the vacant throne.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - Then I took the first side street, and went up a left-hand turning which led past a bit of vacant ground.
— from The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan - There was something she didn’t like in the look of things and Mr Fitzpatrick’s vacant smile irritated her very much.
— from Dubliners by James Joyce - His eyes stared wide-open, glassy and vacant, at the ceiling.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins - He turned the ring, turned the signet ring on his little finger and stared in front of him, blinking, vacant.
— from Bliss, and other stories by Katherine Mansfield - The see was, therefore, vacant for two years, possibly owing to the political troubles of the time, cf. IV, 26 , ad fin.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Saint the Venerable Bede - The office of consul having become vacant, by the sudden death of one of the consuls the day before the calends of January
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius - Mother and child sat motionless, silent, the child staring with vacant dark eyes into the fire, the mother looking into space.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence - I see not my reflection in the vacant pupils of thy eyes.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville
