Literary notes about Vacuous (AI summary)
In literature, the term "vacuous" is frequently employed to convey a sense of emptiness or superficiality in both character and setting. Authors use it to describe features or expressions that, despite an outward semblance of life or refinement, betray a lack of genuine depth or intellectual substance—consider a laugh deemed "vacuous, beseeming little girls" [1] or a smile that misleads with its vacuity [2]. Similarly, "vacuous" characterizes not only the faces of individuals, as in the depiction of a character with "vacuous eyes" [3] or a "vacuous grin" [4], but also entire atmospheres and states of mind, implying that something might be fundamentally unoccupied or barren [5],[6]. This versatile descriptive tool invites readers to sense an underlying barrenness, whether in the superficial expressions of a character or in the metaphorical voids that echo through the narrative.
- Lady Grace Halley, in the carriage behind, heard Nesta's laugh; which Mr. Barmby had thought vacuous, beseeming little girls, that laugh at nothings.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith by George Meredith - The smile was so vacuous that it misled the Baroness; she took it for an expression of kindness.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac - She was wrinkled and veined, with yellowish white hair, vacuous, watery gray eyes, a red, bulbous nose, and a miserable chin.
— from The Heart Line: A Drama of San Francisco by Gelett Burgess - Bob turns slowly and looks at the spoon with an injured air, then turns back to Mollie with a silly, vacuous smile.
— from Contemporary One-Act Plays - Perhaps this appearance of immortal dreaming was due to a supreme and vacuous innocence.
— from The Faith of Men by Jack London - Were he satisfied to inhabit this vacuous X, I should not at present try to disturb him.
— from The Letters of William James, Vol. 1 by William James
