Literary notes about Wraith (AI summary)
In literary works, “wraith” is a versatile term that conjures images of both physical thinness and spectral, ephemeral presence. At times, it is used to describe a character’s appearance or movement in a way that suggests insubstantiality or ghostliness—for instance, someone being “as thin as a lath and as white as a wraith” ([1]) or moving in a manner akin to a fading apparition ([2], [3]). Other passages imbue the word with a deeper, almost metaphysical significance, using it to capture fleeting emotions or the haunting persistence of past deeds, as when a ghostly figure symbolizes an inner guilt or regret ([4], [5], [6]). Thus, “wraith” functions both as a literal reference to spectral forms and as a metaphor for the transient nature of life and memory.
- Tha'rt as thin as a lath an' as white as a wraith, but there's not a knob on thee.
— from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - A white wraith of mist, like the very ghost of a cloud, was creeping silently along the mountain side and veiled the vision of the wide lands below.
— from The Lucky Piece: A Tale of the North Woods by Albert Bigelow Paine - He had stopped and watched her flitting wraith-like through the mist.
— from The Gay Cockade by Temple Bailey - Banquo's wraith, which is invisible to all but Macbeth, is the haunting of an evil conscience.
— from From Chaucer to Tennyson With Twenty-Nine Portraits and Selections from Thirty Authors by Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers - And yet it seemed a ghostly unreal day,—the wraith of Life.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois - Yet, I, too, believed you to be a wraith of myself, interrupting my sins with your sorrow, interrupting my desires with your prayers.
— from Bye-Ways by Robert Hichens
