Literary notes about callousness (AI summary)
In literature, callousness is employed to reveal a character’s emotional hardening and moral detachment. Authors use the term to depict a range of attitudes—from a protective, almost necessary resilience in the face of hardship ([1], [2]) to a more critical portrayal of cruelty and indifference, whether in personal failings ([3], [4]) or as a societal critique ([5], [6]). It may underline the brutal insensitivity of an individual’s actions ([7], [8]) or expose a deliberate self-repression that leads to a cold disregard for others’ suffering ([9], [10]). Thus, callousness serves as a multifaceted motif, inviting readers to explore the complex interplay between self-preservation, moral compromise, and the consequences of an unfeeling disposition ([11], [12]).
- Her early life had given her a tolerance that stood her in stead, a touch of callousness which enabled her to endure.
— from The Intrusions of Peggy by Anthony Hope - When he had taken over the butchery business, already a growing callousness to it, and a sort of contempt made him neglectful of it.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence - “To forget, to attain callousness, to cease to feel.
— from The Dominant Dollar by Will Lillibridge - It was a lie of such amazing callousness that Sammy felt a twinge of remorse while saying it.
— from Makers by Cory Doctorow - Most cruelty, however, springs from callousness, which is simply dulness of imagination.
— from History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 1 of 2) by William Edward Hartpole Lecky - It fosters cruelty, callousness, contempt of life; it kills sympathy and the gentler virtues; it coarsens and leads almost inevitably to sensuality.
— from Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics by Durant Drake - The judge on passing sentence commented feelingly upon the depravity and callousness of the young prisoner.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad - His callousness was inhuman, and in my indignation I was not inclined to mince my words.
— from The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham - Where he was not permitted to be sentimental, he luxuriated in a callousness of which he was incapable in his intimate life.
— from Narcissus by Evelyn Scott - Instead of this callousness, the last two years he was trying every minute to be brave.
— from On Love by Stendhal - He remembered with what callousness he had watched her.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - They are thrown down, receive blows, have bad falls, and are bruised, and the labor itself produces a sort of callousness to pain.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations by Marcus Tullius Cicero
