Literary notes about fixture (AI summary)
The term "fixture" in literature is employed with notable versatility, ranging from the literal to the metaphorical. In some instances, it describes an object or person that is physically fixed or permanently located, such as the ladder in Dickens’ portrayal of a means of ascent [1] or the ever-present character in Melville’s chamber [2]. At other times it conveys a sense of permanence in a more abstract context, as when Thoreau uses the term to evoke a reliably established structure in trade [3] or when Hawthorne presents an enduring landmark in his narrative [4]. Additionally, fixture can be extended metaphorically to comment on character or morality, illustrated by Jefferson’s use contrasting it with principles [5]. Even within settings as diverse as religious symbols [6] and unconventional roles in commerce [7], the word adapts to suggest both the unchanging and the conventionally accepted, reinforcing its role as a marker of stability and permanence in various narrative landscapes [8][9][10][11][12][13].
- I made out that I was fastened to a stout perpendicular ladder a few inches from the wall,—a fixture there,—the means of ascent to the loft above.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - He remained as ever, a fixture in my chamber.
— from Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street by Herman Melville - If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau - It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - He is a scoundrel of the first magnitude, ... without any fixture of principle or really of virtue.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - But even when the May-pole had thus become a fixture, the need of giving it the appearance of being a green tree, not a dead pole, was sometimes felt.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - To the left of it was the residence of Mr. Samuel Doppelbrau, secretary of an excellent firm of bathroom-fixture jobbers.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis - He has been a fixture therefore all day.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - The Dinner Hour In America the dinner hour is not a fixture, since it varies in various sections of the country.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post - Nay—if that were possible—he became still more of a fixture than before.
— from Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street by Herman Melville - The old lady thinks I am permanent fixture here, but I shall go away with these straight off—immediately.
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling - Owing to an accident at the commencement of March, he became for some days a fixture in the kitchen.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - “A fixture also.”
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
