Literary notes about futile (AI summary)
The word futile permeates literature as a powerful descriptor of efforts doomed to failure or marked by inherent pointlessness. In some works, it highlights the absurdity of human endeavors, whether it’s a student's task turning self-mocking [1] or the fruitless struggles in the face of overwhelming forces [2]. At times it reflects a resigned self-assessment, as when characters lament their own worthlessness in futile attempts to change fate [3]. Philosophical and political writings also deploy the term to underscore the ineffectiveness of debates or policies [4, 5], while poetic language uses it to evoke a sense of inevitable decline or sorrow [6, 7]. Overall, the usage of futile across various literary genres enriches themes of despair, irony, and the tragicomic nature of human existence.
- The task was futile, which disturbed a student less than the discovery that, in pursuing it, he was becoming himself ridiculous.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams - What a waste of time, what a futile expense of emotion!
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - [She gets up] As for me, I am a worthless, futile woman.
— from Uncle Vanya: Scenes from Country Life in Four Acts by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - This is an idea not superficial or futile, but solid and weighty.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison - But there is yet a further consideration, which proves beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the observation is futile.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and James Madison - Futile the winds To a heart in port, — Done with the compass, Done with the chart.
— from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete by Emily Dickinson - When feeling love exists in us, ennobling, Each well-weighed word is futile and soul-saddening!
— from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
