Literary notes about indignity (AI summary)
In literature, "indignity" is deployed as a powerful term to express both personal degradation and the broader social humiliation inflicted by authority or circumstance. Authors illustrate characters enduring or imposing indignity—from the crushing weariness of being reduced to the last remnant of pride [1] to the societal shame of having one’s social rank diminished, as when nobles are spared such affronts [2]. The word often encapsulates a deep emotional wound, whether it appears in private torment, as seen in the biting critiques of personal betrayal and moral injury [3], or in public narratives that highlight systemic injustice and abuse of power [4]. In these various portrayals, "indignity" becomes a vivid marker of the struggle between self-respect and the forces that seek to strip it away.
- Unduly sensitive on such points by reason of his own past, he had the look of one completely ground down to the last indignity.
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy - The king was willing, but the Board, who were all well-born folk, implored the king to spare them the indignity of examining the weaver’s son.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain - There is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings!”
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - The Methodist missionaries have been treated with much indignity, and have had their lives endangered by the violence of the white mob.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
