Literary notes about meaningless (AI summary)
In literature, "meaningless" is employed as a multifaceted term that captures both existential emptiness and the triviality of language, actions, or customs. Authors use it to evoke a sense of disconnection or nihilism, as when a character sees people as insubstantial or their words as empty chatter [1], or when even unity dissolves into purposeless, mechanical motion [2]. At other moments, the word underscores the lack of inherent logic or significance in systems that ordinarily would be valued, such as formal ceremonies or structured language [3], [4]. Its versatility also allows writers to contrast the apparent vacuity of everyday gestures or expressions with their hidden emotional and existential gravity, highlighting how what seems trivial or absurd can nevertheless be laden with personal or philosophical import [5], [6].
- It seemed to her that the world was full of meaningless people saying words.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson - The effort for Unity could not be a partial success; even alternating Unity resolved itself into meaningless motion at last.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams - The ceremonies which follow later are but meaningless formalities.
— from A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs - In the meaningless French words ' pas de lieu Rhône que nous ,' who can recognize immediately the English 'paddle your own canoe'?
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James - I just accepted beauty as something meaningless, as something that was just beautiful without rhyme or reason.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London - Why did life, without Anna, seem to him just a horrible welter, everything jostling in a meaningless, dark, fathomless flood?
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence
