Literary notes about monotonous (AI summary)
In literature, "monotonous" is often used to evoke a sense of relentless repetitiveness and uniformity, whether describing the tedious drudgery of everyday life or the unvarying quality of sound. It can illustrate the wearisome cadence of time, as when the endless march of days in a military camp is rendered dull and relentless [1], or the persistent, echoing ringing of a bell across barren fields [2]. At times, writers harness the term to underscore quiet nostalgia for a steady, if uneventful, passage of time [3] or to comment on the mechanical recitation of orders and phrases that strips speech of vitality [4, 5]. This versatility in usage allows "monotonous" to deepen a narrative by linking emotional fatigue to the physical repetition of events and sounds, subtly inviting readers to reflect on the balance between routine and change [6, 7].
- After complicated journeyings with many pauses, there had come months of monotonous life in a camp.
— from The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane - Afar off a dog sometimes howled; and the bell, keeping time, continued its monotonous ringing that died away over the fields.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - "Oh, if we could only have those dear, monotonous, pleasant days back again!
— from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery - Babbitt could hear the soldiers' monotonous orders: “Keep moving—move on, 'bo—keep your feet warm!”
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis - “… Is bound to seem monotonous,” Stepan Trofimovitch intentionally repeated, drawling each word as deliberately and nonchalantly as possible.
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The heavy pendulum of the clock swung to and fro with a monotonous tick.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - I can see how monotonous our quiet life must seem to you, how much more stirring yours must be.
— from Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
