Literary notes about ridicule (AI summary)
Literature employs the term "ridicule" with a rich variety of nuances, portraying it as both an instrument of derision and a mechanism for social control. Sometimes it functions as a fearful prospect, exemplified by a character’s dread of becoming an object of scorn ([1], [2]), while in other instances it actively underpins satire or political commentary to expose hypocrisy or absurdity ([3], [4]). At times, ridicule transforms shame into a tool for self-defense or even humor ([5], [6]), and it is also depicted as a force that can undermine authority or enforce conformity through public censure ([7], [8]). In essence, the word is versatile—capable of highlighting both personal vulnerability and the broader, sometimes cruel, dynamics of society ([9], [10]).
- I am afraid that thoughtless visitors, stupid and envious people and nihilists in general, may turn me into ridicule.
— from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - It’s always a stumbling-block to people like you, they turn it into ridicule before they understand it.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - He is wonderfully unlucky, insomuch that he will bite the Hand that feeds him, and endeavour to ridicule both Friends and Foes indifferently.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 by Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele - Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - He chiefly affected wit upon his own shameful means of raising money, in order to wipe off the odium by some joke, and turn it into ridicule.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius - What a good thing it would be [122] to humiliate and hold up to ridicule that dudish boy, always smartly dressed, with head erect and serene look!
— from The Reign of Greed by José Rizal - Ridicule, which public opinion dreads more than anything, is ever at hand to tyrannise, and punish.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Shaming, ridicule, disfavor, rebuke, and punishment are used.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey - The fear of ridicule is the most dominant of our feelings, that which controls us in most things and with the most strength.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - Many an orator like "stuttering Jack Curran," or "Orator Mum," as he was once called, has been spurred into eloquence by ridicule and abuse.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden
