Literary notes about tethered (AI summary)
In literature the term "tethered" often signifies both a literal and a metaphorical binding. Authors use it to depict animals or objects secured to a fixed point—such as a tree, post, or stake—to evoke a sense of control or containment; for instance, characters have horses, ponies, or other creatures tied up in ways that mirror the order imposed by civilization ([1], [2], [3], [4]). At the same time, the word can imply an emotional or existential restraint, suggesting that a person is bound by duty, circumstance, or even memory, as when a character feels confined by an inescapable attachment or a past that limits new directions in life ([5], [6], [7]). This dual usage enriches the narrative by linking physical confinement with deeper thematic concerns about freedom and limitation.
- Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger?
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - Overcome by the heat and fatigue, I tethered my horse to a tree by the road, and lay down under an arbutus-bush.
— from The White Stone by Anatole France - Through openings in the hedges one could see into the huts, some pigs on a dung-heap, or tethered cows rubbing their horns against the trunk of trees.
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - It was Luc who sank the stake to which the cow was tethered.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - And one—they called her Fame; and one,—O Mother, How can ye keep me tethered to you—Shame.
— from Idylls of the King by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson - Yet a certain feeling, you may understand, tethered me in a circle of a few miles round the point of my arrival.
— from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells - I had no time to protest that I would keep faith, and my right hand was tethered to his pommel.
— from Prester John by John Buchan
