Literary notes about unfamiliar (AI summary)
In literature, the word "unfamiliar" frequently functions as a signal for the unknown, the estranged, or the subtly transformed. Authors use it both to describe tangible environments and abstract states of being. For instance, it sets an eerie, alien tone when characters find themselves in landscapes or situations that defy routine understanding—as when a man leaves behind "unfamiliar tracks" [1] or encounters a world bathed in a "blood red" and unfamiliar light [2]. Meanwhile, it also emphasizes emotional and intellectual novelty, highlighting emerging freedoms or unexpected inner turmoil, such as enjoying an "unfamiliar freedom" or being overcome by sensations long unexperienced [3, 4]. In this way, "unfamiliar" becomes a versatile literary tool, framing the boundary between what is known and what provokes wonder, anxiety, or introspection [5, 6, 7].
- “It is, of course, possible that a cunning man might change the tires of his bicycle in order to leave unfamiliar tracks.
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - The sun, shining through the smoke that drove up from the tops of the trees, seemed blood red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon everything.
— from The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells - At first Juliette hardly knew how to take this unfamiliar freedom.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud - A feeling long unfamiliar to him flooded his heart and softened it at once.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - 40 19 a dread seized him of being cut off on all sides by them while he was in unfamiliar regions and he would advance no farther. Frag.
— from Dio's Rome, Volume 1 by Cassius Dio Cocceianus - The singer looks round and only then sees an unfamiliar countenance that looks like an actor’s. .
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - When you see or hear a familiar word used in an unfamiliar sense, jot it down, look it up, and master it.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie and J. Berg Esenwein
