Literary notes about wrong (AI summary)
Writers employ "wrong" in diverse ways to underscore errors, misjudgments, and moral failings. It can describe a literal misdirection, as when a character is told they’re “travelling the wrong way” ([1]), or hint at an innate flaw in conduct, such as a character being perceived as “wrong from the beginning” ([2]). The term also captures more nuanced moments of self-reflection and regret—for instance, when someone admits, “I have done wrong,” indicating both remorse and an awareness of their missteps ([3], [4]). Beyond character and action, "wrong" is wielded in analytical contexts to point out logical inconsistencies or misapplied reasoning ([5], [6]), revealing its versatility in bridging the physical, ethical, and intellectual realms of literary expression.
- At last he said, ‘You’re travelling the wrong way,’ and shut up the window and went away.
— from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll - She had all the particulars of that ugly quarrel with Captain Marker, in which Rawdon, wrong from the beginning, ended in shooting the Captain.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - “You have done wrong; in such a matter I would not stand surety for the most learned of men, and I know nothing about your learning.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - ‘You know you have been doing wrong, or you wouldn’t be driven to uttering an untruth to me.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - Hence proposed Conclusion is wrong, the right one being “Some epicures are not uncles of mine.”
— from Symbolic Logic by Lewis Carroll - To say, “I will be glad to do this,” then, would be wrong, for it would be to express volition twice.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by Frank Edgar Farley and George Lyman Kittredge
