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Literary notes about inhospitable (AI summary)

In literature, "inhospitable" is often employed to evoke a sense of barrenness or emotional remoteness, serving both as a descriptor for harsh, unwelcoming landscapes and for unyielding human attitudes. For instance, authors use it to paint a physical environment that is cold and uninviting, as seen in descriptions of a frigid salon or a desolate desert ([1], [2]), and to capture the bleak beauty of a frosty night ([3]). At the same time, the word carries a metaphorical charge when depicting personal demeanor or attitudes, such as a guarded heart or an unresponsive audience ([4], [5]), and it even appears in character sketches to mark individuals as unsociable or hard to approach ([6], [7]). Thus, through its varied applications, "inhospitable" enriches literature by intensifying the reader’s perception of isolation and resistance, whether in the physical setting or in interpersonal dynamics.
  1. Leaving Madame Walravens' inhospitable salon, I betook myself to her cold staircase; there was a seat on the landing—there I waited.
    — from Villette by Charlotte Brontë
  2. In vain he racked his brain—it was as dark and empty as the inhospitable desert in which he found himself.
    — from Best Russian Short Stories
  3. Outside there was the still frosty night in all its cold, inhospitable beauty.
    — from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
  4. If they knocked at my heart sometimes, an inhospitable bar to admission must be inwardly drawn.
    — from Villette by Charlotte Brontë
  5. I fear here that some of you my hearers will begin to scent danger, and lend an inhospitable ear.
    — from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James
  6. There dwelt here a bonde called Bjorn Eiterkveisa, who was very rich, but very inhospitable.
    — from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson
  7. Did you ever know me to be inhospitable?”
    — from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

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