Literary notes about vindictive (AI summary)
Authors employ "vindictive" to evoke a potent mix of resentment and retribution in their characters and settings. In epic narratives, such as those where wrath drives giants to battle [1, 2], the term intensifies the portrayal of overwhelming, almost elemental fury. In the realm of character studies, it often characterizes individuals whose personal grievances bleed into their actions, as seen in figures driven by deep-seated malice or hurt [3, 4, 5]. Even in social or political contexts, "vindictive" marks a criticism of systems or peoples as unforgiving and retaliatory [6, 7]. Thus, across genres—from the grand scale of epics to intimate psychological portraits—the word enriches narratives by highlighting the corrosive power of revenge and bitter hostility [8, 9].
- E'en now the giants' isle he fills With warriors huge as clouds and hills, And burning with vindictive hate Will thunder soon at Lanká's gate.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - Minerva's anger, and the dreadful woes Which voyaging from Troy the victors bore, While storms vindictive intercept the store.
— from The Odyssey by Homer - A very deep, malicious, vindictive person is the gentleman who is now waiting us downstairs.
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - I profoundly felt both good and evil—no one caressed me, all insulted me: I grew vindictive.
— from A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Iurevich Lermontov - Raskolnikov could not help glancing at him with a flash of vindictive anger in his black eyes, but immediately recollected himself.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The laws were punitive and vindictive rather than reformatory or remedial, criminal rather than civil.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. Werner - The temper of the Americans is vindictive, like that of all serious and reflecting nations.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville - “My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but not vindictive.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë - The feeling began and ended in reckless, vindictive, hopeless hatred of the man who was to marry her.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
