Tag Archives: p

Perversity

perverse
adjective per·verse \(ˌ)pər-ˈvərs, ˈpər-ˌ\
: wrong or different in a way that others feel is strange or offensive

The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka Part 2 Paragraph 23
His sister, unfortunately, did not agree; she had become used to the idea, not without reason, that she was Gregor’s spokesman to his parents about the things that concerned him. This meant that his mother’s advice now was sufficient reason for her to insist on removing not only the chest of drawers and the desk, as she had thought at first, but all the furniture apart from the all-important couch. It was more than childish perversity, of course, or the unexpected confidence she had recently acquired, that made her insist; she had indeed noticed that Gregor needed a lot of room to crawl about in, whereas the furniture, as far as anyone could see, was of no use to him at all. Girls of that age, though, do become enthusiastic about things and feel they must get their way whenever they can. Perhaps this was what tempted Grete to make Gregor’s situation seem even more shocking than it was so that she could do even more for him. Grete would probably be the only one who would dare enter a room dominated by Gregor crawling about the bare walls by himself.
Word Reused
…It was more than childish improper, of course, or the unexpected confidence she had recently acquired, that made her insist…

 

Pious

  • Pious – adjective -deeply religious; devoted to a particular religion; falsely appearing to be good or moral via merriam-webster.com
  • Encountered in the short story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne,  paragraph forty-seven.
  • “Once the listener fancied that he could distinguish the accents of t owns – people of his own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern.” – Narrator