Both Uses of
inert
in
As I Lay Dying
- Pa leans above the bed in the twilight, his humped silhouette partaking of that owl-like quality of awry-feathered, disgruntled outrage within which lurks a wisdom too profound or too inert for even thought.†
Chpt 12 *
- The wagon is hauled clear, the wheels chocked (carefully: we all helped; it is as though upon the shabby, familiar, inert shape of the wagon there lingered somehow, latent yet still immediate, that violence which had slain the mules that drew it not an hour since) above the edge of the flood.†
Chpt 37
Definition:
-
(inert) unmoving, inactive, or unable to move
or:
slow, lethargic, or without interest
or (in chemistry/medicine):
chemically inactive (not having an effect)