All 7 Uses of

futile

in

This Side of Paradise

All tragedy has that strain of the grotesque and squalid—so useless, futile...the way animals die....Amory was reminded of a cat that had lain horribly mangled in some alley of his childhood.†
Chpt 1.2

It's so evident that resigning from his club means so much more to him than preventing it does to us that I felt futile when I argued; finally took a position that was brilliantly neutral.†
Chpt 1.4

He had fallen into a deep cynicism over what had crossed his path, plotted the imperfectability of man and read Shaw and Chesterton enough to keep his mind from the edges of decadence—now suddenly all his mental processes of the last year and a half seemed stale and futile—a petty consummation of himself...and like a sombre background lay that incident of the spring before, that filled half his nights with a dreary terror and made him unable to pray.†
Chpt 1.4 *

Then, after a week, Amory saw Burne and knew at once that argument would be futile—Burne had come out as a pacifist.†
Chpt 1.4

But men will chatter and you and I will still shout our futilities to each other across the stage until the last silly curtain falls plump!†
Chpt 1.4

And so we linger on the windless decks, See on the spectre shore Shades of a thousand days, poor gray-ribbed wrecks... Oh, shall we then deplore Those futile years!†
Chpt 1.4

** IN THE DROOPING HOURS While the rain drizzled on Amory looked futilely back at the stream of his life, all its glitterings and dirty shallows.†
Chpt 2.5

futilely = in a manner that is pointless because it is unproductive or unsuccessful

Definition:

effort that is pointless because it is unproductive or unsuccessful