Literary notes about Must (AI summary)
In literature the word "must" often serves as a marker of necessity, obligation, or inevitability imposed by either circumstance, fate, or inner resolve. Its use can signal a personal imperative, as when a character resolves to endure hardship or seize an opportunity ([1], [2]), or it can denote an external requirement or logical necessity that guides action or argument ([3], [4]). At times, "must" carries an air of rhetorical command or even irony, urging both characters and readers to acknowledge a forceful inevitability—be it in matters of duty, destiny, or social expectation ([5], [6]). This versatility allows writers to convey urgency and predetermined outcomes, setting the tone for pivotal moments within their narratives ([7], [8]).
- He answered, I must try to endure it another hour, and they went away.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - I must learn new ways of helping people.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - If his expression is to be adequate to convey his feeling to others, there must be some arrangement.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed - I know that this trip is necessary; it must be made sooner or later; I am on time, and in the right position for it.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. Sherman - "However, the whole thing is irregular, and I suppose we must wink at it.
— from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle - We have come into a great fortune, and we must do what's right by our fortune; we must act up to it.'
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens - I said to the ghost, 'If she is to be empress in 1885, there is no time to lose; she must become a leader at once.'
— from The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux - "You have roused my curiosity, and now you must gratify it."
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens
