Literary notes about Remonstrate (AI summary)
In literature, "remonstrate" is often used to convey a character’s earnest protest or objection in the face of injustice, folly, or moral wrongdoing. Writers deploy the term to illustrate moments when a character’s conscience compels them to challenge authority or express disapproval, whether in states of personal grievance or public dissent. For instance, Shaw portrays a sincere, almost pleading remonstration as a call for accountability [1], while Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley uses it to signal a moment of internal conflict and disappearing protest once reason takes hold [2][3]. In other narratives, the act of remonstrating becomes a formal, sometimes ironic, intervention against prevailing norms or decisions, as seen in the moral debates of Dickens and his contemporaries [4][5][6]. Such varied usage underscores the word’s capacity to evoke both the gravity of ethical contention and the nuanced subtleties of interpersonal disagreement.
- They remonstrate sincerely, asking me what good such painful exposures can possibly do.
— from Mrs. Warren's Profession by Bernard Shaw - Henry wished to dissuade me; but, seeing me bent on this plan, ceased to remonstrate.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Henry wished to dissuade me, but seeing me bent on this plan, ceased to remonstrate.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - The last word grated on me; but how could I remonstrate!
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - “And did you not remonstrate against such infamy?” asked the abbé; “if not, you were an accomplice.”
— from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet - While he lived, he could claim nothing that she would not still be free to remonstrate against, and even to refuse.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot