Literary notes about Suggestion (AI summary)
The word suggestion is employed in literature both as a means of proposing ideas and as a subtler indicator of underlying themes. Authors use it to signal a recommendation or course of action, as when a character’s advice subtly shifts the dynamics of a conversation ([1], [2], [3]). At the same time, it captures the ephemeral force of implication—where a slight hint or inflection carries emotional weight beyond the literal words ([4], [5]). In works exploring psychology or social influence, suggestion assumes a nearly technical role, encompassing the process of directing thought or behavior without overt command ([6], [7], [8]). Moreover, in the realm of rhetoric and stylistic nuance, suggestion demarcates the fine line between what is explicitly stated and what is inferred, inviting readers to engage deeper with the text ([9], [10]). This multifaceted use reveals a rich interplay between explicit instruction and implicit influence, a technique that persists from classical literature to modern narratives ([11], [12], [13]).
- Mrs. Stephen Clark of Carmody persists in being most grateful to me for a suggestion which somebody else would probably have made if I hadn’t.
— from Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery - It was Ruth’s suggestion that the coats would be improved by a single hook and eye sewed on in the small of the back where the buttons usually are.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner - " My suggestion was acted on the moment we returned to the house.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - It’s just to do away with anything of that sort that I make my suggestion.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James - There was an extraordinary force of suggestion in this posturing.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad - What is called hypnotic suggestion is nothing but the artificial selection of one idea to the exclusion of all others, so that it passes into action.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - Post-hypnotic suggestion, II. 613 Practical interests, their effects on discrimination, I. 515 ff.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James - This is the ordinary so-called 'post-hypnotic suggestion,' now well known, and for which Lucie was a well-adapted subject.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James - ( a ) Suggestion is the very heart of inference; it involves going from what is present to something absent.
— from How We Think by John Dewey - If we cancel the suggestion of this intestinal fever from the lyric of tones and words, what is left to poetry and music? ...
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche - When things are treated simply as vehicles of suggestion, what is suggested overrides the thing.
— from How We Think by John Dewey - He had a particular reason, which she was not aware of, for wincing under her suggestion.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - “No, sir, you cannot smoke here, and I wonder you are not ashamed of the very suggestion.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky