Literary notes about improbable (AI summary)
In literature, "improbable" is often employed to highlight the uncanny, the unexpected, or the seemingly contradictory nature of events and actions. Writers use it to intensify tension or irony, suggesting that while an occurrence might stretch the bounds of credibility, it nonetheless carries an air of possibility. In some narratives, a character’s secretive behavior is rendered almost natural by its improbability, hinting at deeper psychological or moral undercurrents [1]. In other works, improbability becomes a tool to cast doubt on historical or fantastical claims, urging readers to discern between mere fiction and an almost attainable reality [2, 3]. At times, the term is juxtaposed with assertions of truth, subtly challenging both reader belief and conventional logic [4, 5].
- That anxiety was just what he was suffering from—what is there improbable in his laying aside that money and concealing it in case of emergency?
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The story that he went to Rome at the request of Pope Sergius, founded on a statement of William of Malmesbury, is now regarded as highly improbable.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Saint the Venerable Bede - Such an anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a fiction which would not have been imagined, unless in the life of a hero.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - It was more than improbable; it was incredible.
— from The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham - “It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
