Literary notes about submission (AI summary)
In literature, submission is portrayed with a rich complexity that can imply both a voluntary act of humility and the weight of forced capitulation. It is used to reveal a character’s inner dynamics—sometimes as an expression of love and deferential acceptance [1][2], and at other times as a manifestation of fear, disgrace, or abject defeat [3][4][5]. On a broader scale, submission emerges in political and military narratives as a strategic yielding to authority or power, underscoring its role in legitimizing conquests and treaties [6][7][8]. Whether as the inevitable surrender to one’s destiny or as a deliberate, cautious act in social or diplomatic contexts [9][10], the term highlights the complex interplay between individual agency and external pressures throughout literary works.
- She had rejected these advances; and the time for such exuberant submission, which must be founded on love and nourished by it, was now passed.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - My submission pleased him and led him to further confidences.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - Its mysteriousness was only equalled by the abject submission which it received.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis - He had irrevocably pronounced my doom, and submission to it was my only part.
— from Memoirs of Fanny Hill by John Cleland - She saw his brown, hard, well-hewn face gleaming with anger and humiliation and submission.
— from The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence - A la citoyenne Bonaparte, &c. April 28th.—Armistice of Cherasco (submission of Sardinia to France): peace signed May 15th.
— from Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812 by Emperor of the French Napoleon I - Deserted by his allies, Cassivellaunus offered his submission, which Caesar gladly accepted.
— from Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Edmund Luce - Alfred the Great, at first beaten by Ivar's successors, succeeded in regaining his throne and in compelling the submission of the Danes.
— from The Art of War by baron de Antoine Henri Jomini - I had to give in, and he took note of this sign of submission.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - [65] Hamilton agreed with King, and counselled peaceful submission.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson
