All 5 Uses of

provocation
in
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

He then sat down and penned, to the Chairman of the Committee on Analysis of Ideas and Methods at the University of Chicago, a letter which can only be described as a provocation to dismissal, in which the writer refuses to skulk quietly out the back door but instead creates a scene of such proportions the opposition is forced to throw him out the front door, thus giving weight to the provocation it didn't formerly have.†
Part 4

provocation = something that causes a reaction--especially anger or violence OR the act of causing an angry or violent reaction

He then sat down and penned, to the Chairman of the Committee on Analysis of Ideas and Methods at the University of Chicago, a letter which can only be described as a provocation to dismissal, in which the writer refuses to skulk quietly out the back door but instead creates a scene of such proportions the opposition is forced to throw him out the front door, thus giving weight to the provocation it didn't formerly have.†
Part 4

Phaedrus' provocation informed the Chairman that his substantive field was now philosophy, not English composition.†
Part 4 *

Definition:

actions that cause a reaction--especially anger or violence

or:

the act of causing an angry or violent reaction