Four Walls

Irony/wit and Romance in Jane Austen Irony According to The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, “Most forms of irony involve the perception or awareness of a discrepancy or incongruity between words and their meaning, or between actions and their results, or between appearance and reality. The two basic kinds of irony are verbal irony and irony of the situation (for the latter one may substitute, on occasions, the irony of behavior). At its simplest, verbal irony involves saying what one does not mean. Johnson defined it as a mode of speech in which meaning is contrary to the words.

Critical overview in Pride and Prejudice Study Guide Examples of Irony in Pride and Prejudice Verbal Irony 1. “It is a truth universally acknowledged….wife” (Austen 3) - from Chapter 1. 2. Elizabeth makes the following comment about Mr. Darcy to Mr. Wickham in Chapter 41: “In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was” (Austen 192).  3. In Chapter 4, Mrs. Hurst and Caroline Bingley are portrayed in the following manner: “They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the…entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly to others” (Austen 12, 13). The irony resides in the fact that the readers soon realize that the sisters are proud, snobbish and are unrefined since they do not always resort to social propriety and show an immense degree of malice toward the Bennets.

Realism in Pride and Prejudice and its examples 1. Pride and Prejudice reflect everyday life, observations, practical concerns, feelings, responses, and desires. Austen’s fictional world and her characters are believable and true to life.  2. Similar to realist fiction, Austen highlights the issues of her contemporary society such as the socio-economic dynamics surrounding marriage and the unjust entailment law prevalent in Regency England.

Examples of Irony in Pride and Prejudice The irony in Pride and Prejudice and its examples Verbal Irony 1. “It is a truth universally acknowledged….wife” (Austen 3) - from Chapter 1. 2. Elizabeth makes the following comment about Mr. Darcy to Mr. Wickham in Chapter 41: “In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was” (Austen 192). 

Overview of  Pessimism in Tess of the d’Urbervilles  According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary , pessimism refers to a “feeling that bad things will happen or that something will not be successful” (1129). A pessimistic worldview implies that the worst will happen or that evil will ultimately prevail over goodness. Following are some of the instances in Tess of the d’Urbervilles that reinforce a pessimistic worldview.

An overview of Exploration of the Fatalistic Philosophy Highlighted in Tess of d'Urbervilles   According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary , fatalistic refers to a belief in the notion that “events are decided by fate and that one cannot control them” or prevent “them from happening” (558). A person who terms himself as a fatalist believes that the circumstances of one’s life are beyond one’s control and hence, it is fate rather than free will that determines the outcome of one’s actions or the course of one’s life. In his essay, Thomas Hardy’s Philosophical Outlook , Andrzej Diniejko claims that Hardy was a fatalist “who was aware that man's life is controlled by some inexplicable external force, which he sometimes calls” fate ( http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hardy/diniejko3.html ). David Cecil also maintains that Hardy’s novels highlight, “A struggle between a man on the one hand and, on the other, an omnipotent and indifferent Fate…That is Hardy’s interpr

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens Book Preview I t was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present peri- od, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. More