When the Crawfords and Bertrams visit Mr. Rushworth’s estate and receive a tour from his mother, the narrator makes an allusion to the “window tax”:
Having visited many more rooms than could be supposed to be of any other use than to contribute to the window tax, and find employment for housemaids, “Now,” said Mrs. Rushworth, “we are coming to the chapel, which properly we ought to enter from above, and look down upon; but as we are quite among friends, I will take you in this way, if you will excuse me.”
The window tax was a British tax put into practice in 1696 as a way for the government to tax wealthier people at a higher rate (akin to a property tax). Because the tax was based on how many windows a given property had, people eventually started boarding up windows or constructing homes with very few windows.
This passage is also an example of verbal irony because the narrator does not actually believe the windows were installed so that the Rushworth family would be more heavily taxed. Austen uses sarcasm here to communicate the sheer number of windows and size of the estate, which also comes across in Mrs. Rushworth’s attention to details in her extensive tour (such as which way they ought to enter the chapel).
In an example of verbal irony, the narrator refers to Mary as Fanny’s “friend” near the end of the novel—choosing to put the word in quotes:
The promised visit from her “friend” […] was a formidable threat to Fanny, and she lived in continual terror of it […] Her displeasure, her penetration, and her happiness were all fearful to encounter; and the dependence of having others present when they met, was Fanny’s only support in looking forward to it.
The juxtaposition of the word “friend” with the resulting description of how terrified Fanny is of seeing Mary shows that the narrator is being sarcastic. The overall effect is to show that Mary is absolutely not Fanny’s friend, and, at this point in the novel, has become almost akin to an enemy. This is because Mary is Edmund’s love interest and also because she has been trying to manipulate Fanny into accepting her brother Henry’s proposal, which Fanny intentionally directly rejected.
The narrator’s choice to call Mary a friend mirrors Fanny’s inclination to prioritize being well-mannered over being honest about her feelings about people. This moment shows how Fanny is, in some ways, trapped by a need to perform good manners.
