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Situational Irony
Key Examples in Northanger Abbey
Volume 2, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis:
Jane Austen's style comprises a range of characteristics, most notably parody and satire. She uses dramatic diction, verbal irony, and sarcasm to make fun of Gothic fiction and sentimental novels. For example, in Volume 2, Chapter 8, Catherine imagines that Mrs. Tilney is still alive and romanticizes the possibility of her being trapped in the abbey:
There must be some deeper cause: something was to be done which could be done only while the household slept; and the probability that Mrs. Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from the pitiless hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food, was the conclusion which necessarily followed.
Related Themes:
