One of the details that makes Anne Catherick such a tragic character is that the young woman's singular wish in life revolves around her burying place: she wants more than anything to die and be buried next to Mrs. Fairlie. While still alive, she, along with the reader, is convinced that this can never happen. It is therefore ironic that the nefariousness of Sir Percival and Count Fosco actually ensures that her wish is granted. Thanks to the novel's villains, who take advantage of her mental weakness and loneliness in the world for their own financial gain, Anne Catherick comes to be buried exactly in the place she wanted.
The second time Walter meets Anne Catherick, he finds her at Mrs. Fairlie's grave. In this scene, which occurs in the First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 13, she reveals her innermost wish in an apostrophe addressed to the dead woman:
‘Oh, if I could die, and be hidden and at rest with you!’ Her lips murmured the words close on the grave-stone; murmured them in tones of passionate endearment, to the dead remains beneath.
Laura Fairlie also hears Anne Catherick express this wish when they meet in the Second Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 6:
'Oh!' I heard her say, with a dreadful, distracted tenderness in her voice, 'oh! if I could only be buried with your mother! If I could only wake at her side, when the angel’s trumpet sounds, and the graves give up their dead at the resurrection!'
By having Anne repeat this innermost wish to several different characters, Collins prepares the reader to be surprised by the ironic outcome. Towards the end of the novel, Walter reflects back on when he met Anne Catherick in the graveyard. In the Third Epoch: Part 3, Chapter 2, he reflects on the irony of how things turned out and on how tragically her wish came to be fulfilled:
I thought of her poor helpless hands beating on the tombstone, and her weary, yearning words, murmured to the dead remains of her protectress and her friend. ‘Oh, if I could die, and be hidden and at rest with you!’ Little more than a year had passed since she breathed that wish; and how inscrutably, how awfully, it had been fulfilled!
Walter is horrified over the circumstances that granted Anne her wish. Nonetheless, the reader finds some comfort in the irony of how things turned out for the character—if it weren't for the bad intentions of Sir Percival and Count Fosco, she never would have been buried alongside Mrs. Fairlie.
One of the details that makes Anne Catherick such a tragic character is that the young woman's singular wish in life revolves around her burying place: she wants more than anything to die and be buried next to Mrs. Fairlie. While still alive, she, along with the reader, is convinced that this can never happen. It is therefore ironic that the nefariousness of Sir Percival and Count Fosco actually ensures that her wish is granted. Thanks to the novel's villains, who take advantage of her mental weakness and loneliness in the world for their own financial gain, Anne Catherick comes to be buried exactly in the place she wanted.
The second time Walter meets Anne Catherick, he finds her at Mrs. Fairlie's grave. In this scene, which occurs in the First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 13, she reveals her innermost wish in an apostrophe addressed to the dead woman:
‘Oh, if I could die, and be hidden and at rest with you!’ Her lips murmured the words close on the grave-stone; murmured them in tones of passionate endearment, to the dead remains beneath.
Laura Fairlie also hears Anne Catherick express this wish when they meet in the Second Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 6:
'Oh!' I heard her say, with a dreadful, distracted tenderness in her voice, 'oh! if I could only be buried with your mother! If I could only wake at her side, when the angel’s trumpet sounds, and the graves give up their dead at the resurrection!'
By having Anne repeat this innermost wish to several different characters, Collins prepares the reader to be surprised by the ironic outcome. Towards the end of the novel, Walter reflects back on when he met Anne Catherick in the graveyard. In the Third Epoch: Part 3, Chapter 2, he reflects on the irony of how things turned out and on how tragically her wish came to be fulfilled:
I thought of her poor helpless hands beating on the tombstone, and her weary, yearning words, murmured to the dead remains of her protectress and her friend. ‘Oh, if I could die, and be hidden and at rest with you!’ Little more than a year had passed since she breathed that wish; and how inscrutably, how awfully, it had been fulfilled!
Walter is horrified over the circumstances that granted Anne her wish. Nonetheless, the reader finds some comfort in the irony of how things turned out for the character—if it weren't for the bad intentions of Sir Percival and Count Fosco, she never would have been buried alongside Mrs. Fairlie.
After Walter finally fulfills his promise to make Limmeridge house "open again to receive [Laura], in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the grave," he reflects on the long struggle they endured to reach that point. It occurs to him that it was precisely because of his poverty and powerlessness that he succeeded in his aim. This is an instance of situational irony, as the reader spent much of the Third Epoch convinced that all would go well for Walter, Marian, and Laura if only they got their hands on money so they could afford some legal help.
The prohibitive nature of legal expenses keeps Walter from being able to rely on Mr. Kyrle, the Fairlie's family lawyer. Besides the issue of money, the legal apparatus is not on Walter's side; during their meeting in the first part of the Third Epoch, Mr. Kyrle tells Walter that he has "not the shadow of a case." Walter knows he is right about the guilt of Sir Percival and Count Fosco, but he does not have the evidence to prove it. This keeps him from being able to use the law to his advantage. Before leaving Mr. Kyrle's office, Walter summarizes the situation:
You have shown me that the legal remedy lies, in every sense of the word, beyond our means. We cannot produce the law-proof; and we are not rich enough to pay the law-expenses.
The reader is led to believe that this will be his pitfall throughout much of the Third Epoch, but it ironically turns out that his lack of concrete evidence and lack of money are the very reasons for his success. Walter's own collection of testimony and reliance on people around him are the methods by which he reinstates Laura's identity and inheritance. As he sits on the train back to London in the fifth part of the Third Epoch, Walter reflects on all that has happened. He realizes that he reached this outcome precisely because his circumstances forced him to circumvent the judicial system:
It was strange to look back and to see, now, that the poverty which had denied us all hope of assistance, had been the indirect means of our success, by forcing me to act for myself. If we had been rich enough to find legal help, what would have been the result? The gain (on Mr. Kyrle’s own showing) would have been more than doubtful; the loss— judging by the plain test of events as they had really happened—certain. The Law would never have obtained me my interview with Mrs. Catherick. The Law would never have made Pesca the means of forcing a confession from the Count.
By way of this situational irony, Collins presents the law as a flawed institution that is inadequate for the pursuit of truth and justice. The law serves those with money and turns its back on society's more vulnerable members. Walter may triumph in the literary trial that takes place across the novel, but he never presents his case to any judge or jury besides the reader.
Throughout the parts of the novel where Walter serves as narrator, he builds the suspense for when he and Sir Percival will finally meet one another. Walter is committed to punishing Sir Percival for all the wrong he has inflicted upon Laura, and, although he is a morally upstanding character, he admits that one of his main motives is revenge. Given this, the first and only time that the two men finally meet is marked by situational irony, as Walter attempts to save Sir Percival's life in the Third Epoch, Part 1:
The one absorbing purpose that had filled all my thoughts, that had controlled all my actions, for weeks and weeks past, vanished in an instant from my mind. All remembrance of the heartless injury the man’s crimes had inflicted; of the love, the innocence, the happiness he had pitilessly laid waste; of the oath I had sworn in my own heart to summon him to the terrible reckoning that he deserved – passed from my memory like a dream.
Walter certainly never claims that the punishment he has in mind for Sir Percival is death. Given his regard for the law, Walter's ideal form of retribution would likely have been to see Sir Percival charged with all of his crimes and sent to prison. Nonetheless, it is unexpected that he would put himself in danger in an attempt to save the man's life. Earlier in the novel, he says that it was a relief to know that "the struggle was now narrowed to a trial of strength between myself and Sir Percival Glyde" and a satisfaction to feel that "the surest way—the only way left—of serving Laura’s cause, was to fasten my hold firmly on the villain who had married her." Instead of entering a trial of strength against Sir Percival, he enters a trial of strength to rescue him.
The reader's expectations build throughout the story for when the two men will finally have a confrontation. In the end, the first time Walter lays eyes on his enemy, the latter is already dead:
My eyes dropped slowly. [...] I looked up, along the cloth; and there at the end, stark and grim and black, in the yellow light—there, was his dead face. So, for the first and last time, I saw him. So the Visitation of God ruled it that he and I should meet.
At the same time, it is not so surprising that preserving Sir Percival's life is important to Walter—aside from any moral obligations to save other humans from death. By letting Sir Percival die without making him confess to his crimes and without seeing him face their consequences, Walter feels that he helps him escape from justice.
From a different angle entirely, the reader can't help but wonder if this outcome really is so ironic. Can we be sure that Walter is telling the truth about what happened that night? Did he really do everything he could to save Sir Percival's life? Is it possible that his narration of the fire and Sir Percival's death is intentionally ambiguous? Due to the novel's complete lack of an omniscient narrator, as well as the narratorial absence of a witness who could corroborate Walter's account, there is no way for the reader to know exactly how the events of that night unfolded. After all, it is no secret to Walter or the reader that Sir Percival's death was absolutely necessary for his union with Laura.
One of the details that makes Anne Catherick such a tragic character is that the young woman's singular wish in life revolves around her burying place: she wants more than anything to die and be buried next to Mrs. Fairlie. While still alive, she, along with the reader, is convinced that this can never happen. It is therefore ironic that the nefariousness of Sir Percival and Count Fosco actually ensures that her wish is granted. Thanks to the novel's villains, who take advantage of her mental weakness and loneliness in the world for their own financial gain, Anne Catherick comes to be buried exactly in the place she wanted.
The second time Walter meets Anne Catherick, he finds her at Mrs. Fairlie's grave. In this scene, which occurs in the First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 13, she reveals her innermost wish in an apostrophe addressed to the dead woman:
‘Oh, if I could die, and be hidden and at rest with you!’ Her lips murmured the words close on the grave-stone; murmured them in tones of passionate endearment, to the dead remains beneath.
Laura Fairlie also hears Anne Catherick express this wish when they meet in the Second Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 6:
'Oh!' I heard her say, with a dreadful, distracted tenderness in her voice, 'oh! if I could only be buried with your mother! If I could only wake at her side, when the angel’s trumpet sounds, and the graves give up their dead at the resurrection!'
By having Anne repeat this innermost wish to several different characters, Collins prepares the reader to be surprised by the ironic outcome. Towards the end of the novel, Walter reflects back on when he met Anne Catherick in the graveyard. In the Third Epoch: Part 3, Chapter 2, he reflects on the irony of how things turned out and on how tragically her wish came to be fulfilled:
I thought of her poor helpless hands beating on the tombstone, and her weary, yearning words, murmured to the dead remains of her protectress and her friend. ‘Oh, if I could die, and be hidden and at rest with you!’ Little more than a year had passed since she breathed that wish; and how inscrutably, how awfully, it had been fulfilled!
Walter is horrified over the circumstances that granted Anne her wish. Nonetheless, the reader finds some comfort in the irony of how things turned out for the character—if it weren't for the bad intentions of Sir Percival and Count Fosco, she never would have been buried alongside Mrs. Fairlie.
After Walter finally fulfills his promise to make Limmeridge house "open again to receive [Laura], in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the grave," he reflects on the long struggle they endured to reach that point. It occurs to him that it was precisely because of his poverty and powerlessness that he succeeded in his aim. This is an instance of situational irony, as the reader spent much of the Third Epoch convinced that all would go well for Walter, Marian, and Laura if only they got their hands on money so they could afford some legal help.
The prohibitive nature of legal expenses keeps Walter from being able to rely on Mr. Kyrle, the Fairlie's family lawyer. Besides the issue of money, the legal apparatus is not on Walter's side; during their meeting in the first part of the Third Epoch, Mr. Kyrle tells Walter that he has "not the shadow of a case." Walter knows he is right about the guilt of Sir Percival and Count Fosco, but he does not have the evidence to prove it. This keeps him from being able to use the law to his advantage. Before leaving Mr. Kyrle's office, Walter summarizes the situation:
You have shown me that the legal remedy lies, in every sense of the word, beyond our means. We cannot produce the law-proof; and we are not rich enough to pay the law-expenses.
The reader is led to believe that this will be his pitfall throughout much of the Third Epoch, but it ironically turns out that his lack of concrete evidence and lack of money are the very reasons for his success. Walter's own collection of testimony and reliance on people around him are the methods by which he reinstates Laura's identity and inheritance. As he sits on the train back to London in the fifth part of the Third Epoch, Walter reflects on all that has happened. He realizes that he reached this outcome precisely because his circumstances forced him to circumvent the judicial system:
It was strange to look back and to see, now, that the poverty which had denied us all hope of assistance, had been the indirect means of our success, by forcing me to act for myself. If we had been rich enough to find legal help, what would have been the result? The gain (on Mr. Kyrle’s own showing) would have been more than doubtful; the loss— judging by the plain test of events as they had really happened—certain. The Law would never have obtained me my interview with Mrs. Catherick. The Law would never have made Pesca the means of forcing a confession from the Count.
By way of this situational irony, Collins presents the law as a flawed institution that is inadequate for the pursuit of truth and justice. The law serves those with money and turns its back on society's more vulnerable members. Walter may triumph in the literary trial that takes place across the novel, but he never presents his case to any judge or jury besides the reader.
