Wives and Daughters Literary Devices

Explanation and Analysis—Babes in the Wood:

As Molly meets her future stepmother at Cumnor Towers, the narrator lingers on their first moments of intimacy. Mrs. Kirkpatrick (Clare) draws Molly close, walking with her arm around Molly’s waist and hand in hand through the gardens. The narration compares them to The Babes in the Wood, an anonymous ballad popularized in Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). The tale is about children abandoned in a forest, left to die, and ultimately covered with leaves by robins—a story rooted in betrayal, vulnerability, and innocence exposed to danger:

Of course, after the first greeting, my lady had to have a private interview with her doctor; and Molly and her future stepmother wandered about in the gardens with their arms round each other’s waists, or hand in hand, like two babes in the wood;

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Wives and Daughters: Situational Irony 1 key example