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Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Meeting Heathcliff:
The novel's opening sentences, as Lockwood reflects on his first visit to Wuthering Heights and meeting Heathcliff, are packed with foreshadowing:
1801—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist’s Heaven—and Mr Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow!
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Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Lockwood's Blunders:
When Lockwood has dinner at Wuthering Heights for the first time and meets the household, he keeps blundering as he tries to figure out everyone's relationships. He first assumes that Cathy (Linton's widow and Heathcliff's daughter-in-law) must be Heathcliff's wife and then, once corrected, falsely assumes that she's married to Hareton. This is an instance of situational irony because the relationships are not what he, or the reader, expect.
Unlock with LitCharts A+‘Mrs Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,’ said Heathcliff, corroborating my surmise. He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction, a look of hatred unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul.
‘Ah, certainly—I see now; you are the favoured possessor of the beneficent fairy,’ I remarked, turning to [Hareton].
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Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Hareton's Morning Prayers:
The morning after Lockwood sleeps at Wuthering Heights, he hears Hareton Earnshaw stumble into the kitchen, swearing under his breath:
Unlock with LitCharts A+A more elastic footstep entered next, and now I opened my mouth for a ‘good morning,’ but closed it again, the salutation unachieved; for Hareton Earnshaw was performing his orisons, sotto voce, in a series of curses directed against every object he touched[.]
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Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Heathcliff Runs Away:
Catherine is confiding in Nelly that she has accepted Edgar's marriage proposal, yet she's conflicted because she also loves Heathcliff—whom she could never marry:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am.
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Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—A Bird of Bad Omen:
When Isabella believes that she has fallen in love with Heathcliff, Catherine and Nelly try to warn Isabella about Heathcliff's true nature, but she doesn't heed them. Catherine uses nature imagery to convey that Isabella would be completely at Heathcliff's mercy.
Unlock with LitCharts A+"Tell her what Heathcliff is—an unreclaimed creature, without refinement—without cultivation; an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone. I'd as soon put that little canary into the park on a winter's day as recommend you to bestow your heart on him! [...] [H]e'd crush you, like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge."
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Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—Praying like a Methodist:
After Catherine dies, Isabella tells Nelly how Heathcliff has been behaving in his mad grief, ironically likening Heathcliff to a pious Christian:
Unlock with LitCharts A+There he has continued, praying like a methodist; only the deity he implored is senseless dust and ashes; and God, when addressed, was curiously confounded with his own black father! After concluding these precious orisons—and they lasted generally till he grew hoarse, and his voice was strangled in his throat—he would be off again; always straight down to the Grange!
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Explanation and Analysis—Hareton Earnshaw's Fate:
Nelly describes how Heathcliff came to be the owner of Wuthering Heights after Hindley Earnshaw mortgaged it away to pay off the debts he accumulated by gambling with Heathcliff. This is an instance of situational irony, given everything readers would expect about the importance of inheritance in old, respected families like the Earnshaws.
Unlock with LitCharts A+The guest was now the master of Wuthering Heights [...] Earnshaw had mortgaged every yard of land he owned for cash to supply his mania for gaming: and he, Heathcliff, was the mortgagee. In that manner, Hareton, who should now be the first gentleman in the neighbourhood, was reduced to a state of complete dependence on his father’s inveterate enemy; and lives in his own house as a servant deprived of the advantage of wages, and quite unable to right himself, because of his friendlessness, and his ignorance that he has been wronged.
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Chapter 31
Explanation and Analysis—Hareton's Reading:
Cathy makes fun of Hareton for trying to teach himself to read. Readers know that Hareton has been struggling to learn to read—and choosing to recite Cathy's favorite passages—in order to impress her and win her affection, but Cathy ironically attributes his efforts to mockery.
Unlock with LitCharts A+'[...] he has no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to me with his vile mistakes and mis-pronunciations! Those books, both prose and verse, were consecrated to me by other associations, and I hate to have them debased and profaned in his mouth! Besides, of all, he has selected my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out of deliberate malice!’
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