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Oxymoron
Explanation and Analysis—Happiness of Misery:
In Chapter 23, the narrator uses an oxymoron to describe the intensity of Anne's emotional state as she reflects on her conversation with Mrs. Smith and her romantic feelings for Captain Wentworth, feeling a wave of emotions as she thinks about the entire situation:
She was deep in the happiness of such misery, or the misery of such happiness, instantly.
Anne feels both unhappy and happy at the same time, two emotions that seem to contradict each other. In juxtaposing happiness and misery, two things that are considered opposite from each other, Austen reveals a deeper truth that unhappiness and happiness can exist at the same time. Or, more specifically, the novel subtly implies that there's a direct link between unhappiness and happiness—it's not just that they can exist simultaneously, but that there's sometimes something strangely pleasurable about romantic misery, as if a feeling of sorrow or unrealized longing is simply part of the otherwise rewarding experience of being in love. Happiness, after all, cannot exist without sorrow, since it wouldn't mean anything in that case. Anne's tumultuous emotions surrounding her feelings for Captain Wentworth are therefore faintly pleasurable, since they're part of the broader experience of being in love—even if they're also rather torturous.
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