When Helen’s aunt Mrs. Maxwell tries to warn her about marrying a man who appears to be a good match but is actually a “reprobate” (or immoral person) or “fool,” Helen responds by teasing her aunt, using verbal irony in the process, as seen in the following passage:
“If you should marry the handsomest, and most accomplished and superficially agreeable man in the world, you little know the misery that would overwhelm you, if, after all, you should find him to be a worthless reprobate, or even an impracticable fool.”
“But what are all the poor fools and reprobates to do, aunt? If everybody followed your advice the world would soon come to an end.”
In asking her aunt “But what are all the poor fools and reprobates to do?” Helen is using sarcasm—she is not overly concerned with men like this, as she makes clear in her later promise to her aunt never to marry a man of the sort.
Following up by stating that “the world would soon come to an end” if immoral or foolish men never found partners, Helen also makes it clear what she thinks of the opposite sex—that, despite the sexist idea that men are superior to women that was prevalent in her time, she does not think so highly of men in general.
When Helen tells Arthur during their courtship that her aunt Mrs. Maxwell does not approve of him because she wants Helen to marry “a really good man,” Arthur understands that she means a man more devoted to his Christian faith. In his response to Helen, Arthur sarcastically commits to becoming more like a man Mrs. Maxwell would approve of, using verbal irony and a simile in the process:
“She wishes me to – to marry none but a really good man.”
“What, a man of ‘decided piety?’ – ahem! – Well, come, I’ll manage that too! It’s Sunday today, isn’t it? I’ll go to church morning, afternoon, and evening, and comport myself in such a godly sort that she shall regard me with admiration and sisterly love […] I’ll come home sighing like a furnace, and full of the savour and unction of dear Mr Blatant’s discourse –”
Arthur’s declaration that he will go to church “morning, afternoon, and evening” is clearly an exaggeration, as is his statement that he will be “full of the savour and unction of dear Mr Blatant’s discourse.” Arthur even gets the preacher’s name wrong on purpose, calling him “Mr. Blatant” rather than “Mr. Leighton,” likely as a nod to how uninteresting he finds church services. The simile Arthur uses—that he will be “sighing like a furnace” after attending church—is also meant to mock the type of people who feel pleasure and satisfaction from church.
In a note at the end of Helen’s diary entries, Gilbert describes how the the rest of the pages are torn away right when she starts to describe her seemingly negative initial opinions of him. In reflecting on why Helen might have judged him so severely, Gilbert uses verbal irony, describing the men in her life as “brilliant specimens":
Here it ended. The rest was torn away. How cruel – just when she was going to mention me! for I could not doubt it was your humble servant she was about to mention, though not very favourably of course – I could tell that, as well by those few words as by the recollection of her whole aspect and demeanour towards me in the commencement of our acquaintance. Well! I could readily forgive her prejudice against me, and her hard thoughts of our sex in general, when I saw to what brilliant specimens her experience had been limited.
Gilbert’s phrasing of “brilliant specimens” is ironic because, as Gilbert intimately knows after reading her diary from the past eight or so years, every man in Helen’s life has been the opposite of brilliant—Arthur, Hattersley, Hargrave, and all of the other men who tried to court Helen were, for the most part, cruel, foolish, and lazy. This is why, as Gilbert writes, he can “forgive her prejudice against me, and her hard thoughts of our sex in general”—because he knows the type of men to which she has been exposed.
Here Gilbert shows he is different than the other men in Helen’s life because he understands and affirms her experiences and opinions rather than undermining them. This is one of the reasons he is a good romantic match for her.
