The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

When Helen summons Gilbert to Wildfell Hall to share the secrets about her past with him, Gilbert thinks that he already knows them, believing her to be in a secret romantic relationship with Frederick (who is actually her brother) and judging her harshly for it. Gilbert uses a simile to capture his angry, vindictive state while talking to Helen, as seen in the following passage:

“Tell me,” resumed [Helen], “on what grounds you believe these things against me; who told you; and what did they say?”

I paused a moment. She met my eye as unflinchingly as if her bosom had been steeled with conscious innocence. She was resolved to know the worst, and determined to dare it too.

“I can crush that bold spirit,” thought I. But while I secretly exulted in my power, I felt disposed to dally with my victim like a cat.

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Before Helen and Arthur are officially engaged, Helen notices Arthur paying special attention to Annabella and hides from the pair to cry. When Arthur finds her, he assures her that he loves her and not Annabella, using a simile and a metaphor to communicate the difference in his feelings for the two women:

“Annabella Wilmot, in comparison with you, is like a flaunting peony compared with a sweet, wild rosebud gemmed with dew – and I love you to distraction!”

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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 –”

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During Helen and Arthur’s first argument—in which she tells him she would never have married him had she known about all of his previous affairs and dalliances—Arthur uses a simile to describe Helen’s angry state, as seen in the following passage:

“Helen,” said he, more gravely, “do you know that if I believed you now, I should be very angry? – but thank Heaven I don’t. Though you stand there with your white face and flashing eyes, looking at me like a very tigress, I know the heart within you, perhaps a trifle better than you know it yourself.” Without another word, I left the room, and locked myself up in my own chamber.

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Early in Arthur and Helen’s marriage, Helen witnesses Arthur sitting with Annabella and kissing her hand and later confronts him about it. In an example of situational irony, Arthur denies that he is interested in Annabella and—going even further—says that he will never be seriously interested in anyone else:

“Will you never learn?” he continued more boldly, "that you have nothing to fear from me? that I love you wholly and entirely? – or if,” he added with a lurking smile, “I ever give a thought to another, you may well spare it, for those fancies are here and gone like a flash of lightning, while my love for you burns on steadily, and for ever like the sun.”

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