Marrying for Love
Marrying entirely for the purpose of love is pretty much a 20th century concept. Before then, marriage was at least half as much about arranging economic and financial priorities as it was about the idea of being love. This rebellious idea of staking a future based on love entirely is framed metaphorically:
“My heart and my hand shall never be separated.”
What Is Death?
This is a rhetorical question posed by a character. That character thereupon proceeds to provide a quintet of rhetorical responses, one of which is the height of metaphorical imagery:
“The refreshing inn after a fatiguing journey.”
Old-Fashioned Sexism
Nothing quite beats old-fashioned sexism for determining the future course of all women. All women follow through the same pitfalls of romantic entanglement and men need not be required to think (thankfully) in order to entice and entrap the object of desire:
“If she be a woman, and love me, I shall surely catch her once tripping: For Love was ever a traitor to its harbourer”
Similes Always Do the Job
When it comes to delineation of character, nothing quite works within the confines of limited space (not that the author appears at all to be concerned with conservation of words) like a simile. Similes always get the job done and, at their best, also lend the prose a little bit of poetic aesthetics:
“Come kiss me, my dear, said she, with a smile like a sun−beam breaking thro' the cloud that overshadowed her naturally benign aspect.”
A Love Story, Remember
Keep in mind the novel is supposed to be, at some level, a love story. At least, this be so to a certain extent. Truthfully, however, it is very hard to determine from the content because the language of love is so far removed from conventional expectations as to almost veer into satire:
“seizing her trembling hands, I drew her after me so swiftly, that my feet, winged by love, could hardly keep pace with her feet, agitated by fear. And so I became her emperor!”
