Roderick’s Anti-Semitism
Roderick is pretty open with his anti-Semitism. (He is a son of the Confederacy, after all.) And, just like many real anti-Semites, he’s also oblivious to his lack of self-awareness on the issue. The result, as always, makes for a comically ironic ability to justify and rationalize one’s own individual actions:
“I don’t like the Jews; I don’t like pendulous noses. David, the boy David, is rather an exception; you can think of him and treat him as a young Greek. Standing forth there on the plain of battle between the contending armies, rushing forward to let fly his stone, he looks like a beautiful runner at the Olympic games.”
Bizarre Love Rectangle
Mary loves Roderick. Roderick desires Christina. Rowland loves Mary. Rowland tries to stop Roderick from sleeping with Christina so that Mary’s heart won’t be broken, but since Rowland is himself in love Mary, being successful in this quest will serve only to break his own heart by keeping alive the possibility that one day Roderick will marry Mary. That’s irony for you.
Hudson Heights
Roderick Hudson ultimately meets his death by falling from a mountain cliff. Ironically, he very nearly died by falling from a great height earlier in the story. Only by virtue of Rowland seeing the danger which Roderick’s would-be grand romantic gesture at the Coliseum in Rome presented was his ultimately tragic fate postponed rather than completely averted.
Mallet Falls
In a scene dripping with irony, Rowland Mallet will attempt to replicate the very scene in which Roderick almost died from a fall. He scales the grassy slope on a tricky peak to retrieve a single flower as an impulsively grand romantic gesture that he hopes will produce the same response in Mary Garland that Roderick’s mere unrealized promise produced in Christina Light that day at the Coliseum. It does not.
Sam Singleton
This is the story of artistic genius wasted as a result of a poor work ethic. (The story penetrates more deeply and is spread more broadly than that assertion suggestions, of course, but distilled down to the most basic of essentials, it remains an accurate description.) Ironically, it is the character in the story who lacks artistic genius but possesses a stronger work ethic who survives and seems more likely to thrive.
