Genre
A sentimental novel
Setting and Context
The exact time is not mentioned. The protagonist, who lives in an English village, has some financial problems and to solve them he is advised to find a patron. The plan is to sell his vote for a lease of land. To do that, he leaves for London. He visits Hyde Park and Bedlam at leisure there. Unfortunately, he doesn’t succeed in getting a lease. At some point the narration jumps to a different story about a man, whose name is Mountford and then returns to Mr. Harley again.
Narrator and Point of View
The third-person omniscient. Only the chapter about Mountford is written from the first point of view.
Tone and Mood
Tone is emotional, sometimes sad, sometimes humorous, while mood is moving.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Mr. Harley is the protagonist of the story, while the baronet is the antagonist.
Major Conflict
The main conflict is man vs. society. The man of feeling tries to find his place in the world, where many people have narrow hearts. One more conflict is man vs. self, for Mr. Harley’s high principles prevent him from achieving success and happiness.
Climax
News about Miss Walton’s engagement is the climax of the novel.
Foreshadowing
It is mentioned that Mr. Harley is interested in Miss Walton and this gives a reader a chance to foresee the future events. When there is a young man and a beautiful young woman, who can’t be together, there is a high probability of developing love.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
The characters mention such writers as Virgil and Horace and an Italian painter Salvator. They visit Hyde Park and Bedlam.
Imagery
Imagery is mostly used to describe feelings of the characters.
Paradox
You waste at school years in improving talents, without having ever spent an hour in discovering them.
One can’t improve something, if he/she doesn’t know what he/she is good at.
Parallelism
Did they know, did they think of this, Mr. Harley!
Metonymy and Synecdoche
He retired into the country and made a love-match with a young lady of similar temper to his own, with whom the sagacious world pitied him for finding happiness.
The world is metonymy, which stands for the society.
There was not an unmoistened eye around her.
An eye is synecdoche, where the part represents the whole.
Personification
He quarreled with every dish.
It is impossible to quarrel with a dish, for it is an inanimate object.
