A Study on the Irony System of Walton’s The House of Mirth from the Perspective of Irony Theory

Abstract

The House of Mirth is the masterpiece of American female novelist Edith Wharton, and this work can’t be famous for so long without the author’s subtle use of ironic writing style. The novel “The House of Mirth” utilizes irony on a large scale, and this study attempts to reproduce the ironic framework it contains from part to the whole, from the paragraph to the storyline, from the character image to the thematic idea. Next, based on this structural system, the types of irony are distinguished and their roles are analyzed, so as to achieve the interpretation of the work from different perspectives and a deeper understanding of the text.