Washington Square Betrayal Quotes

604 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effects of betrayal

Betrayal is one of the most dominant themes in Washington Square. The betrayals range from high expectations which have been disappointed as well as promises which have been deliberately broken.
In the first few chapters Catherine is extremely obedient of her father; Dr Sloper. She admires him greatly and places him on a high pedestal. He is the greatest authoritive figure to her. However, as the novel precedes, things change and Catherine loses her pure characteristics such as being honest. Her respect towards Dr Sloper deteriorates. His hostility towards Catherine pushes her towards blatantly betraying him by agreeing to marry Morris Townsend against his will. Due to this, she loses his blessing and Catherine is threatened of losing her inheritance. …show more content…

He believes that Catherine lacks his character and almost disapproves of her because of this. When Catherine tells him about marrying Morris Townsend, he immediately disagrees. Although Dr Sloper is right about suspecting Townsend, he has no solid reason or evidence to prove that he is only after Catherine’s money. He therefore forbids Catherine from seeing Morris and deprives her of her happiness.
When Dr Sloper decides to meet up with Morris Townsend’s sister; Mrs Montgomery, she blatantly betrays her bother by telling Dr Sloper that Morris has brought her a lot of suffering as she constantly has to give him money. ‘’Don’t let her marry him!’’ IS Mrs Montgomery’s command to Dr Sloper as she knows that Morris will only cause Catherine pain and suffering as he did to her. Thus Dr Sloper takes great pleasure as his suspicions and allegations are right and have now been backed up. He doesn’t even care about Catherine’s heart being left

Show More
Related

  • Argumentative Essay: The Adventure Of The Speckled Band

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dr. Roylott has been the source of bad happenings and transformed into and an egotistical man. As Helen Stoner departed from Holmes’s house, Dr. Roylott had angrily stormed into the house and threatened Holmes to stay away from his family. The attitude that came from him had been mistrusting to a number of people that used to be

    Read More

  • Kite Runner Betrayal Quotes

    510 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book “THe Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, betrayal is is one of the big themes that occurs in this book. Amir shows the most betrayal of all, like him witnessing Hassan's rape and not helping him at all. That was his cowardly thing that he did and experiences guilt from it. Many years pass since that event he starts to feel what other people felt when he would betray them, like when he was betrayed by his father and Rahim Khan, because he found out that Hassan was his brother and he felt betrayal of trust just as he made the people he betrayed feel.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby Minor Character Analysis

    1492 Words  | 3 Pages

    Catherine, like the McKees, makes an appearance at Tom’s apartment, and Nick first notes her “sticky bob of red hair, and a complexion powdered milky white”, which shows her attempt to maintain an appearance of class (30). Yet, she does not apply the makeup successfully, and the evident cosmetics and sign of effort speak against her sense of class and taste. However, Catherine makes an appearance at the end of the novel after the death of her sister, Myrtle. Catherine holds both her sister’s and her own image in great importance, and so when others convince her “that [her sister’s] ambulance had already gone to Flushing ... she immediately fainted, as if that was the intolerable part of the affair” (156). Flushing exists as part of the Valley of Ashes, while Catherine lives in a hotel, presumably on the outskirts of the city. The fact that her sister goes to the dirty, poor city instead of to a cleaner area disturbs her rather than the news about her sister, which suggests the importance of appearances over the safety or health of her own family. Therefore, perhaps Fitzgerald makes a commentary through Catherine that the pursuit of class and self importance motivates a

    Read More

  • Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country

    438 Words  | 1 Pages

    In this passage she goes over the recent unfavorable events of divorcing her sickly husband and then, compromising her respectability, goes about with Peter Van Degen. She describes this play with only regret that she had been foiled in her plans. The language of this reflection is all business, a disturbing theme of the novel. She does not feel even compassion for the hard-working husband who forfeited his health to give her what he could, and thinks of her relationship with Van Degen as a game of cat and mouse.

    Read More

  • Wuthering Heights Civility vs. Passion

    621 Words  | 2 Pages

    Catherine first becomes exposed to the opposing forces as she experiments with her desires for love and a better quality of life. *6* Because she constantly shifts priorities from one man to the other, her love for Heathcliff and Edgar results in a destructive disequilibrium. *1*In the novel, Cathy is portrayed as a lady with untamable emotions. *7* In her childhood she learns to l...

    Read More

  • Evil Villains in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jane Austen completes her story with a “Cinderella ending” of Catherine and Henry marrying. However, her novel is more than a fairytale ending. Although often wrong and misguided in their judgments, she shows the supremacy of males that permeated throughout her society. Jane Austen takes us from a portrayal of men as rude, self-centered, and opinionate to uncaring, demanding, and lying to downright ruthless, hurtful, and evil. John Thorpe’s and General Tilney’s total disregard for others feelings and their villainous ways prove Austen’s point. Whether reading Northanger Abbey for the happy ending or the moral lesson, this novel has much to offer.

    Read More

  • Motiffs in The Novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

    858 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion Emily Bronte employs the literary devices of repetition and anthesis to make closure for the wild love of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff with the union of Hareton and Cathy’s love.With the characters being so similar the reader can't help to tie these sets of doubles together making Catherine’s and Heathcliff's forbidden love acceptable with the peaceful relationship of Cathy’s and Haretons relationship.

    Read More

  • Wuthering Heights

    1913 Words  | 4 Pages

    Catherine was born into a rich solid family, where her father, Mr. Earnshaw, was a strict man, and her mother, Mrs. Earnshaw, was a pretentious woman. Through her conceited youth Catherine’s immaturity is clearly explained. Born with a very strong attitude; she is the type that throws a fit when doesn’t get what she wants. An example is, “when she learnt the master had lost her whip in attending the stranger, showed her humor by grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing” (33). Catherine was never love by her father, whom felt the need to tell her, “Nay Cathy, I cannot love thee; thou’rt worse than thy brother. Go, s...

    Read More

  • Alienation in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    She is introduced as a fragile woman, who the readers begin to feel sympathy for her. She had been asked to leave her job, and she lost the family estate. The readers also learn that Blanche is conflicted with her past; she tries to hide who she was.... ... middle of paper ...

    Read More

  • Bette Howland's Criticism of Henry James's Washington Square

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bette Howland also examines the similarities present between Washington Square and The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl. In the four novels, Henry James uses his favorite configuration of a triangle.

    Read More

  • Henry James' ‘Washington Square

    1413 Words  | 3 Pages

    Catherine's dilemma begins in an overtly conventional yet dismal setting. This is the ordered and understated fashionable New York setting where she is victim to her father's calculated disregard and domineering behaviour and of the perceptions others have of her given their economic and social positions. She is, in Sloper's words, "absolutely unattractive." She is twenty, yet has never before, as Sloper points out, received suitors in the house. Mrs. Almond's protestations that Catherine is not unappealing are little more than a matter of form and she is admonished by Sloper for suggesting he give Catherine "more justice." Mrs. Penniman, for her part, readily perceives that without Catherine's full inheritance, Morris Townsend would have "nothing to enjoy" and proceeds to establish her role in appeasing her brother and giving incoherent counsel to the courtship between Catherine and Townsend. For Townsend himself, Catherine's "inferior characteristics" are a matter of course and a means to a financial end.

    Read More

  • Catherine's Inner Self in Henry James's Washington Square

    499 Words  | 1 Pages

    Some of Gargano's other premises were not as insightful for me. For example, I had trouble with what Gargano called Catherine's "transcendentalizing imagination" that causes her to create "beautiful figments" of Townsend that possess her and become the "paramount value of her life, and other attachments, no matter how strong, must somehow accommodate themselves to it." (132). This contention tends to belittle Catherine's intelligence as well as her grasp of reality.

    Read More

  • The Power of Love in Wuthering Heights

    1397 Words  | 3 Pages

    When Catherine is compelled to stay at Thrushcross Grange to recover from her injury, she returns as “a very dignified person” (Brontë 37). Her association with the gente... ... middle of paper ... ... d to Cathy. He desires to be accepted by her.

    Read More

  • The Character of Lady Catherine de Bourgh In Pride and Prejudice

    1188 Words  | 3 Pages

    The character of Lady Catherine de Bourgh is an integral element of the plot, contributing to, as well as influencing, the final outcome of Darcy's marriage and the various factors associated with it. Lady Catherine, a prominent and influential noblewomen in the English aristocracy, thrusts her domineering predilections onto her family, friends, and acquaintances, starting with the pompous clergyman she patronizes, Mr. Collins. Lady Catherine exerts her influence upon Mr. Collins by frankly telling him that he "must marry ...a gentle woman for [her] sake" (92). This effectively causes Collins to peruse Elizabeth, the daughter of the man whose estate he will inherit. After being rejected by Elizabeth, Collins marries Elizabeth's childhood friend Charlotte. On a trip to visit the newly married couple, Elizabeth finds herself and Lady Catherine's nephew, Fitzwilliam Darcy, at a dinner party hosted by Lady Catherine herself. At the dinner party, Lad...

    Read More

  • Revenge in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights

    743 Words  | 2 Pages

    Catherine’s revenge does not make things better for her.  Her  revenge on Heathcliff by blaming him for her upcoming death does not meliorate her mind.  Just before she dies, she ascribes Heathcliff for her “murder.”   “You have killed me, and thriven on it, I think” (Bronte 158).  Catherine resembles what Oliver Goldsmith said,  “When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy?

    Read More

More about Washington Square Betrayal Quotes

Open Document