The whole section of the book in which the quote was derived from screams “ambiguous”. On the surface level, the quote is memorable because there is an abrupt and incohesive series of events, which prompts the literary device of situational irony. Miles’ death was never expected or anticipated to have happened. The quote summarizes a recurring paranoiac issue that the governess faces throughout the entire novel and provides an unprecedented, yet fitting, effect due to those very issues. The quote enhances the meaning by shadowing all the characters (Miles) under the governess’ light, wrapping the whole plot and narration around her thoughts and corrupted mentality. Find quotations that illustrate the writer’s skill in establishing mood/tone, imagery, symbolism, and characterization. “[T]hese three words from her were in a flash like the glitter of a drawn blade the jostle of the cup that my hand for weeks and weeks had held high and full to the brim and that now, even before speaking, I felt overflow in deluge” (James 196). This scene of the novel was when the governess had come to the painful realization that Flora had successfully distracted her away from Miles. The quotation utilizes an extended simile and vivid imagery to appeal to the reader’s senses and emotions. By comparing the shocking effect of Flora’s words on the governess to a blade that causes a cup to overflow, a medieval and noble cause is associated with the situation. As a result, the overall mood and tone are dramatic and forlorn, allowing the readers to feel the emotion of overwhelming defeat and helplessness. “The limit of this evil time had arrived only when, on the dawn of a winter’s morning, Peter Quint was found, by a laborer going to early work, stone dead on the road from the village: a catastrophe explained–superficially at least–by a visible wound to his head…by a fatal slip, in the dark and after leaving the public house…arid in liquor….” (James 27) Many of the senses are engaged within the quote: the desolate and dull brightness of dawn, the chilliness of winter air, the jarring scene to witness in the pale light, and the painful sharp inhale of cold air. James demonstrates his skills in including imagery and mood by creating an atmosphere that has a personality of its own, where he vividly describes the scene so that readers feel like they are witnesses themselves. He is also to characterize Peter Quint without needing to blatantly state it: with his choice of diction and events, he has established Peter Quint as a careless drunkard who had a fateful death on a symbolic winter day. Commentary>