Wuthering Heights - Prose Analysis #2

" ' Don't you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? almost as proud as I am of mine. But there's this difference; one is gold put to the use of paving-stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver. Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His has firstrate qualities, and they are lost: rendered worse than any but I are aware of. And the best of it is, Hareton is damnable fond of me! You'll find I've outmatched Hindley there. If the dead villain could rise up from his grave to abuse me for his offspring's wrongs, I should have the fun of seeing the said offspring fight him back again, indignant that he should dare to rail at the one friend he has in the world! '
Heathcliff chuckled a fiendish laugh at the idea."

* note: "... see him? almost ..." is directly quoted; text included no capitalization :)

-Analysis-

A metaphor is a comparison between two unlike things without using the words "like" or "as."
(as I'm sure we all know)
An example, or rather two examples, of metaphor are used by the author in this passage. The first is referring to Hindley's son: "one is gold put to the use of paving-stones." This means that even though Hindley's son, Hareton, is naturally a son with "firstrate" qualities, these qualities are rendered useless by his status, which is controlled by Heathcliff. The second comparison is referring to Heathcliff's son, Linton: "and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver." This means that Linton has no natural qualities and talents, but he can be put to use, resulting in said quality having a decent outcome. These metaphors are very cleverly used to emphasize Heathcliff's success in following through with his vengeance on Hindley Earnshaw. For example, Heathcliff states,
"Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had firstrate qualities, and they are lost: rendered worse than unavailing." Excellent comparison isn't it?
Overall, I'm very fond of this passage and I'm very impressed with the subjects Emily Bronte related in her choice of stylistic prose techniques.