Edith Whartons The House of Mirth Essay - 1734 Words

Edith Whartons The House of Mirth Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth serves as a strict model of etiquette for high society in the Gilded Age. It teaches one the intricate art of keeping up appearances and assimilating into the fickle leisure class. At the same time, the novel’s underlying purpose is to subtly critique this social order. Lily Bart’s perpetual, although often reluctant quest for financial stability and mass approval is a vehicle for demonstrating the numerous absurdities and constant pretensions of a class that revolved around money and opinion. Lily Bart embodies the enormous tension between old and new money that was so prevalent during the 1880’s. Since birth, she was fated to be in the middle of†¦show more content†¦Hudson Bart had appeared young; but Lily could not recall the time when her father had not been bald and slightly stooping, with streaks of grey in his hair, and a tired walk. It was a shock to her to learn afterward that he was but two years older than her mother.† Wharton hints at the toll of the constant anxiety of falling from luxury, â€Å"Lily could not recall the time when there had been money enough, and in some vague way her father seemed always to blame for the deficiency.† She offers a hidden opinion that obsessing about money leaves one no time to enjoy life, â€Å"It seemed to tire him to rest†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Ultimately, Mr. Bart died when he went bankrupt, which symbolizes high society’s materialistic view that a man is only useful and valued if he has a fat wallet. Individuals lived by the idea that happiness could be bought, while unwittingly causing their own demise. Wharton also implies that high society’s symbols of luxury can often be harmful when Lily becomes addicted to tea. Wharton critiques society’s willingness to go to any extent for the sake of appearing prominent, â€Å"Lily was naturally proud of her mother’s aptitude in this line: she had been brought up in the faith that, whatever it cost, one must have a good cook, and be what Mrs. Bart called â€Å"decently dressed.† The characters are living a constant lie, and the fear that anyone outside the immediate family can be privy to one’s true financial position is evident when Mrs. Bart is reluctant toShow MoreRelatedThe Importance Of Timing In Edith Whartons House Of Mirth1435 Words   |  6 Pageshard to get timing right. However is timing really all that matters? In House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, Wharton proposes the question, was Lily Bart and Lawrence Selden’s fate inevitable or could they have prevented it? Other than Timing, different upbringings and miscommunication both were factors that kept Lily and Lawrence apart but also could have bro ught them back together. Through the first chapters of House of Mirth, it is made clear that Lily and Lawrence have chemistry. However, this chemistryRead MoreThe Theory Of Naturalism In Edith Whartons House Of Mirth1470 Words   |  6 PagesEdith Wharton’s House of Mirth chronicles the tale of Lily Bart, a young socialite stuck at the crossroads of rejection her society to pursue her ambitions or relenting to societal expectations placed on her. In literature, naturalism, a philosophy that frequently overlaps with the theory of Social Darwinism, applies â€Å"scientific principles of objective observation to the study of human behavior and characters within the context of their surroundings† (â€Å"American Literary Naturalism† Twentieth-Century)Read More Edith Whartons The House of Mirth as Satirical Commentary on Society 2116 Words   |  9 Pages      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Edith Whartons The House of Mirth creates a subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted picture of the social operation of turn-of-the-century New York. 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Edith WhartonRead MoreThe Birth Of The Realism And Modernism Era1322 Words   |  6 PagesEdith Wharton Literary History The birth of the Realism and Modernism era appeared during the late eighteenth century to early nineteenth century. Both Realism and Modernism are evident in many of Edith Wharton’s literary works. Realism came from chaotic times where it â€Å"encompasses the period of time from the Civil War†(Realism from American). The United States grew enormously after the civil war with â€Å"the rapid growth in industrialism and urbanization, an expanding population base due to immigrationRead MoreEdith Wharton: Exposing Aristocratic Society Essay1136 Words   |  5 PagesVisualize being at a lovely dinner in New York City during the early 20th century and scrutinizing some of the most affluent people the city has to offer. Edith Wharton was able to witness all of the arrogance in New York during this time and put those observations into her novel, The House of Mirth. Edith Wharton was born on January 24th, 1862 into a prosperous New York family. She lived in an expensive area of New York and was primarily educated by governesses and personal tutors (Olin 72). HerRead MoreEssay about Naturalism in The House of Mirth1484 Words   |  6 PagesNaturalism in The House of Mirth  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   Challenging the strict deterministic confines of literary naturalism, which hold that the human being is merely one phenomenon in a universe of material phenomena (Gerard 418), Edith Wharton creates in The House of Mirth a novel which irrefutably presents the human creature as being subject to a naturalistic fate but which conveys a looming sense of hope that one may triumph over environment and circumstance if one possesses a certain strengthRead MoreThe House of Mirth and the Gilded Age971 Words   |  4 PagesNovelist Edith Wharton wrote her defining work, 1905s the House of Mirth, on a subject she knew all too well: the style-over-substance realm of New Yorks upper-crust society during the Gilded Age. Having been raised in this fashionable society, Wharton knew both its intricacies and cruelties firsthand. The triumphant rise and tragic fall of protagonist Lily Bart demonstrate both the sunshine and shadow of the Gilded Age. The House of Mirth not only exposes the reality of how the otherRead MoreCriticism by Imprisonment1110 Words   |  5 Pages Francis Scott Fitzgerald and Edith Wharton authored novels that take place in America around the beginning of the nineteenth century. In both This Side of Paradise and The House of Mirth, the authors paint the protagonists as imprisoned. This is a criticism of the society that they live in and is represented in the authors’ use of imagery, characterization, and the motif of social standing. Wharton uses a great deal of imagery to reflect Lily Bart as imprisoned, while Fitzgerald uses less imageryRead More Lilys Choice in The House of Mirth Essays2324 Words   |  10 PagesLilys Choice in The House of Mirth      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Near the beginning of The House of Mirth, Wharton establishes that Lily would not indeed have cared to marry a man who was merely rich: she was secretly ashamed of her mothers crude passion for money (38). Lily, like the affluent world she loves, has a strange relationship with money. She needs money to buy the type of life she has been raised to live, and her relative poverty makes her situation precarious. Unfortunately, Lily has not been