Lily Wealth Quotes

1793 Words4 Pages

Bailey Allen
Ms. Cavaney
AP English
19 August 2014
House of Mirth Quotations
1. House of Mirth, written by Edith Wharton, is a novel critiquing the wealthy social hierarchy, which the main character Lily lives in. Wharton seems to make fun of Lily’s desperation to marry herself off. Throughout the novel, Lily encounters men that she believes may be marriage material. Each man is from the rich aristocracy who has enough money to support her high standard lifestyle. Lily uses her attractiveness and flirty personality to draw men in to investigate their financial situation and become acquainted. In the beginning of the novel, Lily encountered Lawrence Selden at the train station. She ventures back to his apartment to make small talk over tea. …show more content…

In Book II, it takes place in the Mediterranean on the Dorset’s yacht. They invited Lily to come along on the journey and she uses this opportunity to flirt and look her best for all the men on the boat. Selden feels nervous to see Lily after all of the rumors floating around about Lily and Gus Trenor. Mrs. Fisher was telling Selden how Lily had many prior relationships that could have even led to marriage but she decided to flirt with another family member causing the marriage proposals to fizzle out. “That’s Lily all over, you know: she works like a slave preparing the ground and sowing her seed; but the day she ought to be reaping the harvest she over-sleeps herself or goes off on a picnic” (p.183). This quote said by Mrs. Fisher is a metaphor for Lily’s love life. It means that Lily will put all the effort into finding a husband but right when its time for marriage she breaks it off. This shows Lily has commitment issues because she always believes there will be a better guy who makes more money. This is one of the main reasons why I do not sympathize with Lily because she would rather marry someone with a larger financial status and she will hop from guy to guy trying to find one with the largest income. This again presents the theme throughout the book of marrying for money over …show more content…

Lily has no job, no friends, and cannot live the luxury life that she had always dreamed about. She joins the working force, which in her mind was the lowest thing in society. Lily was embarrassed and seems to become depressed with her life. Lily ventures to the doctor to get on sleeping medicine to try and relive her sleeping problems. The day Lily got fired from work; her world fell apart leading to the cycle effect of her death. That night she received money from her aunt’s inheritance. She used that to pay off all of her debts but it left her with no money to support herself. When she got into bed, she took her sleeping medicine but Lily overdosed. “She lay very still, waiting with a sensuous pleasure for the first effects of the soporific” (p.299). She died that night in her sleep and was found the next morning by Gerty and Selden. Seeing her perished body, Selden realized that his proposal for his true love was too late and he should have acted earlier. I think that by Lilly overdosing on the medication that it was her way of escaping the life she was in. This was the one way she could get out and finally enjoy the life that she had always

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