The House Of Mirth And Miss Van Osburgh

The House of Mirth is a novel written by Edith Wharton, who earned her fame essentially through her two books, Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence. She was born to a distinguished New York family and married wealthy banker Edward Wharton in 1885. After her marriage, she started to write stories among turn-of-the-century New York society, and by 1905, she finished writing The House of Mirth.

This book begins around 1890s where everything women do were still restricted in many ways. Because Wharton observed societies like these throughout her life, she well identifies hypocrisy of the society she’s observing.

“The couple in question were engaged in the same kind of romance… Miss Van Osburgh was a large girl with flat surfaces and no high lights: Jack

Stepney had once said of her that she was as reliable as roast mutton. His own taste was in the line of less solid and more highly-seasoned diet; but hunger makes any fare palatable, and there had been times when Mr. Stepney had been reduced to a crust” (pg. 51)
Here, Wharton states her observation of money-driven marriages and society.

This quote is important because it directly shows Wharton’s observation and likewise, it is the overall theme of the novel, a hypocritical society. Wharton maintains a sense of perspective while portraying the readers she knows very well. Her writing style is simple and controlled. Her choice of vocabulary and sentence structure is illusory. Here, we can tell she refrains from using unnecessary modifiers and her descriptions seem to be almost elliptical. For instance, she writes “His own taste was in the line of less solid and more highly-seasoned diet; but hunger makes any fare palatable…” in page 51. She chooses adjectives and adverbs carefully and uses them intermittently. Though many years has passed since Wharton’s years, her quote still tells me a lot about life filled with hypocrisy. The phrase “…reliable as roast mutton…” directly shows what I believe as Wharton’s observation of absurdity; this phrase shows the absurdity of money-driven marriages. The phrase alone may make readers believe it is just a happening, but each characters’ behaviors confirm that it is what their lives are, lives filled with ostentation and

insincerity.
Although The House of Mirth tells us about unfortunate life of class hierarchy, it does, on the other hand, tells us about growth of a character. This is important because it tells the readers that her observation is not a complete bias but rather it is a necessity process in order to portray continuous growth of a character.
“It was pitiable that he, who knew the mixed motives on which social judgments depend, should still feel himself so swayed by them. How could he lift Lily to a freer vision of life, if his own view of her was to be colorued by any mind in which he saw her reflected?” (pg. 173).
This is a good question considering that Selden’s view of Lily continues to be blinded by others all throughout the novel until she is dead. Selden couldn’t really love her until this moment when she exists only for him and not for any others of the society. The question shows growth of Selden; Selden’s tone is regretful and wretched. It shows Selden’s realization of what has become truly precious and another realization that people don’t recognize this until it happens.
This kind of growth of characters are listed several times in between lines of criticizing the society. And it is exciting to see characters continuously grow as novel progresses. Wharton’s The House of Mirth is a novel that not only gives readers mere criticism of hierarchical society, but it also gives readers drama of each characters as story progresses.