What Is The Use Of Setting In Edith Wharton's House Of Mirth

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Recommended: 20th century women and their roles in society

In Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth, protagonist Lily Bart is a beautiful woman who has been brought up to achieve one goal: marry a wealthy, well-placed man. Although Lily, twenty-nine when the novel opens, has had opportunities to do so, her true self has always recoiled from taking the step of marrying for money. The reader is able to witness the internal struggle occurring within Lily Bart throughout the course of this novel. Wharton’s use of
setting serves as a way to criticize a female’s role in society while also emphasizing the excessive dependency they place on a good marriage. The setting of Selden’s apartment building, and the Bellomont highlights the notion that society dictates the future of young women and that women in early twentieth-century society had little chance to play any role other than wife and mother. …show more content…

After deciding to walk for a while, Lily and Selden happen to come across the building known as the Benedick (Selden’s apartment building). He casually invites Miss. Bart up to have tea in his apartment and thus the pair begin to engage in conversation. Lily opens the dialogue stating, "How delicious to have a place like this all to one's self! What a miserable thing it is to be a woman" (7). Immediately Lily conveys her envy that Selden and men in general can live independently without criticism. Lily later adds how she has become a victim of the society she was brought up in and her fate is sealed.

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