Naturalism in The House of Mirth 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 strength of will or a
Lily Bart lived in the upper part of New York society. She loves nice things and extravagance. However, throughout the House of Mirth Lily plays a game. She wants to be virtuous, stay in the social circle, and have the money to keep up with the demands of her so called friends. She involves herself so much into the social life she loses all chance of gaining her riches virtuously or through true love. She misses her chances inevitably: from Percy to her dear aunt to her indecisiveness of men and
Edith Wharton's 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
Subjectivity in Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth presents an interesting study of the social construction of subjectivity. The Victorian society which Wharton's characters inhabit is defined by a rigid structure of morals and manners in which one's identity is determined by apparent conformity with or transgression of social norms. What is conspicuous about this brand of social identification is its decidedly linguistic nature. In this context, behaviors
Edith Wharton’s novel of manners The House of Mirth is a satirical representation of upper society. The personification of this satire is the character Lily Bart. The leader is led to believe that Lily is trapped by her upbringing in higher society, which is seen in Wharton’s use of characterization, imagery, and motifs throughout the novel. Wharton’s characterization of Lily Bart focuses on her beauty as the reason for her acceptance into high society. During the tableaux vivants at the Welly
Lily's Choice in The House of Mirth 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 trained
House of Mirth - The Nature of Nature Nature, whether in the form of the arctic tundra of the North Pole or the busy street-life of Manhattan, was viewed by Naturalist writers as a phenomena which necessarily challenged individual survival; a phenomena, moreover, which operated on Darwin's maxim of the "survival of the fittest." This contrasted sharply with the Romantic view, which worshipped Nature for its beauty, beneficence and self-liberating powers. In Edith Wharton's The House of
Objectification of Women in The House of Mirth Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth is an affront to the false social values of fashionable New York society. The heroine is Lily Bart, a woman who is destroyed by the very society that produces her. Lily is well-born but poor. The story traces the decline of Lily as she moves through a series of living residences, from houses to hotel lodgings. Lily lives in a New York society where appearances are all. Women have a decorative function in such
Lily Bart’s Tragic Oscillation in The House of Mirth In his article “Disowning ‘Personality’: Privacy and Subjectivity in The House of Mirth,” William Moddelmog explains that the interaction between Selden and Lily in Selden’s apartment the second time captures “the novel’s drama of subjectivity” (337) This drama exists at the core of Edith Wharton’s novel of upper-class manners and social morality, where a conflicted protagonist presents an amicable appearance in spite of her complex internal
Edith Wharton’s “The House of Mirth” mainly describes the need of a woman to be married to a wealthy man and how she attempts to find the most appropriate suitor. “The House of Mirth” also observes the tedious physical and mental decline of a young woman who, because of her own weakness and indecisiveness, falls from social distinction into poverty and griminess. The story presents a cruel measure of reality and ends quite sadly. Instead of marrying and living happily, Lily weakens slowly and commits
and live in the elite society that leads to her inevitable demise, in Edith's novel The House of Mirth (CITATION). Although many of the characters in the novel were in an elite and prominent society, they were possibly the most morally corrupt people since women married men for their wealth, and men expected women to constantly act proper and sophisticated. Edith Wharton’s modern novel The House of Mirth demonstrates why people in the
Lily as the Goddess Diana in The House of Mirth One of the tragedies in The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton is that Lily Bart is unable to marry Laurence Selden and thereby secure a safe position in society. Their relationship fluctuates from casual intimacy to outright love depending on how and where Selden perceives Lily. Selden sees a beautious quality in Lily Bart that is not present in any of the other women in the novel. This mysterious beauty that is so often alluded to, in addition to
the adventure struck him as diverting. As a spectator, he had always enjoyed Lily Bart; and his course lay so far out of her orbit that it amused him to be drawn for a moment into the sudden intimacy which her proposal implied.” Source: The House of Mirth, By Edith Wharton It should be noted that the role of Selden is highly important because it is a stock role in the novel of manners, and therefore helps in clearing and highlighting the unspoken conversation between people. In the novel the construction
bliss, / 'Tis folly to be wise." - Thomas Gray The title of Edith Wharton's novel The House of Mirth waxes poetic irony in the case of the old money society of turn-of-the-century New York. The individual as part of the collective of society which seeks to oppress individuality is representative of the "house" in the novel's title. To remain ignorant and play by the "rules," therein lies the "mirth." Clearly, the victimization of the story's heroine, Lily Bart, by the elite social "set" she associates
and mindsets of those who surround us. The characteristics of this environment affect the way we think and behave ultimately shaping us into a product of the environment we are raised in. Lily Bart, the protagonist in Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, is an exceedingly beautiful bachelorette who grows up accustomed to living a life of luxury amongst New York City’s upper-class in the 20th century. When her family goes bankrupt, Lily is left searching for security and stability, both of which, she
Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth creates a subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted picture of the social operation of turn-of-the-century New York. In her harsh expression of community, she succeeds in portraying a world of calculation operating under the pretenses of politeness. The characters become competitors in the highly complex game of social positioning with an amorphous body of socially formed laws. Through her presentation of Lily Barton's ongoing struggles to "recover her footing-each time
Climbing up the Social Scale The time and way people are brought up in society makes a huge difference on how they will climb up the social scale in life. In the classic novel House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton and Call it Sleep, by Henry Roth the main characters experience totally different upbringings into society. While Lily Bart is brought up into a high class society, David is born into an immigrant family in a part of the city, which has similar people as his own country. The two characters
the cups; then she sank back into her seat. “I’d forgotten there was no room to dash about in— how beautifully one does have to behave in a small flat! Oh, Gerty, I wasn’t meant to be good,” she sighed out incoherently.”(Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, p. 259-260, Book 2 Chapter 8) This passage demonstrates how deeply rooted wealth and marriage are to Lily’s character. Lily cannot survive without money and she can never find a perfect marriage. At the time of this passage Lily is sinking into poverty
he must be a canon (an alchemist). The Canon's Yeoman said that they wished to join the company on their journey, for they had heard of their tales. The Host asked if the Canon could tell a tale, and the Yeoman answers that the Canon knows tales of mirth and jollity, and is a man whom anybody would be honored to know. The Host guesses that his master was a clerk, but the Yeoman says that he is something greater. The Host, however, wonders why the Canon dresses so shabbily if he is so important. The
Edith Wharton’s novel, The House of Mirth, is the story of a girl named Lily Bart trying to find a place for herself in society. Wharton used allusion throughout the book to aid the reader in understanding the events of the narrative. The following essay will highlight three allusions Wharton used, and explain how they helped the reader to understand the corresponding events from the book. About halfway through the story, Lily’s friend Mrs. Bry decides to host a fashion show, of sorts, to establish