Throughout The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton uses many themes and motifs; gambling being a dominant one. Lily Bart is constantly testing her luck with her need to feel as if she has the upper hand in many situations. Lily always seems to throw out winning cards because she thinks that a better hand will come to her in the next round. Many readers might think that Lily is merely a careless, self-centered, and money-hungry tease. She very well may be all of those things; however, I believe it is all due to her addiction to gambling. Gambling gives Lily the rush that she craves in her boring upper class life, which has taught her to be cool, calm, and collected—the perfect poker face to disguise her addiction. Lily Bart’s incessant addiction to gambling with money, men and her own life, in due course leads to her demise.
In the beginning, Lily is initially hesitant to play Bridge with the group of socialites to which she belongs. She recalls Ned Silverton fighting a gambling addiction when he was younger, “Lily had seen his charming eyes change from surprise to amusement, and from amusement to anxiety; as he passed under the spell of the terrible god of chance” (26). Lily knows that gambling amongst the wealthy is not something she can afford to do, and she does not want to end up like Ned Silverton’s sisters having no sugar for her tea. After all, how could she go without the finer things that she has grown accustomed? Wharton writes, “but she knew that the gambling passion was upon her, and in her present surroundings there was small hope of resisting it” (27). Lily is completely aware of the repercussions of the addiction. However, her addictive behaviors allow her to give in to temptation and she begins to gamble her money, y...
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...he was trembling with fear and anger—the rush of the furies wings was in her ears. She walked up and down the room with blind irregular steps. The last door of escape was closed…” (p. 173). This is the beginning of the end for Lily. Her mind is constantly racing; she becomes an insomniac and begins taking sleeping medication; which is an obvious sign of addictive behavior because addicts will do whatever they can to satisfy their addiction. “She had long since raised the dose to its highest limit, but tonight she felt she must increase it. She knew she took a slight risk in doing so—she remembered the chemist’s warning” (p. 322). The chloral satisfies her addiction because it was definitely a high stakes bet; a bet that she is willing to lose. Her last bet is a bet that ultimately kills her.
Works Cited
Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. Penguin Classics, 1993
“For the first time in his life he sees her in a new light: he sees her as no longer the listless creature who had lived at his side in a state of self-absorption, but a mysterious alien presence an evil energy secreted from the long years of silent brooding…” (Wharton 117) Edith Wharton is best known for her books Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth. Wharton was often compared to another writer in her time, Henry James. Even though this occurred, she considered her books one of a kind. She was pleased with her work, but the critics were not. Often, she received poor reviews, but this did not stop her; in fact, she then went on to be the first woman to win The Legion of Honor Medal. Wharton also won the Pulitzer Prize and a gold
This shows how far Alice was trying to go in order to get a hold of some drugs. She was so hooked on her drugs that she would do whatever it takes.... ... middle of paper ... ... It shows how far teenagers will go to get drugs, the consequences of drugs, and what life is like once you are hooked onto drugs. This is a book that many teenagers should read before getting involved in any type of substance.
He begins to feel finally free. In the passage, “ The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” the author uses Duchess, a saloon girl; Uncle Billy, a local thief and drunk; Mother Shipton, a madam; and Mr.Oakhurst, a poker player to illustrate his definition of isolation. Being stranded in the mountains and dealing with starvation, they are left to fight for life. In the end, Mr. Oakhurst commits suicide in order to not deal with being isolated. Through all of the passages, the authors use different themes to illustrate isolation in different
While disaster overwhelms others, guilt consumes Lily. “I was speculating how one day, years from now, I would send the store a dollar in an envelope to cover it, spelling out how much guilt had dominated every moment of my life, when I found myself looking at a picture of the black Mary,” (Kidd 63). Lily at no instant in the novel indicates mailing the envelope or the assumed regret she would posses when she regards the Black Mary. This affair does not suggest years from now she would not send the dollar. This exposes that while she may execute seldom vile things, she would try to rectify them.
Drugs is one of the themes in this story that shows the impact of both the user and their loved ones. There is no doubt that heroin destroys lives and families, but it offers a momentary escape from the characters ' oppressive environment and serves as a coping mechanism to help deal with the human suffering that is all around him. Suffering is seen as a contributing factor of his drug addiction and the suffering is linked to the narrator’s daughter loss of Grace. The story opens with the narrator feeling ice in his veins when he read about Sonny’s arrest for possession of heroin. The two brothers are able to patch things up and knowing that his younger brother has an addiction.
Weissman, Robert. A BAD BET Casino Economics and the Politics of Gambling [Online] Available http://prince.essential.org/monitor/hyper/mm1196.04. html,
Due to certain behaviors and the negative impact on an individual’s life that came about from gambling, this game or recreational activity was viewed as being a problem that could be
Out of love for her husband, Georgina agrees to go on with the experiment. Aylmer shows her that the elixir will cure her of her imperfection by putting it on a plant that was covered in spots and before their eyes, the spots on the plant disappeared. Right away, Aylmer gave his wife the elixir and, like magic, the birthmark disappeared. As the two were looking at what the elixir did to Georgina, they neglected to see the plant dying. Before they knew it, Georgina started to slowly die right in front of her husband’s eyes.
The episode that stood out to me most this time around was Game Face, which aired on May 29,2015. This episode explains different times where people had to use their game face and sometimes hide the truth. I selected this specific episode because it illustrates how people can use game faces in many different situations. I can relate to this topic because while playing sports I use a game face when it is showtime. Once I step between the chalk lines of the baseball diamond, my whole mindset changes and all I can focus on his my game. It is very intriguing listening to how other people use their game face effectively. Everybody uses a game face for something, from sports to hiding something for others.
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.
When Jeanna became addicted so young she disrupted the normal development of the part of the brain that handles the abilities to plan ahead, handle complex tasks, and inhibit inappropriate behavior (Buzzed intro and Brain basics ppt slide 22). Jeanna showed the positive incentive theory of addiction. The hedonic value she gets from the methamphetamine does not equal the anticipated feeling. She expects the meth to make her feel numb, but she continuously has to take more and more of the drug to feel the same effect. As stated in our addiction powerpoint, “In chronic addicts, positive-incentive value of drug is out of proportion with pleasure actually derived from it” (Addiction ppt slide 9). This is important pertaining to the class because she is feeding her addiction more as she gains tolerance to the dosage of drug she initially took. The episode did not explain how severe her withdrawal was when Jeanna stopped using, but they did emphasize that she was using because of the pain of losing her son. I find this important because there is an emotional aspect to her drug abuse. She is numbing her emotional pain and this drives her to take more and more of the drug in order to reach the initial feeling she felt when she took meth the first time after her son
However, the old woman does mention that Jane needs to "stretch out your hand, and take it [happiness] up" in order to gain happiness (171), and the hag claims that the brow believes "I have an inward treasure." That the brow is content with its "inward treasure" implies that it has no desire to reach for happiness, and so "fortunate issue" has a meaning identical to that of happiness; thus the brow is an of Jane's happiness. The reason that the brow stymies happiness shows the absurdity of the Victorian life. According to the soothsayer, the brow "professes" that "I have an inward treasure, born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld." This is an argument against how Victorians lauded austerity: Victorians purported to believe that discomfort was virtuous and purported to shun worldly pleasures, and Jane's brow "professes" to be able to forego all that is carnal and appetizing. While outwardly, Victorians obstinately vouched for self-restraint, they stealthily and cannily indulged in secret; thus the word "profess." After criticizing the Victorian's hypocrisy, the old woman goes on to denounce their hauteur, which has deeper roots than their faked moral standards, and which another inhibitor of
He ran a series of experiments that he called Rat Park. The experiments led him to conclude that drugs like heroin and cocaine don’t cause addiction, the user’s environment does. Alexander constructed Rat Park with wheels and balls for play, plenty of food and a mating space, with 16 rats of both sexes mingling with one another. He tested a variety of theories using different experiments to show that the rat’s environment played the largest part in whether a rat became addicted to opiates or not. In the experiment, the social rats had the choice to drink fluids from one of two dispensers. One had plain tap water, and the other had a morphine solution. He found that the caged rats ingested larger doses of the morphine solution, more than Rat Park rats. The Rat Park rats preferred the plain water. Even when the rats in cages were fed nothing but morphine water and then moved to Rat Park, the rats voluntarily went through withdrawal. Based on the findings, the team concluded that the drugs do not cause one’s addictions. Rather, how a person’s environment feeds their addiction. Feelings isolated, lonely, hopeless, or a lack of control based on unsatisfactory living conditions is what make a person dependent on substance addiction. Alexander once said, " I f I lived like that in a cage, I'd get as high as possible too."(Duhigg 10) Alexander’s goal was to prove that drugs do not cause
One of them was to overcome her loneliness, second was to numb unpleasant feelings, third was to get rid of the isolation that she felt when she was at home and lastly that feeling that developed when she visited the casino, it gave her happiness which was as a result of rush of dopamine in her brain. “Addiction in Alexander’s world is a lifestyle strategy, and like all human-constructed strategies, it’s malleable to education, diversion, opportunity. It’s a choice. (pg 170, Lauren Slater) The rats kept the cage were all alone and had no way except liking the morphine-laced water. Same was with Angie, at home she was like an isolated caged rat where she could not find any other alternative that could entertain her. Here morphine-laced water and gambling were like a reward system, the only choice that they had was to accept what was offered to them. Angie chose gambling as a short term happiness, and never thought about the long term
...on bankers and Wall Street financiers have bankrolled and profited from casinos ruled by organized crime, and how a handful of enthusiastic journalists and law enforcement officers were ruined before they could expose the city’s secrets. The Money and The Power says in no doubtful terms that gambling is wasteful, that it's a enticing and destructive vice calculated to make middling people feel important in a setting of phony lavishness and excess. It says that our cultures has steadily accepted this turn of events to a certain extent than deal with it and end it. References Gledhill, Christine. "The Gangster/Crime Film." In Pam Cook, Ed. The Cinema Book: A Complete Guide to Understanding the Movies. NY: Pantheon Books, 1985: 85-92. Kaminsky, Stuart M. "The Individual Film: Little Caesar and the Gangster Film." American Film Genres. Pflaum Publishing, 1974: 13-32.