Wharton twisted the plot to have Lily Bart develop into a strong woman, who contributed to the workforce with intellectual knowledge. The early 20th century marked the quick expansion of the workforce. Development of new technology favored skilled women per men. Rapid technological advancements utilizing new organizational techniques and superior clerical work increased production and kept the economy booming. Not only were women entering the workforce but the enrollment in high school and graduation rates increased dramatically. Before the 20th century women sparsely entered the workforce, and obtained a degree higher than an elementary education. Adshade author in the Canadian Journal of Economics stated “The beginning of the twentieth century Through Lily, Wharton showed that she may not have been essentially happy, but the vices against society were challenged. As females began entering the work force their willingness to learn and receive a lower pay wage than men allowed women to surpass male representation in admistrative positions. (Adshade 16). Bart entered the workforce to exceed the controversy of indecency and to pay her friends back the debt she acquired. The possibilities of this novel being popularly known have many different scenarios. The citizens of this culture found a way to relate to the story plot and the ultimate portrayal of lives. The House of Mirth gives two separate sides of knowledge pertaining to that of an intellectual working woman who was from the lower class society supporting herself; also known as the new woman, to the scandalous woman trying to save her spot on the higher classed social In the scene Tableau Vivant, the male character Seldon described the painting of Lily Bart as mesmerizing. The belief was that this portrait exposed the true identity of Lily Bart’s personality. Seldon objectified Lily in the sole perspective of appearance because Lily was pleasing to the eye. Seldon refused to see Lily’s flaws. The theory proposed by Fredickson and Roberts known as the objectification theory, describes the framework in which Seldon views Lily, however, it is pertinent to declare that not only men objectify women, but women objectify themselves. The objectification theory “focuses on behavioral and emotional response to their desire/need to meet Western cultural ideals of physical appearance and attractiveness.” (Daniel Bridges) This being said it is possible that society views women more on appearance, more than men not only because of male perspective, but because of women themselves. Daniel Bridges, Fredrickson and Roberts concluded that women find cognitive pleasure in being “evaluated on the basis of their appearance.” (Daniel
In an excerpt from Janell Hobson’s “Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture” Hobson argues that the “image of black women’s bodies in culture are distorted in a way resembling the morphing of a person’s figure in a carnival mirror,” a term she coins as “un-mirroring.” She continues this metaphor by saying black women artists must “fight against this process by challenging dominant culture’s representation of black women’s bodies as being grotesque and changing the discourse to being one of beauty.” One may argue that black women are too diverse to be represented by one image, rather that they should fight to be regarded as individuals devoid of stereotypes and negative historical connotations. Stereotypes, which are too broad to be accurate, have negatively affected the image of the black female body in culture. To change the trajectory of this idea in the future, the discussion must be aimed towards persuading society that stereotypes are superficial judgments, and that black women should be regarded as a diverse group of individuals, not individual elements of a stereotype.
The tableaux vivants scene in Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth is pivotal to the understanding of Lily Bart as a character. The passage not only highlights her precarious state in high-society, but it also contains one of the only instances where Lily feels truly comfortable and confident. Over the course of the description of Lily’s staging of her own tableaux, she goes from being a piece of art on display, to an artist carefully working to exhibit her own beauty. However, the contradictory reception from the audience to her intentions when her tableaux is presented, conveys her hubris in both her beauty and her ability to create visual representations of art. The scene concludes with, Gerty Farish, in response to seeing Lily’s tableaux, saying,
Nora and Mrs. Wright’s social standing when compared to the men in each play is inferior. Both works expose their respective male characters’ sexist view of women diminishing the women’s social standing. Each work features egotistical men who have a severely inflated view of their self-worth when compared to their female counterparts. The men’s actions and words indicate they believe women are not capable of thinking intelligently. This is demonstrated in “Trifles” when Mr. Hale makes the statement about women only worrying about mere trifles. It is also apparent in “A Dollhouse” when Torvalds thinks his wife is not capable of thinking with any complexity (Mazur 17). Another common attribute is of the women’s social standing is displayed as both women finally get tired of feeling like second class citizens and stand up to the repressive people in the women’s lives (Mulry 294). Although both women share much in common in their social standing there subtle differences. Torvald’s sexist view of Nora is more on a personal level in “A Dollhouse” while the male characters’ sexist views in “Trifles” seem to be more of a social view that women are not very smart and their opinions are of little value. This attitude is apparent in “Trifles” as Mr. Hale and Mr. Henderson’s comments about Mrs. Wright’s housekeeping (Mulry 293). As the women in both works reach their emotional
The transformation that takes place in the way in which the girl thinks about gender roles is not described directly as an issue of what is appropriate for men and women. Instead, the description is much more subtle, and almost a natural change that occurs in every person (Rasporich 130). It is this subtleness in the language causes the readers to not only feel sorry for the young girl, but to also think about their own views of gender
In fewer words, Jon Berger’s Ways of Seeing discusses how humans see the world and he does so through the lens of art, seeing as he is an art historian. Specifically, in chapter three, he brings to attention how the portrayal of women in art and in the world is contingent on the male eye and its ideals. Women have been oppressed in their sense of selves because men dictate what they prefer in a women. Even in this day in age, a woman’s self-worth banks on the acceptance of men. Her only way of making a way in the world is by impressing men with hyper-sexual and or submissive tactics because that tradition has been drilled into all of our brains since Adam and Eve.
The lives we lead and the type of character we possess are said to be individual decisions. Yet from early stages in our life, our character is shaped by the values, customs 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 is taught can be only be attained through a wealthy marriage. Although, Lily is ashamed of her society’s tendencies, she is afraid that the values taught in her upbringing shaped her into “an organism so helpless outside of its narrow range” (Wharton 423). For Lily, it comes down to a choice between two antagonistic forces: the life she desires with a happiness, freedom and love and the life she was cut out to live with wealth, prestige and power. Although, Lily’s upbringing conditioned her to desire wealth and prestige, Lily’s more significant desires happiness, freedom and love ultimately allow her to break free.
In the first chapter of The House of Mirth, while drinking tea with Selden in his apartment, Lily says to him, “you can’t possibly think I want to marry you” (Wharton 10). This comment is stated and accepted without further explanation, because both Lily and Selden know that Selden is not wealthy enough to meet Lily’s expectations, even though it is apparent throughout The House of Mirth that Lily has feelings for Selden, and he for her. Linda Wagner Martin’s remark, “The poignant but all-too-real narrative of the beautiful Lily Bart, fast aging beyond marriageability” points to the fact that Lily Bart was in her late 20’s and was expected to have found a husband by that age (Wagner-Martin 6). Wagner Martin also claims that, “Wharton creates in The House of Mirth the impressionable character of Lily Bart, flowerlike in fragility as well as name, who has accepted the social decree that she become a beautiful marriageable object” (Wagner-Martin 4). The narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper points out that her husband is a respected doctor, and that he provides for her. Despite his controlling and dismissive treatment of her, she consoles herself with the thought that, “He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well” (Perkins Gillman). In exchange for perceived comfort, she is his
What is beauty? Seemingly a continually evolving and infinitely elusive ideal - mankind has been obsessed with the concept of beauty throughout the ages. Portraiture, as an essential channel of visual communication, has traditionally been the medium through which definitions of beauty are graphically expressed. Particularly in the Renaissance where portraiture often served celebratory or commemorative purposes, it was crucial that portraits were accepted as aesthetically pleasing reflections of the social ideals of the time. Hence by comparing and contrasting a range of different portraits of depicting men and women of the Renaissance such as Titian’s La Bella, Bronzino’s Eleonora de Medici, Sofonisba Anguissola’s Self Portrait, Vasari’s Alessandro de Medici, Bronzino’s Cosimo de Medici as Orpheus and Pedro Berruguete’s Portrait of Federico da Mentelfeltro, viewers can gain an understanding of the conceptual differences in definitions of masculine and feminine beauty during this period.
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 an environment, and even her name, Lily, suggests she is a flower of femininity, i.e. an object of decoration as well as of desirability to the male element. We see this is very true once Lily's bloom fades, as it were, a time when she is cast aside by her peers no longer being useful as something to admire on the surface. The theme of the novel in this aspect is that identity based on mere appearance is not enough to sustain the human soul physically or metaphysically. Once she is no longer able to keep the "eye" of her peers, Lily finds herself with no identity and dies. This analysis will discuss the theme of the objectification of women in a male dominated society inherent throughout the novel.
The two main approaches to this type of criticism are very different, but help make distinctions in the text. Essentialists focus on the biologically determined sex of a character in literature, while others focus on constructivism or the qualities determined by society as strictly male or female. Constructivists argue that patriarchal gender roles harm women’s confidence and assertiveness, promoting stereotypes and false binaries. Gender constructivism favors the idea that gender and sexual categories are a societal construct that prefers men and restricts women. The application of this literary criticism to a text looks into the character and their relevance to the plot. Focusing on how the character promotes or rejects the imposed gender roles is a significant part in the use of this lens (Hildreth January
know beauty in any form”(86). We are so conditioned to see female beauty as what men
“Between 1870 and 1920, the number of women in the work forces more than doubled.” (pg. 500) Many contributions had led to this. The woman of America had various jobs during the period. Such jobs these ladies had were being care takers, servants, textile workers, and social workers. Many women however took a turn in the century and began taking control of college. With this came greater opportunities because “there were nearly 1,000 women social workers in 1890 and nearly 30,00...
image of themselves in real life. They are almost computer-generated women like in the movie Simone. Indeed, with the technology we have now, advertisers can transform a product into perfection, at the same time, misleading the consumer into seeing it as “real”, and thus permanently providing impossible standards (Ingham). More and more women are becoming dissatisfied with themselves trying to be this fantasy person created by the men in our society. This distorted view of reality, portrayed by advertisemen...
In order to understand Joyce’s theory of beauty, the process that occurs must be de-constructed. Beauty can be found in vastly different contexts—the sun setting over the ocean or the Mona Lisa hanging in The Louvre in Paris—yet every experience has been
People use art to display the beauty found in the world and, because of this, women have been subject to objection through paintings and photography all throughout history. Whether it is a commissioned oil painting from the 17th century or an advertisement from the 20th century, there will always be some type of image that objectifies women. In the book Ways of Seeing John Berger states that a woman “comes to consider the surveyor and surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman,” (Ways of Seeing 46). Berger is saying that women know they are seen as an object purely because they are women. Women in paintings and photography are objectified for the pleasure of the viewer, they are illustrated for the surveyor’s specifications, so in essence the picture is a better representation of the owner than the subject.