While reading the story “The Verdict “by Edith Wharton was very interesting, I would have to say this story is very suspenseful. The excellent part about this story is the dialogue well put together I enjoyed every part of reading this story. However I would have to say it was high art vs. low art, meaning people loved low art even though they didn’t really understand the concept of high art. For example high art lives in being unaware and unconscious of what’s going on around them, and with low art works hard to make their money, but with that being said high artist continues to work on their craft. What I pulled out of this short story, is that this story is more or less so a critique of bad art but on lesson about this short story can
In the articles “A Genetic of Justice” by Julia Alvarez, “The text of Malala Yousafzai’s speech at the United Nations” and “On the Adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human” they talk about freedom and their human rights. The interesting thing about these articles is that they all fight for freedom. For instance, they are fighting for what they believe in. Also, these people were caring towards others because not only were they fighting for their rights, but others as well. In these articles, it displays the same rhetorical devices of diction and rhetorical device. Given these points these representatives like Minerva, Malala, and Eleanor are brave for standing up for themselves and others because it takes a lot of courage to speak up
Considered more of a personal vendetta then a legitimate case, the Aaron Burr Treason Trial cultivated how judges and lawmakers defined treason based on the Constitution and what executive power the president has when a part of law case that still hold true in America today.
Edith Wharton, originally named “Edith Newbold Jones”(Cliff Notes), was born on “January 24, 1862 in New York City to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander Jones and died on August 11, 1937”(Cliff Notes). She was born into a wealthy family and was a “designer, short story writer and American novelist”(Cliff Notes). Wharton descended from the English and Dutch cultures. She had two siblings, one known as “Frederic Rhinelander Jones” (Cliff Notes) who was sixteen years older than her, and “Henry Edward Jones eleven years older”(Cliff Notes). While her brothers attended boarding school, Wharton became “raised as an only child in a brownstone mansion on West Twenty-third Street in New York City”(Cliff
Silence has been described as "a category of intelligence of the twentieth century," a response to the modern experience of "alienation from reason, society, and history." Silence has also been designated a feminist issue, one not confined to any historical moment but "a form of imposed repression" which enforces the traditional view of the "appropriate condition for women” (Hurvitz). Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, a novel poised between the American Victorian and modern eras which examines the potential for women's freedom and independence through a male center of consciousness, encourages a close analysis of its many silences.
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 themselves are rendered as text, and the incessant social appraisal in which the characters of the novel participate is a process of deciphering this script of behavior. People's actions here are read, as it were, according to the unique social grammar of this society. The novel's treatment of this conception of social reading is brought to the fore through its devaluing of written texts in favor of legible behaviors.
Edith Wharton was the author of The Age of Innocence, a novel published in 1920. In the book, many topics were considered, such as divorce, the empowerment of women, and the lifestyle of the wealthy. The inspiration for these motifs occurred throughout her life. Although Edith Wharton’s work was not well-received, the topics included in her writings held many truths about upper-class society in the late 1800s; therefore, Edith Wharton was influenced by her past and societal experiences.
Perkins, Wendy. “Criticism.” Short Stories for Students. Ed. Carol Ullmann. Vol. 15. Detroit: Gale, 2002. N. pag. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.
Newland Archer desires to be a free soul in old New York, differing from those around him. May Welland’s actions and naivety help Newland realize he wants to break away from the norm of society. Ellen Olenska arrives in New York to stay with family during her divorce with a Polish Count. Ellen and Newland are formally introduced by May, beginning Ellen and Newland’s odious relationship. Ellen offers a fresh change to Newland’s monotonous lifestyle; she shows Newland the excitement of going against the moral code. After Ellen’s arrival, Newland briefly believes he wants to be with someone who is not like women from New York, and when given the chance to be with Ellen, Newland turns it down, showing he is truly an old-fashioned man at heart.
On January 24, 1862, Edith Wharton was born to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander in New York City. Wharton’s family were decedents of English and Dutch colonists who had made fortunes in shipping, selling and banking. Wharton, the youngest and only girl of 3 children, spoke 3 languages and was taught by a series of governesses. Because Wharton was taught only with the intention to provide her with the proper social skills needed to become a good wife, she began to read books from her father’s library, especially western culture books. At the age of 18 Edith Wharton feel in love with Walter Berry, but could not truly pursue the relationship because Berry was not from the same social class as Wharton, which in Old New York, was not socially allowed. However, in 1885 at the age of 23, Wharton married Edward Wharton who was 12 years older then her. Edward Wharton was a gentlemen and a sportsman from a well-established family in Philadelphia. Edward shared her love of travel and was acceptable in eyes of Edith’s parents. From the late 1880’s to 1902 Edward Wharton suffered from acute depression and at this time they stopped traveling and lived exclusively at “the Mount” – the home Edith Wharton designed in Lenox, Massachusetts. Edward Wharton’s depressed really put a strain on their relationship and in 1913 Edith Wharton divorced Edward Wharton. After the divorce Edith returned to writing, at this time she wrote a lot of books that often dealt with divorce, unhappy marriages, and free-spirited people who are trapped by social pressure.
In her lifetime, Edith Wharton experienced the restraining nature of societal expectations against her attempts to establish her individual identity, in both her sexuality and publication of her written works. Wharton specifically has an excellent opportunity to criticize the expectations placed on American women during the Realist era because she emigrated to France and experienced a radically different system to that of America’s. This enabled her to more clearly contemplate how society limited and impacted the personal development of women without Wharton being restricted by her knowledge of solely the American social system. The struggle with societal expectations establishes itself in her novella Summer, in which Charity Royall faces the
In Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, there is a prevalent conflict of class struggles. Ethan Frome, his wife Zeena, and their maid Mattie all live in extreme poverty. Wharton portrays them as miserable beings, seemingly always encompassed in misfortune. Wharton herself, however, lived a near opposite life compared to that of her characters. She was born into fortune; money was rarely a concern for her (Lee). Through a Marxist lens, one could argue that Edith Wharton, a woman of extreme wealth and privilege, would characterize lower, working class people such as the ones in Ethan Frome in an inaccurately dismal light. The consistent image of winter and coldness, typically associated with misery, in Ethan Frome foreshadows an unhappy ending for the
In the novel Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton creates an interesting plot revolving around two star-crossed lovers. Unfortunately, there is only one important thing that gets in the way of these lovers, a wife who’s a hypochondriac. Zeena, the wife, finds herself in a particular situation, a situation where she needs to figure out how to get rid of Mattie. She tries everything to get rid of her, especially her illness, using it as an excuse to get what she wants, oppressing Ethan’s desires and needs. Despite her malicious actions, she creates a justifiable reasoning of her intent. In Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton creates a psychological response in regards to Zeena. Rather than being depicted as the villain of the novel, Zeena is merely the victim of
What is justice to you. Justice is known to dictionary.com as, “the quality of being just; righteoussness, equitableness, or moral rightness”. So how do you define justice. Is it fairness or correctness, maybe it’s throwing all the bad guys in jail. In To Kill a Mockingbird and The Merchant of Venice justice is defined several times in several different ways that open to our eyes if we look through one of the character’s. When looking through a character’s eyes we must take a look at someone’s background hence absorbing their perspective and understanding their
The characters in the novel get caught up in a frenzy of hate, scandal, and love. Newland Archer is a wealthy societal man who views his wife, May, as the reason for his unhappiness. In addition, Newland Archer get swept into the scandal and falls in love with Ellen, who he sees as a route to independence. Ellen Olenska, the cousin of May, brings a tornado of scandal to New York and becomes the center of criticism in society. In The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Archer and Ellen describe the desire for freedom in order to portray society as an oppressor.
Edith Wharton, was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in literature, she wrote a lot of stories that focused on marriage. Many of her stories are set in the high society world of America in the 1900’s. An example of this, is the short story she wrote called “The Other Two” which takes place in 1904 in New York. “The Other Two” discuss the concepts divorce in the early 1900’s and adaptive behavior which is based on Darwin’s theory of “Survival of the fittest”.