Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence
“I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart.” These eternal words spoken in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather reflect the importance and prevalence of family allegiances. These allegiances transcend many different cultures, societies and environments. Every society has its own “Fredo”: the social outcast whose decisions make him or her the center of attention in society, and whose family allegiances complicate everything. We can see such a prototype for a character in Countess Olenska, the main character in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. Countess Olenska is the black sheep of her family because she is considered foreign, and the complicated decisions she faces often make her the focal point of society. Her decisions are made complicated by the web of family allegiances that are present in “Old” New York, the setting of the novel. On the surface, these agonizing decisions seem to present Countess Olenska as being indecisive and powerless. However by viewing the text through the frame of family allegiances we can see that the Countess truly possesses strength because she can overcome the obstacles put forth in front of her. Any apparent frailties do not reflect her but rather the difficult decisions she has to face. If one is to look past this frame then we can truly see how Countess Olenska is empowered as a woman in her relationships in the novel, even when she has to face such complex decisions.
The plot of The Age of Innocence revolves around Countess Olenska, who was born in New York but is considered a foreigner to the “Old” New York society because she married and moved to Europe. She returned to New York because her husband was abusive and was che...
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... in making decisions but are actually strong, and that how I was meant to view them made them appear weak? Frames can allow the reader to see a text from a certain angle, and usually serve to limit or enhance the perception of a character. However, what is really unique about the frame of family allegiance in The Age of Innocence is that the ability to shatter the frame that she was meant to be seen through is what enhances our perception of Countess Olenska, rather than viewing her through the frame itself. In this manner, we can see that Countess Olenska is a strong female character who is able to surpass the limited potential that is ascribed to her. In the process, she shows the audience that appearances can be deceiving and that when we look at a female character in a literary text we must also take into the account the frame in which we were meant to view her.
Everyone, at some time in life, will experience fear. But, often fantasies are created in one's mind to escape that fear. Ethan Frome uses his fantasy as an escape to the entrapment of his marriage and the fear of public condemnation.
Both “ Young Goodman Brown” and “ The Most Dangerous Game” have themes of a loss of innocence, yet each store employs a different way of getting there. The exact meaning of this loss of innocence also differs in each story. In “ Young Goodman Brown”, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, shows us a man that loses his innocent view of the world. By the end he is a man with now hope and no faith. In “ The Most Dangerous Game”, written by Richard Connell, we watch as a man falls from a powerful hunter into a savage murderer.
The plot of The Age of Innocence revolves around Countess Olenska, who while being raised in New York is considered an immigrant to the “Old” New York society because she married and moved to Europe. Upon separating from her husband who was very cruel to her, she reunites with her cousin May and her family, and May’s new husband Newland Archer (whose family she thereby also inherits). This is where the frame of family allegiance is initially encountered in the novel. May and Newland wanted to hold off announcing their engagement until the standard cultural time period passed, but decided to go ahead with it in order to put the full force of two families behind the Countess instead of only May’s family. This cultural frame shows how the society was limited; in order to confront the taboo of possible divorce, the character’s options were restricted. Edith Wharton does a nice job of highlighting the irony of this frame: by viewing the situation and responding through this cultural frame, the characters squelched another cultural norm (the customary waiting period). Viewing it through this frame, Countess Olenska seems meek because she needs the help of her family to pull her through the situation. She is powerless to fight off an entire society who frowns on divorce, even if it is in her best interests. But Wharton does not leave it at that, because she uses her irony within the context of this frame to show that her sufferings come from this intra-family allegiance that does not give her any options.
Torres, Hector Avalos. 2007. Conversations with Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Writers. U.S.: University of New Mexico press, 315-324.
Louise Mallard is a woman who enjoys freedom and independence. She feels soaring relief and fiery triumph upon realizing that, yes, she is finally free. She is free of the weighted ropes of marriage. She fantasizes of her days ahead, living for herself and only herself. “A kind intention or cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination” (Chopin 234). She views the imposing of one’s will on another person as a crime, no matter the intention behind it. She has a taste of freedom after Mr. Mallard’s death and can finally see days without stress ahead of her. Prior to her husband’s death, young Mrs. Mallard feels tied down and even oppressed. “She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength” (Chopin 233). Despite the typical oppression of women throughout the centuries prior to the 1920s, Mrs. Mallard possesses a free spirit.
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton is a book that gave the word “love” many other meanings, such as impossible, meaningless and incomplete. There were many unbearable obstacles that Countess Ellen Olenska, one of the main characters, had to face because of love. She was treated badly by many people and always longed for love but never obtained it. With everyone cursing her, betraying her and hurting her, there was one person who was always there for her. Newland Archer wasn’t only sympathetic towards her; he also began to fall in love with her. The love she always wanted. He was the man who truly cared for her and always helped her make decisions. Out of all the selfish people in New York who degraded her, including her very close relatives, Newland Archer was one person who was there to listen to her problems and helped her solve them.
Innocence is when someone doesn’t quite understand all of what’s going around them. When someone loses their innocence, they start to understand what life truly means. At a certain point in our lives, we all experience a loss of innocence. Scout and Jem both were innocent when they were young, but as time went on, they couldn’t keep it. No one can stay innocent. It’s not about how long you keep your innocence, it’s about how that loss of innocence affects your
Conflict is a fight or a struggle of clash between people with different preferences. Conflict takes place in all social settings, and in the book The Age of Innocence where the theme of classism is prominent, it is especially the case.
For many years, the morality of abortion has been questioned by two perspectives: pro-choice and pro-life. While modern culture explains that abortion is a woman’s free choice if she does not want the unborn baby, the Catholic Church teaches the world that from the moment of conception there is a child with a soul within the womb, and to abort it would be to murder an innocent being.
Many short story writers have written about the gender and role of woman in society. Some of these stories express what Barbara Walter calls, “The Cult of True Womanhood” meaning the separation of both man and woman in social, political and economic spheres. In order to be considered a “true woman” woman were to abide by the set of standards that were given to her. Women were expected to live by the four main principal virtues - piety, purity, submissiveness, and domestication. In Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Storm,” Calixta the main female character breaks away from “The Cult of True Womanhood” when she has a sexual encounter with her past lover Alcée. The storm goes through many twists and turns that tie with their adulterous actions. Although she breaks away from the four main principal virtues, she in the end is considered to be pure innocent of heart because the action in which occurred happened instantly, and as white as she was, she was taken away from her innocence.
These women authors have served as an eye-opener for the readers, both men and women alike, in the past, and hopefully still in the present. (There are still cultures in the world today, where women are treated as unfairly as women were treated in the prior centuries). These women authors have impacted a male dominated society into reflecting on of the unfairness imposed upon women. Through their writings, each of these women authors who existed during that masochistic Victorian era, risked criticism and retribution. Each author ignored convention a...
There is no doubt that the literary written by men and women is different. One source of difference is the sex. A woman is born a woman in the same sense as a man is born a man. Certainly one source of difference is biological, by virtue of which we are male and female. “A woman´s writing is always femenine” says Virginia Woolf
For a young women, the idea of motherhood means taking on the ultimate responsibility of caring for a defenseless child in spite of the youth and inexperience. To complicate matters, include the social norms of the 19th century that young women should not have children out of wedlock and a lack of personal independence since most young women do not have livable income and a space to call her own. These norms are enforced upon young women so much that typically their only hope of survival is with the help of a patriarchal figure. Thus, we are introduced into the struggle of Charity, the young female orphaned protagonist of Edith Wharton’s Summer, who is faced with how to make the best “decision” on how her child should come into her world. The
Tharu J. Susie, Lalita Ke. Women Writing in India Volume –II: The Twentieth Century. The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1993.
Indian Writing in English has a special status in English Literature owing to its treatment of women characters. Short stories help the writers to project select characters in an impressive way to the readers. In Indian context the status of woman in a society and her treatment is very different from those of her European or American counterparts. Women are depicted both as a good and evil in literature by various writers. However, in no literature is a women stereotyped as was done in Indian literature. Away from the mythical stereotyping of women, Ruskin Bond portrayed his women in a different way. The female characters of his short stories range from a small child to a grandmother. These characters are as powerful as men and have left a strong impression on the readers. I have chosen following eight short stories for the critical analysis of Ruskin Bond’s Women in this paper.