A Tale of Two Lilies
Conflict, particularly internal conflict, is something everyone has experienced at least once (or countless times) in their lives. People often struggle with choosing between what they want and what they should do. Lily Bart, the main character of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, epitomizes the want versus should conflict as she struggles to find her place in the aristocratic New York society of the late 19th century. Examining both Lily and her actions from the psychological approach to literary criticism allows the reader to discern how her inner war brought her to her death. The House of Mirth presents Lily Bart with several internal conflicts that are the root of her problems, and, ultimately, her downfall.
Throughout the novel, Lily is described several times as having a "being" or second self trapped inside her, a classic
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After Gus convinces her to let him invest for her, Lily thinks, “Her immediate worries conjured, it was easy to resolve that she would never again find herself in such straights…” (Wharton 85).” Lily’s avoidance of her problems causes her to engage in risky and foolish behavior such as receiving pay offs from Gus or following the Duchess around in Europe after Bertha Dorset denounced her in Monte Carlo. In both cases, she ends up in worse situations than she was initially in. She gains a reputation as a woman who sleeps around for money with Gus, and her avoidance of returning to New York after her denouncement allowed Bertha to spread the story that Lily was a husband-stealer without Lily there to defend herself. Bertha’s story reached to her Aunt Julia, leading to Lily’s disinheritance after Julia’s death. The primary source of Lily’s conflict and subsequent avoidance of said conflict is marriage and
“Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen” (“Brainy Quotes” 1). In Edith Wharton’s framed novel, Ethan Frome, the main protagonist encounters “lost opportunity, failed romance, and disappointed dreams” with a regretful ending (Lilburn 1). Ethan Frome lives in the isolated fictional town of Starkfield, Massachusetts with his irritable spouse, Zenobia Frome. Ever since marriage, Zenobia, also referred to as Zeena, revolves around her illness. Furthermore, she is prone to silence, rage, and querulously shouting.
Lily’s idea of home is having loving parent/mother figures who can help guide her in life. Because of this desire, she leaves T. Ray and begins to search for her true identity. This quest for acceptance leads her to meet the Calendar Sisters. This “home” that she finds brightly displays the ideas of identity and feminine society. Though Lily could not find these attributes with T. Ray at the peach house, she eventually learns the truth behind her identity at the pink house, where she discovers the locus of identity that resides within herself and among the feminine community there. Just like in any coming-of-age story, Lily uncovers the true meaning of womanhood and her true self, allowing her to blossom among the feminine influence that surrounds her at the pink house. Lily finds acceptance among the Daughters of Mary, highlighting the larger meaning of acceptance and identity in the novel.
Throughout “Ethan Frome,” Edith Wharton renders the idea that freedom is just out of reach from the protagonist, Ethan Frome. The presence of a doomed love affair and an unforgiving love triangle forces Ethan to choose between his duty and his personal desire. Wharton’s use of archetypes in the novella emphasizes how Ethan will make choices that will ultimately lead to his downfall. In Edith Wharton’s, “Ethan Frome.” Ethan is wedged between his duty as a husband and his desire for happiness; however, rather than choosing one or the other, Ethan’s indecisiveness makes not only himself, but Mattie and Zeena miserable.
Ammons, Elizabeth. “Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome and the Question of Meaning.” Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 7, No. 2,
Many people oppose society due to the surroundings that they face and the obstacles that they encounter. Set in the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton is the story of a poor, lonely man, his wife Zeena, and her cousin Mattie Silver. Ethan the protagonist in this novel, faces many challenges and fights to be with the one he really loves. Frome was trapped from the beginning ever since Mattie Silver came to live with him and his wife. He soon came to fall in love with her, and out of love with his own wife. He was basically trapped in the instances of his life, society’s affect on the relationship, love, poverty, illness, disability, and life.
The most outstanding thing that has caused Lily’s biases to change was the Boatwright sisters. August Boatwright was the person that
One of the ways to turn a critical lens onto Edith Wharton’s writing would be to approach texts through various modes of reading. Through this approach, critical discourse often assumes that the text offers readings that work in spite of the text itself and that authorial intention does not matter. The premise of these tenets, of course, is that so much of textual analysis is rooted in a separation of text and author and also between text and reader. These distinctions provide a space in which Wharton thrives, particularly in Ethan Frome, whose narratives are multiple and fluid. Indeed, as a story fixed in rural Masachusetts, a town entirely of its own character and yet anonymous enough to serve as any town, Ethan Frome emblematizes an
Edith Wharton, a famous author of many outstanding books, wrote a chaotic love story entitled Ethan Frome. The story took place in the wintery town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. Wharton was a sophisticated young woman who found love in sitting down and holding people’s attention by way of a pen. Wharton wrote yet another thriller that told the tale of two love stricken people that barely found it possible to be together; which later forced them to fall into the temptation of love that cannot be controlled. Wharton had many different writing styles but for different books meant different needs. In Edith Wharton’s novel, Ethan Frome, frustration and loneliness play roles in disappointment while imagery, symbolism, and individual responsibility provide the novel with a tortuous plot.
... lavishness now seemed to beckon her with open arms to a life a where she could live expensively. Despite she sadness she was facing Lily knew she could not return to the realm of elites, “it was happiness she still wanted and the glimpse she had caught of it made everything else of no account” (449). At this stage of the novel, the demise of the Lily whose most ardent desire was money, power and prestige was complete. Lily’s loneliness and lack in what Lawrence show Lily that there is a fate that will cause greater pain than lack of wealth. Near her tragic end, Lily finds herself without both of her competing desires. It is then she finally understand that a life without love, happiness and freedom causes greater misfortune that a life without wealth.
August was correct when she said that Lily must be her own mother. Lily will not always have someone to care for her. If this happens she must learn to care for herself. Lily was also relying too much on the statue of Mary. When the statue of Mary was chained up Lily could not go to her for help.
Set in 1881 Starkfield, Massachusetts, Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome reveals a recurring theme in literature: “the classic war between a passion and responsibility.” In this novel, protagonist Ethan Frome confronts the demands of two private passions: his desire to become an engineer that conflicts with his moral duty to his family and his love for Mattie Silver that conflicts with his obligations to his wife Zeena. Inevitably placing the desires and well-being of his family before his own, Ethan experiences only “‘[s]ickness and trouble’” and “‘that’s what [he’s] had his plate full up with, ever since the very first helping’” (12). The reader understands Ethan’s struggles when he abandons his studies at Worcester, when he considers running
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
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
Restuccia, F. L. "The Name of the Lily: Edith Wharton's Feminism(s)." The House of Mirth: Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Benstock, S. (ed.). New York, Bedford Books, 1994, 404-418.
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”.