Social Standings in The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

In The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, Wharton presents a critique of the upper-class New York society of her day. At the time, women of a higher class did not have their own identity. A woman’s status was defined by her father’s family until she was married, at which point she was defined by her husband. The main character of The House of Mirth, Lily Bart, does not have a father, and while she’s a part of the upper class, she has almost no money. This gives her a relatively ambiguous social standing—one that can only be rectified by marriage, preferably to a rich man. One privilege awarded to married women is the responsibility of decorating a home. This acts as a means of expression for women, and it is something that Lily desperately yearns to do. However, doing so without a husband would be improper in high society, and impractical considering her lack of wealth. Because of her desire to decorate, and her inability to do so, she has strong reactions t o specific interiors. In this novel, Wharton uses interiors as a way of expressing Lily’s feelings of imprisonment as an unmarried woman, thereby critiquing a society by which women can only attain identity and social standing through marriage. Lily’s father died when she was very young and when her mother died she was left with nothing. Her aunt, Mrs. Peniston, begrudgingly took her in, because she had nowhere else to go. Lily is unhappy there; she finds the atmosphere to be oppressive and prisonlike. Mrs. Peniston’sShow MoreRelatedCriticism by Imprisonment1110 Words   |  5 Pages Francis Scott Fitzgerald and Edith Wharton authored novels that take place in America around the beginning of the nineteenth century. In both This Side of Paradise and The House of Mirth, the authors paint the protagonists as imprisoned. This is a criticism of the society that they live in and is represented in the authors’ use of imagery, characterization, and the motif of social standing. Wharton uses a great deal of imagery to reflect Lily Bart as imprisoned, while Fitzgerald uses less imageryRead MoreThe House of Mirth and the Gilded Age971 Words   |  4 PagesNovelist Edith Wharton wrote her defining work, 1905s the House of Mirth, on a subject she knew all too well: the style-over-substance realm of New Yorks upper-crust society during the Gilded Age. Having been raised in this fashionable society, Wharton knew both its intricacies and cruelties firsthand. The triumphant rise and tragic fall of protagonist Lily Bart demonstrate both the sunshine and shadow of the Gilded Age. The House of Mirth not only exposes the reality of how the otherRead More Edith Whartons The House of Mirth as Satirical Commentary on Society 2116 Words   |  9 Pages      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Edith Whartons The House of Mirth creates a subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted picture of the social operation of turn-of-the-century New York. In her harsh expression of community, she succeeds in portraying a world of calculation operating under the pretenses of politeness. The characters become competitors in the highly complex game of social positioning with an amorphous body of socially formed laws. Through her presentation of Lily Bartons ongoing struggles to recover her footing-eachRead MoreTheme Of Objectification In The House Of Mirth1361 Words   |  6 PagesWomen in society are subject to objectification, meaning they are treated as a mere object; unequal to men. In the novel, The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton, this holds true as men bring home the money and women have the decorative purpose in society. The heroine, Lily Bart, is a woman who is destroyed by her own society. Lily resides in a New York society where appearances are everything and even her name, Lily, suggests that she is a flower of femininity meaning she is a decorative object inRead More Jane Eyre vs House of Mirth Lily Essay2044 Words   |  9 PagesJane Eyre vs House of Mirth Lily The novels, Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, and House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton, contain many similarities and differences of which I will discuss in this essay. The focus will be on the main characters of each book, Jane Eyre, and Lily Bart and will include important points and ideas demonstrated in these novels. To begin, Jane, from Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre, was an orphan who was raised by an upper-class family who resented her and did not