How Does Edith Wharton Use Metaphors In The Age Of Innocence

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is best known as a literary classic, telling the tale of a young girl named Jean Louise “Scout” Finch’s childhood in a southern Alabama town during the great depression. While the fate of a black male convicted of rape still looms in the synopsis. To Kill a Mockingbird the title of the novel, refers to a quote on page 119. Both said by Atticus Finch the town of Maycomb's lawyer and Miss Maudie his neighbor, “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”. As said by Miss Maudie “ Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 119). The title of this novel isn’t only referencing this quote,

Wharton takes the much-admired upper crust of society and exposes them, not in a hurtful world, but an objectively world. Wharton writes: "I've come to the conclusion that I don't in the least know what they are," said Mrs. Ansley. "And perhaps we didn't know much more about each other."(780) This one passage serves as a direct commentary on both the bonds of friendship and family life. Wharton's language is objective, straightforward. The character speaks these alarming

Innocence is something that people lose as they grow older from childhood into adolescence and then into adulthood and get more exposed to new things as they grow up. Innocence is important in the novel because it was the one thing that Holden was trying to hold on to by trying to save another person’s innocence but is also trying to lose his own. There are situations where there would be a loss of innocence and would influence Holden because he is transitioning from different stages of his life. In a coming of age story, losing innocence is a sign of growing up and change. This is seen through characters that have effected Holden in a way, just like how Allie’s death showed him the harsh reality of life, and symbols like the record he

As a little girl, I saw the world in the best light simply because innocence clouded my judgement. As a child, I was innocent of mortality, as a teen hope, and as a young adult love. However, later on that innocence took on the role of ignorance. Not in the sense of not being knowledgeable or educated on the matter, but rather knowing it all too well that I choose not to acknowledge it. Innocence can be served as an instrument to block out surroundings when problems arise. It is an illusion of reality to protect what the individual desires to be true to what is actual. In Wendy Cope’s poem “Reading Scheme,” Cope writes about an affair more from the perspective of children by using the villanelle form to illustrate the inability of the

The balance of power has been one of mankind’s most prominent and fought-over issues, particularly among the two sexes. Men are biologically predisposed to be more powerful, and humans have historically associated a male’s physical strength with authority. At the same time, women have been conditioned to yield to a man’s power, and have been taught that men are meant to hold economic, societal, and domestic control, as displayed by New York’s high-society in Edith Wharton’s timeless novel The Age of Innocence. Yet, power is an unquantifiable, metaphysical idea completely unrelated to one’s gender. Power is held in the eye of the beholder, and over time, women have used this idea to manipulate and control men without them even knowing. In doing so, women have been creating their own power for centuries, though society does not recognize it nor give them credit for having as much control as they do. Despite its setting in a patriarchal 19th century society, Wharton manages to defy even modern gender roles by contrasting the influence of resolute Ellen Olenska—a presumably promiscuous noblewoman—with lawyer Newland Archer’s submissiveness so as to suggest that women truly hold power over men during this time.

In The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton portrays gender through the juxtaposition of Ellen and May. May is the type of woman who personifies innocence. She always keeps up with her appearance and personality even when she

Edith Wharton’s brief, yet tragic novella, Ethan Frome, presents a crippled and lonely man – Ethan Frome – who is trapped in a loveless marriage with a hypochondriacal wife, Zenobia “Zeena” Frome. Set during a harsh, “sluggish” winter in Starkfield, Massachusetts, Ethan and his sickly wife live in a dilapidated and “unusually forlorn and stunted” New-England farmhouse (Wharton 18). Due to Zeena’s numerous complications, they employ her cousin to help around the house, a vivacious young girl – Mattie Silver. With Mattie’s presence, Starkfield seems to emerge from its desolateness, and Ethan’s vacant world seems to be awoken from his discontented life and empty marriage. And so begins Ethan’s love adventure – a desperate desire to have

Born in 1862, Edith Wharton Newbold Jones was brought up within the graceful, wealthy yet conservative, confining circle of New York society, which fostered sexual repression and prided itself on the innocence of its young girls. Edith Wharton herself was discouraged from expressing her emotions or developing her intellect which was supposed to be very unbecoming traits in a woman. This is the reason why she stressed in her fiction the need of growth, and has shown how painful and frustrating this process can be for a woman. This process of growth and development is revealed in her major works, Ethan Frome (1911), and Summer (1917) (Balakrishnan 1).

The Age of Innocence, written by Edith Wharton in 1920, is a novel about Newland Archer, set in New York in the 1870s. In the beginning of the novel, Newland is engaged to May Welland, however when her cousin Ellen Olenska returns from Europe, he begins to doubt who he really loves. Due to societal norms, Newland stays with May and never consummates his relationship with Ellen, despite their growing feelings towards each other. At the time of writing The Age of Innocence, Wharton was reading Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1914), a 14 volume work on anthropology, which consisted of myths, customs, and magical practices. This collection sparked interest for Wharton, potentially inspiring her to enlist many allusions to classical

Through choice of detail and diction, Edith Wharton justifies Frome’s adultery by juxtaposing the warm, charismatic nature of Mattie to the cold, barren one of Zeena. While his wife speaks in a “monotonous” (129) “flat whine” (32) her cousin’s “suffuse[s] him with joy” (44). Despite the fact that both women are frail and sickly, Zeena’s “puckered throat” and “protruding wrists” (47) disgusts Ethan, while Mattie is so “small and weak-looking that…it wr[i]ng[s] his heart” (106). Throughout the novel, Wharton’s choice of detail drastically contrasts the two women, one a vivacious, vigorous beauty, the other a walking, whining corpse. From their physical looks alone, Zeena is hard to love—sterile and dark—while Mattie—fertile and warm—is easy to. The author intentionally feeds this bias, allowing the readers to feel the same temptation that Frome has in the novel. However, he

The first example of the children losing their innocence is when they are describing the transition from elementary school to junior high school. Each has found that instead of one teacher, they in fact had many teachers. Additionally, the girls they were once friends with, now different in size and grace, ignored them. This becomes apparent that things have change as a result of age.

The pressure of conformity affects individual expression and varies in degrees in which it impacts an individual’s life. Regardless of time period, conformity is able to force individualists to abide by the social standards inculcated into society and deemphasize the importance behind individualism. In the 1920s, New York City adopted a structure parallel to conformity in its figurative hierarchy after the grief and devastation of World War I. With fear of the unknown, a reestablishment of tradition and routine followed, including an adaptation to the use of silences. The individuals with class and power used silence as a vehicle to conform and unify but, free-willed individuals gave another purpose to silence. It became a tool to express

Newland declares to the table that women have the right to be “as free as [men] are” (Age of Innocence 38). As the women talk further about Ellen, Newland states that he is sick of the “hypocrisy that would bury a woman” for preferring to be with her husband, contrary to what others believe (Age of Innocence 37). Newland sees a small connection between the women’s opinions and his own relationship with Ellen. He begins to see he must make a choice between Ellen and May, unbeknownst to him that his choice will be what is “socially acceptable” to old New York (“Edith Wharton” 2). Newland then decided that May should have the same “freedom of experience” he has (Age of Innocence 42).

The Age of Innocence, written by Edith Wharton, is about the upper-class society of New York City in the 1870’s. The novel follows the life of an upper-class lawyer named Newland Archer. He is going to wed May Welland, who comes from another upper-class family. As the novel progresses Newland starts to become intrigued with May’s cousin, the poor Ellen Olenska. Ellen is called “poor” because she is shameful in the eyes of the society that surrounds her. Ellen left her husband and moved back to New York City to be with her family. Divorce is not acceptable in the 1870’s high society like it is today. Newland tries at first to protect Ellen from the bad reputation that she will perceive if she divorces

“You did love me for a moment; and it helped me. It always helped me. But the moment is gone, it was I who let it go.” (405). Some people believe if you have chemistry with someone, you only need one other thing. Timing. But it's hard to get timing right. However is timing really all that matters? In House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, Wharton proposes the question, was Lily Bart and Lawrence Selden’s fate inevitable or could they have prevented it? Other than Timing, different upbringings and miscommunication both were factors that kept Lily and Lawrence apart but also could have brought them back together.