Theme Of Women In The House Of Mirth

“Pride and Prejudice”, a novel written by Jane Austen represents eighteenth century English women as illogical, domestic individuals who economically depend on male members in their household. Major decisions in their life are decided by their fathers and brothers. They perform subordinate roles, and are considered inferior to men. This novel reinforces the sexist stereotypes of women.The female characters in the novel possess these virtues in varying degrees depending on their role. Marriage is considered essential to secure a woman’s future ,they are expected to behave in a certain manner to earn the respect of the society, and are treated unfairly by the social and justice

Lily has successfully evaded Trenor up until this point; however, Trenor has effectively tricked Lily into spending time alone with him in an empty house. Trenor corners her, saying “[you] thought you could turn me inside out, and chuck me in the gutter like an empty purse… that ain’t playing fair…Of course I know what you wanted…but I tell you Miss Lily, you’ve got to pay for making me think so—’” (118). Trenor believes that he has bought Lily with his loans; he believes that he has the right to her time, her social position, and her person. His monetary contributions far outweigh Lily’s social contributions to this society in which they trade stock; moreover, Trenor knows that he has the power to ruin Lily socially and financially. In this moment, Lily realizes that she has no intrinsic worth outside, and her dignity and self-respect

The women of the story are not treated with the respect, which reflects their social standings. The first image of the women that the reader gets is a typical housewife. They are imaged as “wearing faded house dresses and

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.

The life of a lady in the 19th century is painted in a romantic light. Pictured in her parlor, the lady sips tea from delicate china while writing letters with a white feathered quill. Her maid stands silently off in the background, waiting for orders to serve her mistress. What is not typically pictured, is the sadness or boredom echoed on the lady’s face. Perhaps the letter is to a dear friend, not seen in ages, pleading with the friend to visit, in hopes that the friend will fill the void in the lady’s life made from years spent in a loveless marriage; or possiblyk20 the lady isn’t writing a letter at all, but a novel or a poem, never to be read by anyone but her. Edith Warton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, are 19th Century ladies who dare to share their writing with the world. Through their works, the darker side of a woman’s life in the late 1800’s is exposed. Gender politics in the 19th dictates that a lady is dependent on her husband for her financial security and social standing; that is if she is fortunate enough to marry at all. In Edith Warton’s The House of Mirth, Lily Bart is a beautiful woman in her late 20’s, who fails to marry a wealthy man. The narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper slowly goes insane under her physician husbands misguided attempts to cure her of depression. The downfall of Lily Bart and the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper is

While both the “Invisible Man” and “The House of Mirth” were written near the same time frame, they were written in differing perspectives, reflecting not only social classes but also gender roles of the time period. At the time these books were written, men and women had very different roles in society. Women were in the midst of a long arduous battle of the women suffrage movement and as they gained ground in this fight the gender roles started to change along with the country: “Westward expansion also demanded that many women step outside prescribed gender roles and perform “men’s” work on the frontier” (Jolliffe 1). Men, on the other hand, had a battle of their own trying to defend their masculinity during the movement of women into new social ranks, “masculinity in the United States is certain only in its uncertainty; its stability and sense of well-being depend on a frantic drive to control its environment.” (Stryffeler 4) The struggles of this dynamic time period are expressed through the eyes of these two authors giving readers an idea of how women were viewed differently from men surrounding the gender and social issues that dominated history.

When reading House of Mirth, Lily Bart seems to be a victim of circumstance, and readers watch her life seem to crumble around her. From the beginning, Lily was depicted as an overwhelmingly gorgeous woman; however, she has an overwhelmingly massive downfall: her dependence on wealth and social status. As outsiders, readers understand that money comes and goes, and social status is far from the most important things in life; however, Lily would disagree. Being born into high-society, Lily quickly developed a fondness for the extravagant things in life while fearing, and almost hating, dinginess (Wharton, 30-35). However, as the story progresses, she loses all the little money she has to fuel her gambling addiction, as if metaphorically

Edith Wharton was born in a period of time after the US Civil War in which the population and economy grew at a fast rate, and the wealthy lived fancy lifestyles. This period of time was labeled the Gilded Age by Mark Twain due to its splendid surface but unethical underside. This Period of time was full of cooperate greed, a hike in immigration, and corrupt politics. This era was horrible for the poor, but the rich and powerful benefited. During this time the accepted reasoning was that all women are fragile and helpless. All women were doomed to a career that was marriage, and were expected to live as a housewife. As Edith became an adult, society started to shift, and women were given more freedoms. In 1887, the Married Woman’s Property

First, a distinction must be made between direct and indirect transaction. Lily can happily live in a world where wealth circulates obliquely and freely. When Lily stays as a guest at Bellomont eating fine food at her hosts expense, she is not receiving payment for goods or services. Instead, her charm has earned her the benefits of friendship with the rich. Lily is not exactly being paid to be charming; instead, being charming attracts the generous hospitality and entertainment of wealthy friends. The distinction between this type of benefit and direct compensation is enormous. When the reader encounters Lily in Chapter Ten of Book Two, Lily has fled from the world of Norma Hatch to the milliners shop--and it was an offer of direct reward that made it necessary for Lily to escape. Wharton writes, "The sense of being involved in a transaction she would not have cared to examine too closely had soon afterward defined itself in the light of a hint from Mr. Stancy that if she saw them through, she would have no reason to be sorry" (293-3). Lily has no qualms about living as a guest of her rich friends, but the idea of selling her charm and becoming a sort of social mercenary holds no appeal for her: "The implication that such loyalty would meet with a direct

     Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth is an affront to the false social values of fashionable New York society.  The heroine is Lily Bart, a woman who is destroyed by the very society that produces her.  Lily is well-born but poor.  The story traces the decline of Lily as she moves through a series of living residences, from houses to hotel lodgings.  Lily lives in a New York society where appearances are all.  Women have a decorative function in such an environment, and even her name, Lily, suggests she is a flower of femininity, i.e. an object of decoration as well as of desirability to the male element.  We see this is very true once Lily's bloom fades, as it were, a time when she

In the early 19th century, social class or status was everything to individuals back then. Social status was everything to people, just by saying they were better than others. Also, by saying they were “higher statuses” than one another was such a huge deal back then, which higher statues and ranks were about how had money and who didn’t. As people say history repeats itself, I believe that, for instance, nowadays people are always trying to outdo one another. Edith Wharton expressed a variety of different dimensions throughout House of Mirth, which included social, cultural, political, economic. Edith Wharton elaborates a story about Lily Barton, a young lady in her mid 20’s, who is continuously trying to achieve social statuses while dealing with other life struggles. She struggles trying to find someone rich to marry and ends up not being able to become wealthy either. When she struggles to try and find who she wants to marry she tends to get discourage and ends up putting herself in a serious amount of debt that she is unable to pay back. While in debt, she has trouble sleeping, and starts taking medicine to help with this problem. When she had enough money to pay off this debt she uses it to her advantage and pays off all her debt, however why paying off her debts Lily was still taking her sleeping pills and ends up over dosing, which causes her to die. After, this short summary of House of Mirth, did Lily social status affect her life? Did her social status actually

The House of Mirth explores the place of women (particularly Lily Bart) in society and the social effect that marriage had on them. The book showcases the problems that came with being a single woman during the late 1800s and the need and struggle to conform to society's expectations, and, therefore, falls under the title of a novel of manners. Women had little chance to play any role other that a wife or a mother, and could acquire respect and power only through marriage. Edith Wharton explores the themes of the female body, gender roles and manners in order to achieve this.

In the poem “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” written by Jonathan Swift, one may say he portrays himself to be a chauvinist by ridiculing women and their cryptic habits. However, others may say he wants to help women from the ideals placed upon them by society and prove to be an early feminist. This poem written in the 18th century represented women to be fake and sleazy at first. Then during the 20th century, the feminist movement used it as an attack against women, depicting the poem’s meaning as not valuing their rights and freedoms. The truth far hidden from these points of views became uncovered recently. This essay will explain both sides of the views and using critical thinking will uncover the real message the author intended to portray.

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was a controversial play for its time because it questioned society's basic rules and norms. Multiple interpretations can be applied to the drama, which allows the reader to appreciate many different aspects of the play. This paper examines how both Feminist and Marxist analyses can be applied as literary theories in discussing Ibsen's play because both center on two important subject matters in the literary work: the roles of women in a male-dominated society, and, the power that money has over people.

In Victorian England, “the bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation” (Engels). This upper middle class, the bourgeois, was divided into separate spheres determined by their “natural characteristics” such as being male or female (Gender 1). The bourgeois society’s main concern was their outward appearance and materialism while gaining respectability among their social class. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, criticizes Victorian bourgeois society and their strict adherence to gender roles. As Nora Helmer walked away from her family, she generated a “door slam heard around the world” (“A Doll’s House” 1).