Comparing The House Of Mirth And The Custom Of The Country

Edith Wharton, an exceptional American novelist, portrays the impact of materialistic and superficial societal ambitions in her two novels, The House of Mirth (1905) and The Custom of the Country (1913). Wharton captivates the increasing allure of fashion and beauty during the late 1800s and early 1900s by newly-wealthy New Yorkers. In doing so, she makes clear the damaging relationship between mothers and children in which these materialistic and superficial ambitions of mothers shine through. Wharton depicts the mothers as selfish, narcissistic, and self-absorbed, generating lifelong issues for their offspring. The offspring of such mothers endure many hardships throughout their lives. In some cases, they remain unhappy and miserable, prompting

Edith’s personal distinctiveness is displayed through her women protagonists as they are inevitably differentiable from their peers. However, Edith “yearned to emulate her mother’s example of beauty and elegance, but even her own good features could not help her overcome her insecurity and her profound conviction that anyone who grew to know her would reject her just as her mother had” (Wharton, xiii). Ultimately, it became evident to Edith that no one else could love her if her mother didn’t love her. In addition, Edith’s relationship with herself and society is displayed throughout her novels. In his article, “Edith Wharton: Peer Groups and Peerless Woman” Schneiderman states, “Wharton, still in her early twenties, was ‘damaged goods’ in the eyes of her New York social set” (Schneiderman

In The Custom of the Country, Paul and Edith exemplify the power of reading and books as a solace in times of loneliness and alienation. Paul grows a fascination with reading and books- “he would have forgotten the long hours and the empty house” (MacNaughton). Similarly, Wharton “as a child, had turned to words and the ritual of “making up” stories to impose order and control on an environment that seemed otherwise unbearably hostile and mysterious” (HoM Wharton xvi). The continuity between the two (Paul and Edith) seems to be their self-absorbed and cold mothers who put their time and energy into materialistic desires rather than their own children; as a result, both found comfort in reading. In her novel The House of Mirth, Edith and Lily Bart both struggle with the high beauty standards their mother enforced on them. Edith’s father, like Lily’s father, both died when they were 19 years old and were extremely influential on