Comparing The Paradoxical Love In The Age Of Innocence

Distant Relationship: The Paradoxical Love in The Age of Innocence Often when two people are in love, the closer they are in distance, the more they are able to display their feelings and enjoy each other’s company. This relationship is typical, and rarely is it that the farther the lovers are, the more they are able to share affection. But in The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, the case of Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska displays the opposite; the farther the two are from each other the more their love seems to and is permitted to grow. Newland is stuck between his wife, May Welland, the perfect image of society, and Ellen Olenska, an outsider who has completely changed Newland’s classic views on his world. He is unable to fully commit

Physically, they are both in New York City, and eventually living in the same home as well, but their minds are in completely different places. May is stuck, like her family and most of New York, with the conformity and perfect structure of society. Her “dullness” and “transparency” contrasts with what Newland is looking for in more new and modern ways. He wants someone different than the perfect mold of society, and in meeting Ellen, Newland realizes that she is what he has been looking for. Later in the novel when he is about to tell May about his relationship with Ellen, he says, “ ‘May-’ he began, standing a few feet from her chair, and looking over at her as if the slight distance between them were an unbridgeable abyss” (Wharton 193). This “unbridgeable abyss” between Newland and May is a void between them that Newland will literally forever be unable to cross. Wharton’s use of the syntax of the “-” emphasizes this distance, separating May from Newland. Though only a few feet away from each other, May and Newland paradoxically seem to be much farther apart; mentally the space between them is much greater than simply a few feet’s distance. Before meeting Ellen, Newland would have been unable to even remotely feel this gap between them, or understand a reason to not love May as he has in the past. But, Ellen displayed

After all they had been through in twenty five years of being apart, Newland is unable to bring himself to see Ellen again. After allowing his son to go see Ellen alone, Newland decides not to meet with her, preserving the images of Ellen from the past rather than allowing a new image to take its place. Though they were so close after so much time, the distance had truly grown too great after living with it for so long. This central paradox is directly addressed by Ellen when she says “‘We’re near each other only if we stay far from each other’” (175). This reality of the situation is the true issue with why they are unable to happily be together. Disregarding their distance, no matter how close or far Ellen and Newland were, there was no action they could take to close their separation. Chained to their own pasts as well as futures, their differences made it impossible to have the dream-like relationship they had always wished for. Through such a paradox, their love would always be