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Essay Comparing The Good Soldier And The House Of Mirth By Edith Wharton

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Both The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford and The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton contribute to the metaphorical barriers, trapping the main characters within a domain that they cannot escape from. Ford and Wharton use their characters to criticize society. In The Good Soldier, almost all of Ford’s characters seem to be trapped in one way or another. One noticeable character of imprisonment to society is Ford’s character John Dowell. John Dowell seems to be haunted by his role of being a servant to the women in his life. On the other hand, in The House of Mirth, Wharton’s character Lily Bart seems to be trapped by society but in a different kind of light. Lily clings on to the edge of the upper social class of society as her grasp is slowly …show more content…

Lily tries to fit within the regulations of society but finds herself struggling to uphold her status in the upper class. After Lily’s Aunt Peniston passes away, Lily struggles with having enough money to attain the social life she currently has. Eventually she finds herself being swallowed by the lower class and is forced to maintain a job and make her own money even though she does not have the skills to do so. In The House of Mirth Lily becomes a type of victim as she is forced to conform to society. With all the different situations thrown at Lily she is forced to respond by taking the situation into her own hands. One example of this is when Bertha Dorset, a seemly friend-like person to Lily, accuses Lily of spending too much time with her husband. Lily cannot oppose to the situation for fear of losing her position in the social class, however she tries to approach the situation in a way she can still maintain her status while also pleasing Bertha. Lily desperately tries to make decisions that will benefit her as a means to keep her social standing, however she cannot uphold her financial position for long and ends up slipping into the working

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Lily’s mother was stripped of her limits by Lily’s father and her sense of independence was gone. As Lily’s mother said, the more she accepted her husband's apologies, the more her tolerance for the abuse went up, which ultimately resulted in Lily’s mother being somewhat of a villain while her father was alive. Lastly, Lily’s dad plays the role of an antagonist perfectly as he shows the reader what a negative force looks like. Lily continuously shows the reader of the book the violent temper and the mental and physical abuse that they had to encounter with Lily's father.

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Lily’s mother is the cause of much of her grief, through her journey she imagines her mother in a way that does not accurately depict who her mother truly was. When she finds out what her mother actually was she, “I stood

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Continuing, another theme that led us through Lily’s adventure of growing up was her discovering how important storytelling was. She was going through gruesome horrid things, and when she read things like Shakespeare she realized how important it was because it helped her escape to a fantasy world for a little bit of time. Lastly, Lily learns the power of the female community. Lily grew up without a mother, so for a large chunk of her life she didn’t know the real power the female community held.

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It forces people to step away from their fate and to go beyond their means to abide by these codes to be socially accepted. Edith Wharton reveals the oppressiveness of society and its effects in relationships through her works. The upper-class society creates an image of perfection to ostracize the mortals. Wharton breaks down the walls of falsehood to emphasize the hypocrisy of that group of people. Ellen, a mortal in this society, expresses her frustration that “the real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend” (Wharton, The Age of Innocence 65).

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Throughout Edith Wharton’s Transcendental novel, Age of Innocence, she creates a complex society based on social norms. During this work, Wharton suggests that power is based on wealth and that an individuals’ potential is limited to some extent by the strict rules of upper class New York society. For instance, the elites of New York refuse to let Ellen Olenska into their society because she is a woman who left her husband. These New Yorkers are worried that they will be breaking the social code by having an outcast as an acquaintance. Ellen’s struggles in fitting into society depicts the fact that one cannot ignore all social norms and be accepted by anyone worried about their own status.

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