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Men And Women In Edith Wharton's The Age Of Innocence

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Is love worth everything? In The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton explores this question against the background of 1870s New York society. Edith Wharton published this novel as a four-part series in a newspaper, and it is considered one of her most notable works. In fact, she became the first woman to win the Pultizer Prize for this novel. In the Edith Wharton shows the significant force that society plays on the individual in the upper class wealthy families of this time period. Expectations of society were the most important aspect of life for these families; personal desires were secondary to the common good of the society. In addition, there were differences in the roles of men and women; men were allowed more freedoms than women, although, …show more content…

She had two brothers named Frederic Rhinelander and Henry Edward Jones they went by Freddie and Harry. They both went to boarding school so they spent a lot of time away from home which left Edith to be raised like a single child. (Edith Wharton) When she would start writing she called it “making-up” even though her parents didn’t support her writing they had a change of heart when someone suggested her work be published in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine. (Edith Wharton) Edith was raised by do’s and don’ts and manners were always expected. Her lifestyle from the beginning was about her taste and the snobbiness of the social class she was brought in. (Edith Wharton) She didn’t attend school she was taught from home by her tutors she learned German, French, and Italian. As a child she loved reading books from her dad's library and read the work of many famous people for example William Shakespeare and John Keats.(Edith Wharton) She was raised in a mansion and since both sides of her family had money they never was without. The family was always taking trips to and from Europe. (Edith Wharton) She spent all of her time studying and reading and was very shy so she didn’t really fit in at the age of 17. Her parents wanted her to make her mark because she was successful. (Edith Wharton) Edith started becoming very popular and began writing a

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Marie grew up with her parents having a troubled relationship. Her dad was a violent alcoholic who beat her mother, and her mom was violet to the kids. At the age of 5, she got scarlet fever which leads her later on in life to have learning disabilities. This caused her to drop out of school at the age of 12.

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At first when she was asked what she considers her personality to be, she expressed that she sees herself as more of an introvert, but enjoys lengthy conversation if someone is willing to initially converse with her. Once she was asked various questions on some of her 'likes ' and 'dislikes ', one would find out: her favorite food is anything Mexican, her favorite soda is Sprite and her favorite kind of music is rock. There are many aspects of her life one could learn about Edith if someone takes the time to show interest in it, one has the ability to discover: her family 's heritage, her adolescent accomplishments, and her future goals. Edith attended Chaparral High School and throughout her high school experience she demonstrated her fierce athleticism by participating in both the basketball and

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The letters she would often write to her husband became very popular, it showed how he supported her ideas and gave him some advice on what he can do with handling his political

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Jane Addams life as a child was not easy, she had a congenital spinal defect which led to her never being physically strong and her father who served for sixteen years as a state senator and fought as an officer in the Civil War always showed that his thoughts of women were that they were weak, and especially her with her condition. But besides that she lived a very privileged life since her father had many famous friends like the president Abraham Lincoln. Jane was determined to get a good education which she ended up getting. She went to Rockford sanitary for women which is now called Rockford University and she also studied to be a doctor but had to quit because she was hospitalised too many times. Being sick affected her life very much so when she got older she remedied her spinal defect with surgery.

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In the prologue of Edith Wharton’s novella Ethan Frome, Wharton's style aids the characterization of Ethan Frome. The mood is dark and dreary the setting of Starkfield, Massachusetts during the winter. The sentences are long and leisurely which emphasizes the length of the New England winters. Due to the setting being in Massachusetts, Ethan Frome’s personality is reserved and reticent and he does not feel the need to have constant conversations with the narrator as he escorts him to his destinations. There is also a distinct dialect; for example, Harmon Gow, the “village orator,” pronounces “first” as “fust” and “worth” as “wust.”

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In Edith Wharton’s most remarkable novel, Ethan Frome, the main character, Ethan Frome, is in love with a prohibited woman… his wife's cousin. His wife, Zeena, is a sick woman who has a villainous essence to her and an irrevocable hold on Ethan. Mattie Silver is Zeena’s cousin and the woman Ethan is infatuated with. Through Ethan’s eyes, Mattie is described as youthful, attractive, and graceful basically everything Zeena isn’t.

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1293 Words | 6 Pages

Imagery and Symbolism Edith Wharton creates the novel with a high percentage of imagery and symbolism in one. Some ways she combines both imagery and symbolism together is by a flower. Wharton states, “He had never seen any as sun-golden before, and his first impulse was to send them to May instead of the lilies. But they did not look like her - there was something too rich, too strong, in their fiery beauty”(Wharton).

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Gender roles in the 1900s were expectations that society had to follow in order to have balance. However, women were the ones who carried the weight of the load in the family. In the article "I Want a Wife" by Judy Brady gave an overview of the expectations women had to undergo in society. A wife had to to keep everything in check from the care of the children to having everything prepared and ready, and filling the needs of everyone else.

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As a text seemingly disparate from Edith Wharton’s other novels, scholarship surrounding Summer has tended to focus on gender and power constructions between Mr. Royall and Charity Royall. Recent scholarship, however, has focused on the social and cultural aspects of Summer. Elizabeth Ammons has taken a stark stance, problematizing Wharton’s portrayals of race by reifying normative racial constructions of the early twentieth century (68). Anne MacMaster notes the centrality of racial representations, though they appear to be marginal concerns to the plotline, in Wharton’s other work, The Age of Innocence.

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When she was growing up, she went to San Francisco 's Elite Katherine Branson School for Girls. Her mother was worried that she would never marry because she was always the tallest in her class at 6 feet 3 inches. Which did give her an advantage, because of her interests. She loved to play golf, tennis, loved to hunt, and much more. She always got into trouble because she was a prankster.

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The search for independence can be a tedious task and individuals may go their whole lives looking for it and being unable to find it. This is true for that of Lily Bart in The House of Mirth written by Edith Wharton. Lily is not content with the life she now lives and craves an independent lifestyle where she does not have to rely on others for social and financial support. Yet by further analyzing the text Lily’s search for independence leads to her ultimate demise.

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Another point mentioned would be her loss of her first child. Around the time she lost her child you could imagine she was writing Frankenstein's monster trying to fit in but being shunned; turning to murder while she grieved her dead

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“The Ruined Maid” by Thomas Hardy is a satirical poem which uses closed form and anapestic lines to emphasize the importance of complying with society’s ideals while the tone and meaning oppose conforming to society. The closed form and anapestic lines within “The Ruined Maid” follow the guidelines of their forms closely, creating a feeling of submission to rules. Hardy uses a rhyme scheme of AABB, from which he never falters. This relates to how one might behave if they follow all of the society 's ideals; never veering from the given standards.

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Edith Wharton is an important, though neglected novelist in the history of American literature. Her novels study the status of the women and explore their relationship with men in a male dominated society. Again and again she presents the state of exceptional, rising, ‘New Woman’ of the turn of the century to break out of her compressible role and attempting a venture rebellion. The Age of Innocence is on the theme that deals ironically with the affluent social world of New York. The novel has a theme of entrapment and the struggle of the intruder, both to maintain an adult sense of self in a childish society and to rescue a trapped male from that society.

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