Water Imagery In The House Of Mirth

In this article, Gabler-Hover and Plate talks about how Lily must follow what social construct wants her to be. She is represented as a male gaze but Lily attempts to move “beyond” the patriarchal values. As Lily tries to survive in this patriarchy world, “Trenor comes close to raping Lily after getting her into his home under false pretenses.” Women were meant to serve male desire, but Gabler-Hover and Plate state that the “language in The House of Mirth (for Lily) is controlled by men. Thus, she is blocked from fulfilling her desires. Her blockage from success is represented in Wharton’s water imagery that refers to drowning. “Water imagery in The House of Mirth symbolizes social regression in a Darwinian sense, most vividly represented in the thoughts of Lily’s aunt, Mrs. Peniston:

Lily is trained by her mother to believe that wealth is happiness. She strives to have the “material advantages of good food and expensive clothing” but can’t do it alone. Therefore, she goes on a hunt for a rich husband. However, along the way, she encounters Trenor and her charm is misinterpreted. He feels that she will give in to having an affair with him for the money he had loan her and all of a sudden she feels weak and defenseless. Lily’s sudden flood of cash from Trenor is actually her drowning in sexual debt. Lily’s pureness can’t remain “noble” in escaping social judgment while being friends with a married man. Vanderlaan explains that her innocence is represented in this quote “Over and over the sea of humiliation broke—wave crashing on wave so close that the moral shame was one with the physical dread” (154). Vanderlaan’s insights help support my thesis with the explanation of how society caused Lily to feel washed out and caused the author to use water imagery. This article explains why and how Lily feels that she feels like she is in a “sea of humiliation” with “wave crashing on