Edith Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones to parents who had a proud position in, 'a compact realm called Old New York.'

Authors Avatar

Edith Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones to parents who had a proud position in, ‘a compact realm called Old New York.’ Lowe said they were,

‘…a socially secure family that could trace its ancestry back through English and Dutch patricians of New York.’

Although born at a time when New York provided a stifling environment, Wharton grew up refusing to conform to the society to which she belonged. Lowe said:

‘Edith Wharton in many ways was a rebel, even an outcast, and her many novels and tales passionately endorse the struggle to forge one’s identity outside accepted social boundaries.’

World War One came to an end in November 1918 and, almost as soon as the guns fell silent, Wharton began to draft The Age of Innocence. Janet Beer said:

‘Wharton writes to commemorate a past which has been superseded by the cataclysmic social upheavals of the war years.’

Many presume Wharton’s ‘war novel’ was a salutation to the new age that beckoned and a memorial to the age departed. It epitomizes one’s struggle to forge an individual identity.

The Age of Innocence is a classical piece of literature that is loved by critics and readers alike. However, it is not the flamboyant language or the highly stylised structure that engages the reader but the underlying subtext. In The Age of Innocence the unsaid is much more significant that what is said:

‘As he entered the box his eyes met Miss May Welland’s, and he saw that she had instantly understood his motive, though the family dignity which both considered so high a virtue would not permit her to tell him so. The persons of their world lived in an atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies, and the fact that he and she understood each other without a word seemed to the young man to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done’(chapter 2 pg 14)

However, the lack of communication did not in any way lessen the degree to which the standards of New York were adhered to, and, thereby, upheld as if they were carved in the same stone as the Ten Commandments. New York Society did not have much need for religion, other than for rites of passage; the rules of society were to them like rules of a religion. As a woman who was raised in this society, Edith Wharton was able to illustrate with great clarity the influence that the unsaid had when it came to knowing how one should behave if society was to look on them favourably.

 The way in which Wharton writes The Age of Innocence is known as social realism which is writing that realistically depicts a certain segment of society.  Her closest ally among the social realists was Henry James; in philosophy and literary style there were many similarities between the two. There is also a famous story about James giving Wharton significant and
sound literary advice. When he read her novel,
The Valley of
Indecision
, he wrote to her his praise of it, but also suggested that
she should confine herself in her subject matter to New York.
James wrote,
"Do New York! The first-hand account is precious." Although Edith Wharton describes a society that had disappeared in order to make way for the progress of a later age, she both criticizes and applauds the unrecoverable culture that helped to define New York City in the 1870s. Throughout The Age of Innocence, she uses the social interactions and attitudes of Newland Archer and his acquaintances as a means of weighing society itself. New land is the protagonist of the novel and his point of view governs the novels narration. From the beginning of the novel Archer is presented as both an insider ans an outsider of his social world. He is completely aware of the social codes of New York and follows them unquestioningly but he also smiles at them and regards them with a certain amount of tolerant irony. Newland realizes the shallowness and stupidity of New Yorks social behaviours yet participates in them,

Join now!

‘…unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding for English- speaking audiences. This seemed as natural to Newland Archer as all the other conventions in which his life was moulded.’

In the first chapters of the play Newlands contentment in his life is emphasized. He is perfectly happy with his choice for a wife. According to society May is perfect, she is beautiful, innocent, adores Archer and lets him lead her intellectually. In acquiring May as a wife Newland feels she ...

This is a preview of the whole essay