The House of Mirth- Lily Bart's dilemma

by maro494 (student)

International Baccalaureate World Literature

Henry Wilson

(The House of Mirth)

10/09/2012

From the very beginning of the novel, Lily feels stuck between what she thinks her role in society is and what society has dictated on her. She always had this desire to revolt against this dictatorship of society, but whenever she tries to do so she ends up sabotaging her image by doing things that her society doesn’t approve; Lily lives her entire life putting a lot of focus and effort in meeting her aunt’s upbringing and expectations of her. Lily’s upbringing and training have instructed her that she must work towards the goal of marrying a wealthy man and performing the social activities that are expected of a woman in her social status.

This idea was further demonstrated when Lily had a conversation with Selden as they were having tea together in his apartment after having met at the train station; she says: "My aunt is full of copy-book axioms, but they were all meant to apply to conduct in the early fifties. I always feel that to live up to them would include wearing book-muslin with gigot sleeves. And the other women--my best friends--well, they use me or abuse me; but they don't care a straw what happens to me. I've been about too long--people are getting tired of me; they are beginning to say I ought to marry." (11)

“I am horribly poor- and very expensive. I must have a great deal of money.” (11)

It is clear that Lily is fond of wealth and luxury, she looks down on the means of achieving that- marriage to any man with a huge amount of money. Lily’s morals and the goals she meant to achieve were totally contrasting and I believe that this dilemma was the core motive for all the events that occurred throughout the novel.

During Lily’s meetings with Selden, she gets exposed to Selden’s “republic of spirit” which she thought would allow her to resolve ...

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“I am horribly poor- and very expensive. I must have a great deal of money.” (11)

During Lily’s meetings with Selden, she gets exposed to Selden’s “republic of spirit” which she thought would allow her to resolve this inner conflict between her morals and her goals, and eventually end up a man she truly loves, regardless his wealth or his status. This idea of “republic of spirit” made Lily delve with her thinking and imagine who she could have been if her upbringing and social influences where different. But even that conflicted with the reality she was living and how she perceived her very own intelligence that would have empowered Lily enough to achieve the degree of personal freedom she desired. This idea is validated in one of Lily’s meetings with Selden; she says: “My genius? Is there any final test of genius but success? And I certainly haven’t succeeded.” (67) In the conversation that followed this Lily was asked about her definition of success that she wasn’t sure of but referred to as getting as much as one can from life. I believe that this was the point when Lily realized that she needed to know what exactly she wanted from life- Freedom or a rich husband? Perhaps this question and exposure to Selden’s definition of success which equated personal freedom, was the cause of a lot of distress to Lily and made her feel that she could not make choices that go against her society. The sole purpose of her conditioning and upbringing left her with an insufficient set of skills that were of no help supporting this independent free life she desired to have and help her survive this different way of life. Moreover, Lily became useless for any other way of live; even the fancy world of the upper class where people only care about money and power which she was too fragile.

"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else. What can one do when one finds that one only fits into one hole? One must get back to it or be thrown out into the rubbish heap--and you don't know what it's like in the rubbish heap!” (300) Throughout the novel, I could see an urge by the society that required Lily and women in general to react rather that act. I feel that Lily constantly becomes the victim and everything she attempts to do according to her morals seems to turn against her especially in the framework of her society’s rules.