The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, published in 1920, offers a rich portrayal of New York society through the eyes of Edith Wharton.
This classic novel delves into the intricacies of upper-class life, exploring themes of love, duty, and social expectations in the Gilded Age. As we take a deep dive into Wharton’s masterful depiction, we’ll uncover the complex characters, the rigid social codes, and the enduring relevance of this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
Whether you’re revisiting this literary gem or discovering it for the first time, our exploration will provide fresh insights into Wharton’s timeless critique of high society.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Edith Wharton was already a successful novelist when she completed The Age of Innocence in 1920. The novel, set in late 19th-century New York society, became a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize the following year, making Wharton the first woman to receive this high literary honour. The book is both nostalgic and satirical in its depiction of old New York, with its often stifling conventions and manners and its insistence on propriety.
Wharton had written about old New York before in The House of Mirth (1905) and The Custom of the Country (1913), but in The Age of Innocence she is less caustic in her criticism of its culture. Having worked diligently in relief efforts during World War I, Wharton recalled her formative years in New York society as a time of stability, even though that stability was the product of strict adherence to accepted rules of conduct.
Wharton’s writing in The Age of Innocence is frequently compared to that of her friend Henry James, especially his novel The Portrait of a Lady, because of similarities in the two writers’ styles. Indeed, it is worth reading both novels in order to compare James’s point of view to Wharton’s distinctly feminine sensibility.
The Age of Innocence is both a skilled portrait of the struggle between individual and community, and an exploration of the dangers and liberties of change as a society moves from a familiar, traditional culture to one that is less formal and affords its members greater freedom. The novel’s longevity is generally attributed to its presentation of such universal concerns as women’s changing roles, the importance of family in a civilized society, and the universal conflict between passion and duty.
Plot Summary
A. Book 1: Chapters 1–9
The novel opens as members of old New York society gather at the opera.
Although they have not come to the opera together, Newland Archer rests his gaze on his fiancée, May Welland. He considers her innocence and how he will educate and enlighten her, so that she can become his ideal woman. A stir is created when May’s cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, arrives in the Wellands’s box. She had married a Polish Count and lived in Europe until she left her husband, reportedly with his secretary. By inviting her to their opera box, the Wellands knowingly risk becoming the subject of gossip.
Newland thinks about the Welland family matriarch, Catherine Mingott, who is a powerful figure in New York society. Catherine is an enormous woman, whose weight prevents her from leaving her house. Still, she is a respected and animated member of her community.
During the intermission, Newland visits May in her family’s box, as a show of support in light of the scandalous appearance of Ellen. He suggests that they announce their engagement straight away to restore dignity to the Welland family. After a brief conversation with Ellen, Newland is intrigued by her lack of regard for the rules and conventions of New York society.
Regina and Julius Beaufort host a ball after the opera, where Newland and May announce their engagement. The newly engaged couple visits Catherine to seek her blessing, and as they are leaving her house, Ellen arrives with Julius Beaufort. Newland concludes that Ellen’s European experience has rendered her unaware of the social impropriety of her behaviour.
May’s parents plan a dinner to serve as the formal introduction of Ellen. When almost everyone refuses to attend, the van der Luydens, an elderly, aristocratic couple, respond by inviting Ellen to their home for a formal reception.
The couple are the model of propriety, and New York society follows their lead. At the reception, Newland again talks to Ellen and is drawn to her. He visits her the next day and she admits her loneliness. Newland is sympathetic towards her and aware of being anxious in her presence.
B. Book 1: Chapters 10–17
As a lawyer, Newland is asked to help convince Ellen not to divorce her husband.
Despite his opinion that she should be free to do as she wishes, he agrees and explains to her that although the law may support her divorce, New York society will not. While she may be happier divorced, her happiness will come at a cost to her family. Resigned, she agrees not to pursue the matter.
May and her family go to St Augustine for the winter, and Newland sees Ellen at the opera. Soon after, he discovers that she has gone away with the van der Luydens to Skuytercliff, so he follows her. Once there, he finds Ellen and they speak in private until, to their surprise, Julius arrives. Newland realizes then that Julius is pursuing Ellen romantically, and he returns to New York. When Ellen sends a note asking to see him, he instead leaves for St Augustine.
Newland asks May to agree to bring forward their wedding date. May suggests that he is only asking because he loves another woman and is impatient to do the honourable thing. She adds that if he does truly love someone else, she will step aside for his sake. Newland denies loving anyone but her.
Returning to New York, Newland visits Catherine to persuade her to allow the wedding to be hastened. She agrees.
Newland visits Ellen the next evening. He tells her that she is the woman he should be marrying, if it were possible. They kiss, but when Newland offers to leave May, Ellen will not hear of it. She has learned from him that it is wrong to gain happiness at the expense of others.
C. Book 2: Chapters 19–26
May and Newland marry and go to an estate near Skuytercliff for their wedding night.
While in London on their honeymoon, Newland meets a French tutor, Monsieur Rivière, who inquires about opportunities in New York. Newland realizes sadly that there is nothing for an intellectual like Rivière in New York.
After returning home, Newland hears that Ellen has gone to Boston, so he lies about a business trip in order to see her. She is surprised to see him and explains that she has just met her husband’s emissary. Although he offered a great deal of money for her to return, she rejected it. Newland and Ellen go to lunch, where he bemoans the fact that he married May because Ellen told him to do so. She agrees to their remaining close as long as they never do anything to hurt May.
Back in New York, Newland runs into Rivière, who reveals that he was the emissary sent by the Count to speak to Ellen. After a very tense discussion, the men realize that neither of them thinks it is in her best interest to return to Poland. Newland secretly wonders if Rivière is the secretary with whom Ellen was reported to have run away.
At Thanksgiving, everyone discusses rumours of Julius’ financial problems. Next, they gossip about Ellen, who has gone to Washington. When Sillerton Jackson suggests that Ellen is being “kept” by Julius, and therefore will be in dire straits should he lose his money, Newland becomes enraged. At home, Newland tells May that he has business in Washington. She assents to his leaving, adding that he should be sure to see Ellen while he is there, thus letting him know that she is aware of his real reason for making the trip.
D. Book 2: Chapters 27–34
Julius faces financial ruin and public scorn. His wife visits Catherine, the head of her family, to ask for help, but she is rejected. Catherine then suffers a mild stroke, after which she sends for Ellen. Newland cancels his Washington trip and offers to pick Ellen up from the station. In the carriage, he speaks openly of how he longs to find a way for them to be together. When she responds with talk of reality rather than dreams, he gets out of the carriage to walk home.
Catherine’s condition improves, and she sends for Newland. She explains that Ellen has agreed to stay and take care of her, and she wants Newland to defend Ellen to the family. Thinking that Ellen has agreed to stay in order to be closer to him, he agrees.
Newland and Ellen meet at a museum. They talk of their helplessness in their situation, and Ellen insists that they must not fall into the common trap of having an affair. That night, May is in good spirits and tells her husband that she visited Catherine and, while there, had a nice talk with Ellen.
A few nights later, Newland prepares to tell May about his feelings for Ellen. May interrupts and tells him that whatever he has to say makes no difference, since Ellen has decided to leave for Paris. Newland decides that he will follow her.
May hosts an elaborate going-away dinner for Ellen. Although Newland does not have the opportunity to talk to Ellen privately before she is driven home, he resolves to go through with his plan. After the guests have gone, he tells May that he has decided to travel. She responds by telling him that she will be unable to go with him because she is pregnant.
She admits that two weeks before, when she reported having such a good talk with Ellen, May had told Ellen she was pregnant, even though she was not yet sure of it.
The novel’s last chapter takes place 26 years later. May has borne Newland three children (two boys and a girl) and has died of pneumonia two years previously. Newland has lived an honourable life, all the while harbouring memories of Ellen. Called to Paris on business, Newland’s elder son, Dallas, insists that his father accompany him.
There, Dallas arranges for a meeting with Ellen. In a frank conversation, Dallas admits that he knows something of his father’s past with Ellen, as May had revealed to him that Newland had given up the thing he wanted most in favour of his family.
When Newland and Dallas approach Ellen’s building, Newland tells Dallas to go in without him. Dallas asks what he should tell Ellen, and Newland responds, “Say I’m old-fashioned: that’s enough.” As Newland sits outside the building, he imagines the meeting going on inside and determines not to go in. He walks back to his hotel.
Characters
A. Janey Archer
Janey is Newland’s unmarried sister. She lives with her mother and Newland. She and her mother grow ferns, do needlework and seek out the latest gossip.
B. Mrs Archer
Mrs Archer is Newland’s widowed mother. She and her daughter share a room upstairs so that Newland can enjoy having more space to himself downstairs. Mrs Archer follows social rules and manners to the letter, and tries to protect her daughter from certain topics because she is unmarried.
C. Newland Archer
The main character of the novel, Newland Archer is a young man who has grown up in New York society.
He lives with his widowed mother and his unmarried sister, and is engaged to May Welland. Seeing her as an innocent, he imagines that he will educate her and show her the ways of the world. Newland fancies himself to be erudite and well-educated, not realizing how much his own thoughts and experiences are limited by his immediate environment. In Chapter 1, Wharton writes:
In matters intellectual and artistic Newland Archer felt himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New York gentility; he had probably read more, thought more, and even seen a good deal more of the world, than any other man of the number.
Newland has a position as a lawyer but is not at all serious about his career. This is common in the society depicted, among young men whose families are wealthy.
When he meets Countess Ellen Olenska, Newland is drawn to her mysterious and unconventional ways. She helps him see the artifice of old New York, as he helps her understand the complex demands of decorum. He falls in love with her, but their love is doomed by propriety and responsibility. His struggle is essentially between his individual desires and the good of his community and family.
Newland chooses to stay with his wife, who is pregnant with their first child, but holds on to his memories and fantasies of what might have been. He creates a pleasant life for himself and his family, and even dabbles in politics at the insistence of Theodore Roosevelt.
Twenty-six years later, he is a widower and finds himself in Paris, where Ellen is living. Faced with the opportunity to meet her and possibly renew their romance, he decides not to see her.
D. Julius Beaufort
Julius was not born into New York society but is accepted because he has married into a respectable family. The details of his past are shady, a fact that is overlooked once he is a member of high society. His importance in the social arena is strengthened by the fact that he and his wife have the only private ballroom in their community.
The annual ball becomes a major social event, and this is where May and Newland announce their engagement. For a short time, Julius pursues Ellen to be his mistress, but she is not interested.
When Julius’ unscrupulous business dealings become public knowledge, he and his wife are quickly shunned by society. At the end of the book, Newland’s son Dallas is engaged to marry the daughter of Julius and his second wife. The narrator notes that although Julius’ ruin was a major event in its time, years later it is barely remembered.
E. Regina Beaufort
Regina is a relative of Catherine, head of the Mingott-Welland family. She marries Julius for the unconventional reason that he has recently become a millionaire. Regina’s peers take a little time to accept her husband because he is considered an outsider.
Regina is beautiful but indecisive, and ignorant of her husband’s financial decisions. When Julius’ business dealings cause their ruin, Regina visits her mother to ask for help, but she is refused. Catherine tells her that a wife’s place is with her husband, in honour or dishonour.
F. Sillerton Jackson
Jackson is a bachelor who lives with his sister, Sophy. He has an incredible memory for old gossip and New York families. He is uniquely able to understand how all the pieces of history fit into the sprawling family trees of the upper class. He fails to recognize the goodness and decency in his fellow New Yorkers because he is caught up in gossip.
G. Lawrence Lefferts
Lefferts is New York’s expert on good taste. He often lectures on the virtues of marital fidelity, even though everyone knows about his numerous affairs. Like Jackson, he prefers to focus on negative gossip rather than on the positive aspects of their social culture.
H. Medora Manson
Medora is Ellen’s eccentric aunt, who took care of her orphaned niece throughout Ellen’s childhood. Medora has been repeatedly widowed and her resources are almost spent, but these misfortunes have no effect on her lively and engaging spirit.
I. Catherine Mingott
Formerly, Catherine Spicer of Staten Island, Catherine is the Mingott-Welland family matriarch. Widowed at the age of 28, she lives in a slightly unconventional house, which she never leaves because her obesity will not allow it. Despite her tendency to thumb her nose at established rules, she holds a great deal of social power in her family.
The most important thing to her is the integrity of her family, and she is vocal in her criticisms and blessings. Unlike the rest of the family, Catherine likes Ellen very much, and is sympathetic to her.
J. Countess Ellen Olenska
Ellen is May’s mysterious cousin, who arrives in New York and creates a stir merely by attending the opera. After marrying a Polish count and living in Europe for a number of years, she has determined that her husband is too much of a scoundrel to bear.
She has left him, apparently with the help of his secretary, and has returned to New York to seek a divorce. In light of the rules of propriety, her situation is scandalous and risks the good name of her family. In contrast to May, Ellen represents sophistication, worldliness, and tragedy.
Having lived outside the New York milieu, Ellen has acquired “Bohemian” tastes, and she has become an independent woman. Her disregard for New York rules of conduct intrigues Newland, who is sent to talk her out of pursuing the divorce. They begin to spend time together, and realize they are passionately in love with each other.
Ellen is unwilling to bring pain to her cousin May, however, so she refuses to run away with Newland. When May tells her she is pregnant, Ellen decides to go to Europe and cease being a distraction to Newland.
K. Monsieur Rivière
Newland meets Monsieur Rivière, a French tutor, while he and May are travelling in London on their honeymoon.
Later, Rivière shows up in New York, telling Newland that he was sent by Ellen’s husband to try to convince her to return to Poland. It is an odd twist of fate, but Newland is most interested to know if Rivière is the secretary with whom Ellen was reported to have run away. The answer is never made clear.
L. Mrs Thorley Rushworth
A few years prior to the events of the novel, Newland had an affair with Mrs Rushworth, a married woman. While the affair in no way marred his reputation, public knowledge of it tarnished her good name. The narrator describes her as “silly” and imagines that she was taken more with the secrecy of the affair than with Newland’s charms.
M. Louisa van der Luyden
Louisa and her husband are the last of the true aristocrats living in New York. Their roots are European and their influence is great, despite their lack of socializing. When Ellen has been disgraced, Mrs Archer pleads her case to the van der Luydens, who come to her rescue and encourage the other members of society to accept her.
N. May Welland
May is the sum of her New York society upbringing.
She is beautiful, proper, and innocent. Although she enjoys “masculine” activities, such as sports, she is determined to be a perfect wife to Newland. May seems childlike and carefree, but the reader soon realizes that she is more knowledgeable about the complexities of relationships than Newland is. She knows that he will conform to the dictates of their community, and she uses this to manipulate him.
Afraid of losing him to Ellen, her cousin, she tells Ellen that she is pregnant, knowing that Ellen is a decent and honourable person who would never allow herself to be the reason Newland left his wife and baby. She reveals her pregnancy to Newland just as she senses he is preparing to leave her.
May and Newland eventually have three children together. May dies of pneumonia having cared for their son, who recovers from the illness. After her death, Newland discovers that she knew of his love for Ellen, and had told their elder son that Newland had given up the thing he most wanted for the good of the family. As was proper, however, she never brought up the subject with her husband.
O. Ned Winsett
A friend of Newland’s, Ned is an impoverished journalist who provides Newland with intelligent conversation and new ideas. Ned encourages Newland to go into politics, but Newland finds the idea laughable until he is much older.
Themes
A. Propriety and Decorum
The Age of Innocence is a detailed portrayal of social conventions and respectability in late 19th-century high society.
Newland has grown up in this environment and has internalized all the manners that dictate behaviour in old New York. Even intimate matters are subject to rules of etiquette, such as when May lets Newland guess that she cares for him—the only declaration of love allowed a young unmarried woman.
Gossiping is completely acceptable, yet members of society strive to uphold, above all things, their own reputations. Sillerton Jackson and Lawrence Lefferts are held up as experts on New York’s family trees, proper form, and good taste.
Every event in old New York is subject to ritual. When May and Newland are engaged, they must make a series of social calls.
On his wedding day, Newland wonders what flaws Lawrence Lefferts will find in the event. As Ellen prepares to leave for Paris, May hosts a formal dinner in her honour.
As May and Newland’s first occasion for entertaining on such a scale, the dinner is a milestone for them. At the same time, it serves an important social function, as Wharton writes in Chapter 33: “There were certain things that had to be done, and if done at all, done handsomely and thoroughly; and one of these, in the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe.”
The novel’s conclusion shows Newland refusing to see Ellen, even though they are both free to be together at last.
Some critics argue that Newland’s sense of decorum is so deeply ingrained that he cannot bring himself to realize the fantasy he has carried around for so many years. James W. Tuttleton, writing in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume Twelve: American Realists and Naturalists, states that Newland forgoes the chance to have a romantic relationship with Ellen “out of respect for the memory of his marriage”.
Even as a widower, and even as the strict rules of conduct are passing out of style, Newland cannot bring himself to make decisions outside the parameters of propriety that have governed his life.
It seems that things are as they were in Chapter 1, where the narrator remarks that “what was or was not ‘the thing’ played a part as important in Newland Archer’s New York as the inscrutable totem terrors that had ruled the destinies of his forefathers thousands of years ago”.
B. The Role of Women
The contrast between Ellen and May is sharp. May is the pure and beautiful product of old New York and all of its elements.
After she and Newland are married, he often observes how she is quickly becoming a younger version of her mother. May represents traditional womanhood in the New York social system.
On the other hand, Ellen has been absent from New York for quite some time, and her time in Europe has changed her. She relies on Newland to help her navigate the treacherous social waters in which she finds herself on her scandal-ridden return. She is mysterious and exotic, yet accessible. Unlike the other women in the community, Ellen has had experiences that are hers alone, not shared by an entire social set.
She views herself differently to how the other New York women view themselves, and as a result, she is seen as a completely different kind of woman.
In his introduction to the novel, Paul Montazzoli observes that a reader may approach the novel not as a romance, but as a “feminist thesis novel”. He remarks: That May is mentally too lumpish a companion for Newland (at least according to his perhaps too-flattering self-image) he acknowledges as the fault of the old New York patriarchy that formed her. Ironically, Newland himself is a pillar of this patriarchy, with a few cracks here and there through which the charms of Ellen gain entrance.
That rumours of an affair in Ellen’s past damage her socially, while equivalent rumours about Newland damage him not at all, strikingly illustrates the double standard.
In the novel’s setting, women, though their roles are slowly expanding, are still subject to such double standards. In Chapter 7, Newland expresses his view that women should be as free as men are. Wharton adds: “Nice” women, however, wronged, would never claim the kind of freedom he meant, and generous-minded men like himself were therefore—in the heat of the argument—the more chivalrously ready to concede it to them.
C. The Individual and Society
Newland desperately wants to follow his heart and be with Ellen, but society would never accept such a decision.
He is divided, but ultimately cannot abandon the conventions and expectations of the only society he has ever known. When he decides to run away to Europe with Ellen, May announces her pregnancy, and he knows that this turn of events seals his fate.
He would never be such a cad as to abandon his wife and baby, so he learns to accept the life that is laid out before him. For the good of his family and social acceptance, he sacrifices his passion for Ellen. In his introduction to Edith Wharton: Modern Critical Views, noted literary scholar Harold Bloom observes that “Newland’s world centres upon an idea of order, a convention that stifles passion and yet liberates from chaos”.
Similarly, Ellen returns to New York at the beginning of the novel, expecting to file for divorce. She discovers, however, that New York will shun her unless she stays married to the Count.
Newland is sent to advise her, and he explains that her happiness must be secondary to the consequences that will be felt by her family if she disgraces them by divorcing. She unhappily agrees to stay married, even if she does not return to her husband.
D. Artifice
The reader soon learns that in old New York, reality is less relevant than appearance.
In Chapter 6, Wharton writes: “In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.” Careful phrasing, wearing appropriate clothing, and maintaining the illusion of a happy marriage are all examples of the habits adopted by members of New York society.
As long as Julius keeps up the appearance of being financially responsible (even when everyone knows there are questionable details of his past), he is accepted, but as soon as his shady dealings become public, he and his wife are outcasts. Lawrence Lefferts, meanwhile, waves the banner of marital faithfulness in public, despite the fact that everyone is aware of his numerous love affairs.
In her book The Female Intruder in the Novels of Edith Wharton, Carol Wershoven comments: “It is therefore not marital fidelity that is a value in New York, but rather the appearance of it.”
Newland realizes after May’s death that, in carrying out her role as wife, she maintained her own facade.
He never knew that she understood the sacrifice he made in not following Ellen, and he is touched that she was sympathetic. Early in their marriage, May’s interactions with Newland reveal a degree of artifice. She is fully aware of her husband’s love for another woman, but rather than admit this openly, she pretends to be unaware, while at the same time saying seemingly innocent things to him that are understood by both parties as challenging. When Newland tells her he is going to Washington for business, for example, May knows he is going to see Ellen.
When she tells him to be sure to see Ellen while he is there, they both know she is communicating that she knows why he is going and expects him to behave honourably.
Literary Style
A. Setting
The setting is so dominant an element in The Age of Innocence that it almost becomes a character. Through detail and lush description, Wharton brings to life the social world of the wealthy in 1870s New York.
The environment is so critical to the work that Wharton opens the novel with a grand scene in which everyone is dressed in their finery for the opera. This immediately alerts the reader to the novel’s dramatic setting.
As the modern reader is unfamiliar with the “trappings” of old New York, details of the carriages, visiting practices, and attire provide a much-needed context for the story. James W. Tuttleton in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume Twelve: American Realists and Naturalists comments, however, that modern readers are less interested in the details of daily life in old New York than they are in “the spiritual portrait of the age”, which is another component of the setting.
The society depicted is closed to outsiders and revels in its elite membership.
Carol Wershoven in The Female Intruder in the Novels of Edith Wharton notes that the elimination of “undesirables” from the social circle is the product of a fear of reality. In this closed community, matters of reputation, manners, and decorum are valued highly, and the dignity of one’s family name is of extreme importance.
Every event, from a wedding to a night at the opera, is subject to the rigours of propriety. When May and Newland announce their engagement, they are expected to make a series of social calls because the “New York ritual was precise and inflexible in such matters”. Subtleties of dress, gesture, and word choice can have enormous consequences, and gossiping is considered acceptable.
This is the environment in which Newland has been brought up and educated, and while he is comfortable in it, he regards it as stifling and narrow-minded.
B. Imagery and Symbolism
Throughout the novel, Wharton employs certain images to provide subtle cues to the reader.
May’s mud-stained and torn wedding dress clearly represents the problems in her marriage to Newland. Anthropological terms such as “clan”, “tribe”, and “totem” draw parallels between the strictly regimented social system of New York and less formal cultures of the past.
Newland’s selection of flowers for May and Ellen provides insight into how he views the two women. To May, he sends pure white lilies-of-the-valley. They represent innocence and simplicity, which are traits he sees in May. On the other hand, he sends intense, fiery-yellow roses to Ellen, which reveals that he sees her as vibrant, sexual, and passionate. When Ellen and Newland are together, the narrator almost always mentions fire.
Whether Newland lays his head on the mantle, a log in the fireplace snaps and flares, or memories burn in Newland’s heart, the image of fire emphasizes their passion.
C. Humour
Known for her sharp wit and subtle use of irony, Wharton is equally capable of using outright exaggeration for the sake of humour.
In her description of Catherine Mingott, one of society’s most respected members, the narrator observes in Chapter 4: The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon.…[In the mirror she saw] an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the centre of which the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation.
Explaining Mrs Archer’s delight at her son’s forthcoming marriage, Wharton writes in Chapter 5 that Newland is entitled to marry someone like May, “but young men are so foolish and incalculable—and some women so ensnaring and unscrupulous—that it was nothing short of a miracle to see one’s only son safe past the Siren Isle and in the haven of a blameless domesticity”.
D. Irony
Wharton uses irony in The Age of Innocence to reveal the hypocrisies she sees in New York society.
When May and her parents go to St Augustine for the winter, Mrs Welland arranges for a group of servants to help them make the best of it. As they all sit down to a sumptuous breakfast, Mr Welland tells Newland, “You see, my dear fellow, we camp—we literally camp.
I tell my wife and May that I want to teach them how to rough it”. Later, in Chapter 26, Mrs Jackson condemns the vanity of wearing extravagant new dresses, when the proper thing is to buy dresses and wait a few years to wear them. She then describes another woman’s dress that she remembers from the previous year, and how a panel has been changed to make it look new.
She apparently cannot see that such minute attention to, and memory of, what ladies wear is exactly what feeds the vanity she berates.
Wharton also uses irony to make her main character, Newland Archer, especially tragic. Early in the novel he is sent to talk Ellen Olenska out of pursuing a divorce.
Although he believes she should be allowed to make her own decisions, he agrees and explains to her that by getting a divorce, she would be buying her happiness and freedom with her family’s pain. Later in the story, he falls in love with Ellen, but she is unwilling to be with him because doing so would deeply hurt Newland’s wife. Newland has taught Ellen not to pursue happiness at the expense of others, and that lesson returns to haunt him.
It is also ironic that Newland is pressured by May’s family to approach Ellen about her divorce and support her.
It is because of May’s family that he gets to know Ellen, and it is because of her and her family that he cannot have a romantic relationship with Ellen.
Irony is used for comedy as well as tragedy. In the midst of a dramatic scene between May and Newland in Chapter 10, Newland is trying to convince her that they should move forward their wedding date, and she flippantly remarks that maybe they should elope.
When he responds favourably to this idea, she responds: “We can’t behave like people in novels, though, can we?” Of course, they are people in a novel, and this is Wharton’s use of tongue-in-cheek comic relief in an otherwise tense scene.
Historical Context
A. Wealth in the North
After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the South was in ruins, economically and structurally, but the North flourished.
While wealth in the South declined by 60 per cent, wealth in the North increased by 50 per cent. As a result, there was a growing class of wealthy New Yorkers in the 1870s. This trend is represented by the character of Julius Beaufort, who has become a millionaire. Although the tight social circle of New York does not favour outsiders, he is allowed in by virtue of his marriage to Regina Mingott, a member of a very respectable family.
As people in the North gathered wealth, New York became especially showy. The upper class enjoyed attending the theatre and the opera and hosting extravagant parties. A woman named Mrs Stuyvesant Fish held a dinner party in New York to honour her dog, who arrived at the party wearing a US$15,000 diamond collar.
In The Age of Innocence, this lifestyle is depicted in the lavish parties and luxuries the wealthy enjoy.
As the century came to a close most of the wealth was concentrated in the upper class, which led to a corresponding growth in the lower class. Forced to work in sweatshops, factories, and mills, the underprivileged resented the lifestyle of the wealthy. Strikes and riots broke out and political corruption became rampant.
B. High Society
The Age of Innocence takes place during the last breath of New York high society, although its members did not sense the dramatic changes coming their way.
They gathered at the opera house, and they relied on an accepted canon of rules and conventions to direct their behaviour. They flaunted their wealth and talked behind each other’s backs, but remained respectful of convention. There were strict expectations regarding appropriate attire, events, home decor, and marriage.
C. Women
Although powerful in social terms, society women were dependent on men to provide for them.
If a woman came from a wealthy family, she might be fortunate enough to have a sum of money to contribute to the marriage, but women expected their husbands to take care of all of their material needs. Women were expected to behave in certain ways, especially in the upper class. They were to master domestic skills, such as needlework, and they were never to challenge men or be unpleasant.
A virtuous woman was one who was pretty, elegant, and compliant. In The Age of Innocence, May represents the New York society ideal, while Ellen hints at the strides being made for female independence outside the tightly knit New York community.
In 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association. Even before the Civil War, women had begun to assemble and demand to be heard. At the time when Wharton’s novel is set (1872), the women’s movement had begun, although it had not reached the closed-off world of New York society. In fact, in 1872, Anthony went to the polls in Rochester, New York, demanding to be allowed to vote. Clearly, change within the traditional New York system was imminent.
Related Works
Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady (1881) is the story of Isabel Archer, a young American woman who comes into wealth and leaves for Europe, where she will test her mettle. This novel is considered by many to have been an inspiration for The Age of Innocence.
Wharton’s The House of Mirth (1905) vies with The Age of Innocence as Wharton’s best work. Like The Age of Innocence, this novel is set in late 19th-century New York; here, however, she portrays Lily Bart’s fall from social grace.
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) is a classic novel of manners. Featuring one of literature’s most memorable heroines, Elizabeth Bennet, the novel depicts the struggles of romance in a time dictated by manners and class structures.
Published in 1995, The Gilded Age: Essays on the Origins of Modern America, edited by Charles W. Calhoun, is a collection of essays about the United States between 1865 and 1898. Topics include politics, women, law, and the African-American experience.
About Edith Wharton
Edith Newbold Jones was born to a wealthy family in New York on January 24, 1862, and soon learned the manners and traditions of society life that would characterize her fiction.
Her family lived in Europe for much of her childhood, so she was educated abroad and privately. She enjoyed travel and reading from a young age, and while her parents supported these interests, they disapproved of her ambitions to become an author. Her lifelong love of books, foreign places, and nature would figure in her successful career as a writer. Biographers depict her as a lively, congenial woman who made friends easily. This may account for her friendships with such notable men as the author Henry James and politician Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1885, she married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, a banker who was 13 years her senior.
They lived in New York; Newport, Rhode Island; and Lenox, Massachusetts; and travelled to Europe regularly. As she became more serious about her writing, Wharton designed and built a home in Lenox, called “The Mount”, as a writer’s retreat. From 1900 to 1911, she often went there to escape social pressures and immerse herself in undistracted writing. Her marriage was unhappy, however, and because Teddy had numerous affairs, embezzled her money, and struggled with mental illness, Wharton divorced him in 1913.
Wharton was independent and never remarried, although rumours persist about two important men in her life who may have been her lovers.
Published in 1905, The House of Mirth was Wharton’s first critically acclaimed novel.
By this time, she had become a good friend of Henry James, and she followed in his footsteps and became an expatriate in Paris, enjoying extended stays beginning in 1907. When she sold The Mount in 1911, she made Paris her permanent residence. Her talent responded well to the new environment, and she published volumes of short stories and novels, which earned her a faithful following, critical acceptance, and a Pulitzer Prize in 1921 for The Age of Innocence.
In addition to being the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, Wharton was the first woman to be awarded the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. She also received an honorary degree from the prestigious Yale University in 1923, one of the few occasions that brought her back to the United States.
Wharton died of a heart attack in France on August 11, 1937.
