Edith Wharton (1862-1937)

From Norton “Although she was later to write about other subjects, she discovered in The House of Mirth [1905] her central settings, plots, and themes: the old aristocracy of New York in conflict with the nouveau riche, the futile struggle of characters trapped by social forces larger and individuals morally smaller than themselves” (1682-3).

Terms/Ideas How is aristocracy used figuratively? What are the nouveau riche? Does Taiwan have an aristocracy? A nouveau riche? What is a contemporary social force which is larger than the individual? What is an example of a small moral individual?

Setting What are some of the landmarks mentioned in the story? What differences can you suggest between travel to Italy 100 years ago and today?—the title gives you a clue.

View of Rome

Palatine Hill

Roman Forum

Palace of the Caesars

Flavian Amphitheater

Seven Hills of Rome

Seven Hills of Rome

Characters Alida Slade Grace Ansley Delphin Slade Horace Ansley Jenny Slade Barbara Ansley

Social Position What class position do the women occupy? How do we know? What is going on politically in Italy in 1934? What is going on socially in the United States at the same time? Why are these political and social realities absent from the story?

Italy

United States

Towards Modernism We can link writers like Henry James, William Faulkner, and Edith Wharton together (and later Ernest Hemingway). What brings these writers, and their Anglo-Irish contemporaries like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, together?

Two General Problems The problem of narration (and narrators) The problem of time (and how it is constructed or mediated) A third problem arising from these two is the problem of knowledge. How does this clarify the link between the High Modernist authors?

Overview What is the plot—both in the present of the story and in the past?

Narrative Limitations We only get close to two characters: Alida Slade and Grace Ansley. How do these women differ—in physical appearance, self-understanding, motivation, psychology, etc.? Consider their dialogue on pages one and two—the contrast between what is said and thought.

Passages Perceptions Contrasts Irony: 2 Social position: 3 Boredom: generally Narrative veracity: 4 Contrasts Hands: 4 Knitting, “in the face of this”: 4 “the great accumulated wreckage of passion and splendor at her feet”: 5

Applications We have to distinguish between what the characters think and what they say. We have to distinguish between the women’s personalities and the distortions these introduce. We have to allow for the reconstruction of the past through memory. We have to consider Wharton’s intention as mediated through tone.

Chronology and Focalization How is the timeline interrupted? What is the function of the long flashback (2-3), including the character we get it from? How does focalization change? What effect does its reversal have (4)? How does this compare with Faulkner? How would you characterize the narrator’s voice, or possibly this should be narrators’ voices? Is there in fact a plot to the story?

Remark What does this line mean: “So these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope.”

Symbols and Roman Fever How might Rome function as a symbol? Does the symbolic quality change over time, just as the notion of Roman fever changes? Note that Roman fever probably refers to more than one thing—a more or less literal common meaning, and a meaning connected specifically to the story. passage: 4

Memory and Forgetting This story is not only about memory, but also about forgetting. How does this, or its pretence, function in the story? passage: 6-7

Ironic Knowledge Why is the revelation made by Mrs. Slade ironic? [passage: 8-9] How does the irony increase through what we learn from Mrs. Ansley? Is Mrs. Ansley’s response a “victory” over her rival? Is it contrary to how we have been conditioned to understand her (and what is the source of this knowledge)?

Inheritance What is inheritance? Or, what does it mean to inherit something? What range of meanings arise? Note connotative possibilities: positive, negative, neutral meanings.

Wharton’s Purpose Is Wharton criticizing conventions? Is she criticizing either woman? How might these problems be kept alive in the next generation (or is that suggested—note the “close” relation between the daughters who are described somewhat as unequal in their attainments)?

World War I 1. When did World War I begin and end? When did the United States get involved? 2. What is trench warfare? What were some differences between the fighting in World War I and previous wars (e.g. new technologies)? 4. Why did Russia leave the War in 1917? 5. What was the League of Nations? 6. Why was the Treaty of Versailles harsh?

Tanks

Poison Gas

Airplanes

Vladimir Lenin

Signing the Treaty of Versailles (1919)

League of Nations, 1932

The 1920s 1. What is nativism? What fueled nativist prejudices in the 1920s? What reasons were offered against immigration during this period? 2. What were the events in the Sacco-Vanzetti case? 3. What is eugenics? 4. What were (are!) some of the aims of the Ku Klux Klan? 5. How did the Emergency Quota Act and National Origins Act of 1924 limit immigration? How did it affect the Mexican labor supply?

Nicola Saccho and Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Two Eugenicists

The 1920s 6. What sorts of changes occurred for some women during the 1920s? 7. Why did some believe the 1920s was a period of moral decline? How did Fundamentalism address these concerns? 8. What was the conflict at the center of the Scopes Trial? 9. When was Prohibition in effect? What were some consequences of Prohibition?

Women in the Workforce

Women in the Workforce

Flappers

Billie Sunday

Fundamentalist Revival

John Scopes and Charles Darwin

Clarence Darrow/William Jennings Bryan

Speakeasy

Al Capone

Prohibition Violence

Prohibition Violence

Black Experience 1. What does the Great Migration refer to? 2. Who were some figures in the Harlem Renaissance?

Harlem in Manhattan

Harlem

Cotton Club

Duke Ellington

Louis Armstrong

Langston Hughes

Zora Neale Hurston

Bessie Smith

For Next Time Read: Hemingway, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”