In Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, Lily Bart's character change is extremely significant. The change has been made ever so apparent in chapter 14. Throughout the course of this novel, we see Lily change from wanting to marry rich and that aspect of society being her number one priority to having mixed emotions about that life and being who she really is deep down. Now I see that she really could leave pleasing society and remain her own person. Wharton says on page 126, "The fact that her life had never satisfied her proved that she was made for better things. She might have married more than once-the conventional rich marriage which she had been taught to consider the sole of existence- but when the opportunity came she had always shrunk from it."
Lily had been raised to think that marrying into the rich community would save her life. Here, she brings this up as proving my opinion early on that she resents it. Wharton says that Lily could have been married already but had shyed away at every opportunity. I believe this is because she knows she deserves better. Lily knows that once she is married into that life, there is no turning back. I also feel that once she gets married into the riches, she won't want to turn back. That scares Lily the most I think; losing herself to the temptations of other people's opinions. If Lily remains single, and continues to play along, she can pretend that there is still hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment