The Age of Innocence | Social Concerns
In The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton recreates the world of New York society in the 1870s. This society is both innocent and tyrannical. Even though the ladies and gentlemen who belong to the ruling elite are ignorant of the full range of human emotion and endeavor, they nonetheless expect total submission to the rules and forms of their world. Appearance — the appearance of moral probity and social conformity — is all important: "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...
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