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SCOTT EMMERT (ESSAY DATE AUTUMN 2002)

SOURCE: Emmert, Scott. "Drawing-Room Naturalism in Edith Wharton's Early Short Stories." Journal of the Short Story in English, no. 39 (autumn 2002): 57-71.

In the following essay, Emmert explains the influence of literary naturalism on Wharton's early short stories, showing the connections between the formal elements of short fiction and the deterministic themes of naturalism.

In her biography of Edith Wharton, Cynthia Griffin Wolff discusses the ways in which the nineteenth-century upper-class girl was encouraged to deny her feelings, particularly sexual ones. As a young girl of that class, Wharton was pressured into early self-denial. One of the primary lessons Wharton learned was that "[s]ociety had decreed that 'nice' young women didn't really have feelings to be explained: if you did have feelings—well, then, obviously you...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Primary Sources
   1. Edith Wharton (Novel Date 1905)
4. General Commentary
   1. Linda Wagner-Martin (Essay Date 1996)
   2. Scott Emmert (Essay Date Autumn 2002)
5. Title Commentary
   1. Ethan Frome
6. Further Reading
7. Copyright

1. Feminism
2. Edith Wharton