Nov 14, 2009

The House of Mirth | Introduction

While The House of Mirth was only Edith Wharton’s second novel, Cynthia Griffin Wolff points out in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, with it Wharton “emerged as a professionally serious, masterful novelist.” Published in 1905 it had the fastest sales of any of its publishing house’s books at the time. The novel, as well as many of Wharton’s other works, continues to enjoy great success to the present day.

In The House of Mirth, Wharton explores the status of women at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century; indeed, Wolff believes that the novel “echo[es] the many dissatisfactions Wharton felt at this time.” Heroine Lily Bart is a beautiful woman who has been brought up to achieve one goal: marry a wealthy, well-placed man. Although Lily, twenty-nine when the novel opens, has had opportunities to do so, her spirit has always recoiled from taking the step of marrying for money. However, the fate dealt to Lily in life is not spinsterhood but a fall from grace, that is New York’s social circle, which comprises the only world Lily has ever known.

Over the past century, scholars and readers alike have applied numerous interpretations to this complex novel. Upon its initial publication, many readers saw it as a critique of the so-called marriage market. Contemporary scholars, however, have tended to read the novel, and Lily’s actions, with a feminist slant. As Linda Wagner-Martin writes in her study The House of Mirth, “[It] is a key example of a woman’s voice exploring significant women’s themes in a covert manner: fiction as disguise.”

The House of Mirth Summary

Lily in the United States
The House of Mirth opens in New York City as Lily Bart misses the train that was to take her to a house party hosted by her friends Judy and Gus Trenor. She runs into longtime acquaintance Laurence Selden and, despite the impropriety of such actions at the time, accompanies him back to his apartment for a cup of tea. When she finally gets on the train, Lily sees Percy Gryce, who is an imminently marriageable, but dull, man. She pays him a great deal of attention both on the train and at the Trenors. However, just as Percy is on the verge of proposing marriage to her, Lily neglects to keep an engagement with him. Instead, she chooses to take a walk with Selden, who has come down to Bellomont specifically to see her. Selden and Lily are attracted to one another, and Selden makes her feel that her intentions to marry Gryce—indeed, her intentions to marry wealthy—are “hateful.” Lily returns to New York after asking Gus Trenor to help her invest her small income.

Trenor’s financial help pays off immediately for Lily. She earns $10,000 in a short period of time. However, along with Trenor’s financial help come his unwanted attentions, and after he lures Lily back to his house under the pretense of seeing Judy, Lily unhappily discovers that he has been giving her his own money with the expectation that she will have an affair with him. Lily vows to return Trenor’s money, though she does not know where she will get it, as she recognizes the danger of compromising her reputation.

Meanwhile, Lily and Selden have been growing fonder of each other, despite the fact that Lily has come into possession of love letters that Bertha Dorset previously sent Selden. However, the night before Selden’s engagement to see Lily, and perhaps ask her to marry him, he spies Lily fleeing the Trenors’ home. He immediately assumes the worst, that Lily is having an affair with Trenor. Instead of keeping his... » Complete The House of Mirth Summary