The House Of Mirth

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by Flaubert, Zola and Balzac, from whom Edith Wharton borrowed her descriptive technique and her sociological view. Using these methods, she wanted to give a dramatic significance to the frivolous society, showing the dark side of this frivolity and its tragic effects.

The House of Mirth is characterized by a classic writing mixed with irony and morality, but also a strong sense of cultural values. The principal character, Lily Bart, is the pure product of this society in transition where women had to rise their social status and to find a husband in order to conduct a wealthy life. Otherwise, they are destined to work and to live in tiny houses without maids. This aspect is represented by the character of Gerty Farish who lives alone without a husband or anyone who takes care of her.

Unfortunately, Lily will be put in the same situation: she will be ostracized by the society she had joined in the first part of the novel and she is consequently forced to find a job and to live ...

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on her past is followed by her actual condition: a woman rejected from the high society, fallen into disgrace and obliged to join the working class.

At this point of the story, Lily is unemployed and while she thinks about her future days, she opposes the freedom she has now with the freedom she had before.

"The luxury of lying late in bed was a pleasure belonging to the life of ease", this shows her consciousness about her actual condition which means that she has any job or family or anything to do.

The analogy between the past and the present of the heroine is prominent in these two pages. The statements "the season was over in millinery as well in society", "to ...

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