The House of Mirth

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth is an affront to the false social values of fashionable New York society. The heroine is Lily Bart, a woman who is destroyed by the very society that produces her. Lily is well-born but poor. The story traces the decline of Lily as she moves through a series of living residences, from houses to hotel lodgings. Lily lives in a New York society where appearances are all. Women have a decorative function in such an environment, and even her name, Lily, suggests she is a flower of femininity, i.e. an object of decoration as well as of desirability to the male element. We see this is very true once Lily's bloom fades, as it were, a time when she is cast aside by her peers no longer being useful as something to admire on the surface. The theme of the novel in this aspect is that identity based on mere appearance is not enough to sustain the human soul physically or metaphysically. Once she is no longer able to keep the "eye" of her peers, Lily finds herself with no identity and dies. This analysis will discuss the theme of the objectification of women in a male dominated society inherent throughout the novel.

Lily Bart and her mother have been socially "ruined" in a sense because of the economic failures of their father and husband respectfully. However, Lily's mother teaches her that she can still maintain a high social status if she marries well, i.e. a rich man. In fact, Lily's mother is known for

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t and demands superficial commodification of its females. Lily must become a thing, a being whose only reason for being is to give visual and physical pleasure to the male element which can only be done by taking the money of a particular male who will invest it in her to prove he can own the best and prettiest object among all his friends. Lily is objectified throughout the novel in terms that would make today's political correctness police cringe in horror. Ned Van Alstyne says of Lily in a revealing outfit, "Deuced bold thing to show herself in that get-up; but, gad, there isn't a break in the lines anywhere, and I suppose she wanted us to know it" (Wharton 139). This is part of the problem. Lily is a little too bold in going about being the victim of this society and by throwing it in the faces of those who have established the false social values she will eventually be ostracized from them. We see this come to harm her because her inability to play the game defined by this society for women cripples her and makes her suspect until she is eventually ostracized and rejected. Her refusal to use the letters which would implicate Selden in his infidelity further removes her from the social circle. Should she use them, sh

Category: Literature - T