Marriage in Literature

Marriage is represented in literature in a variety of forms. In many of the novels of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, marriage was the goal toward which the story tended and would serve as the perfect ending to redeem the hero or heroine if they needed to be redeemed or reward them for their virtue. Marriage in fiction reflects the position of marriage in society, and the unequal treatment of men and women in society has long meant a certain imbalance in marriage as well as a degree of hypocrisy that is exploited by writers who want to show the falseness of certain social institutions or who have characters who must assert themselves in some way and who find they can do so through marriage.

Marriage in Edith Wharton's House of Mirth is the goal of the protagonist, but she sees marriage not as an end in itself but as the means to achieve a certain social status by the acquisition of money. Marriage in the upper crust society to which she aspires is the way for a woman without money to gain position. Indeed, marriage is more often a means of acquiring or merging fortunes than it is a question of love. Lily Bart represents this view perfectly in that she is torn between two loves, one a rich man she does not love, and the other a poor man she does. The one she plans to marry is the one with the money, for social position is far more important to her than human feelings. She may have some reason for feeling this way, given the fact that she is an orpha

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n them. The fact that he is confessing his own "sin" adds credence to what he reports. Jake is a reporter in life as well, writing for a Paris newspaper after returning badly wounded from the war. Robert Cohn is also a writer on a different level--he has written a novel and also edited a literary review. He is very different from Jake, and the contrast illuminates both men. Cohn is a more academic literary man who lives through the printed word both as a reader and in his own writing, while Jake is the active man who writes about real experiences and so lives to the full to have something to write. The irony is that Jake, the more active man, has been left only a partial man because of the war, while Cohn, who does not aspire to that same sort of masculinity, retains his manhood and becomes the third leg of the triangle with Brett Ashley. Marriage for Jake would be barren and meaningless, and yet he has the same inner feelings as any man. Brett in many ways represents modern marriage--she has been married twice to men she did not love and is now engaged to a third, Mike Campbell, a man she is sure will ignore her affairs because he loves her. If Brett loves anyone, it is Jake, a man whom she cannot marry. Each stands a

Category: Literature - M