The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton is one of the more
difficult books I have ever read.
Mortimer Adler, How to Read a Book, suggests reading through the first time without stopping to look up
words, but how can one understand context if he does not understand the
vocabulary? And even more demanding than
word usage is Wharton’s complex plot. I
thought Leo Tolstoy was complex? Ha!
So here is
an attempt at decent answers of TWEM’s three-stage questions:
Grammar Stage: What is the most
important event (when the main character changes)?
When I
began The House of Mirth I was disappointed
by Lily’s bad choices, especially when she was not truthful. She presented herself to certain people as
someone she was not in order to gain acceptance. Most of the time her deception got her into
trouble.
However, by
the second book, I saw another side to Lily.
No matter how many times she is shunned or insulted, used or knocked
down, often not her fault, Lily just keeps on going; she is like a leaf floating atop a stream wherever it takes her.
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Lily Bart |
No matter
how many times she gets herself into an uncompromising situation, she maintains
her civility and graciousness. Even in
her weakest moment, she acted honorably: she paid her debt when she could have
kept her small inheritance, and she could have blackmailed that evil Bertha
Dorset, but instead destroyed the letters that would have exposed Bertha’s
hypocrisy or gained financial reward.
(Well, maybe.) Many times she
could have protested the lies told about her to clear her name or gotten even by
playing the same game, but she didn’t.
Whatever the case, Lily was not one to hurt, target, or use others
intentionally as had been done to her.
She always acted admirably, and this gives the reader cause to like
Lily.
Now this
brings me to the most important event - when Lily changes. I think right after she loses her second job,
we see her succumb to her failing health and her sadness of being alone. She believes, and with good reason, that she
has no other options. She has hit
bottom; she doesn’t seem herself anymore.
She is out of choices and is very aware of it. That’s when she formulates a “plan,” although
the author does not tell us what it is.
When she
runs into Nettie, the poor, unhealthy woman whom Lily helped some years back, Nettie
is doing well, married with a baby, though still poor; but she is happy,
healthy, and hopeful. Sitting with Lily,
one may think that the two women have since traded places.
The reader
may see that Lily still has options.
Look at Nettie! There is still
hope! But we shall never know if Lily
thought the same.
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