Edith Wharton Essays

Ethan Frome

It is under the most repressive limitations that the strength of one's character and one's ability to defy and transcend such limits can truly be measured. This idea is confirmed in Edith Wharton's novel, Ethan Frome, the story of a young man...

Ethan Frome

Typically one of the subtler parts of a novel, setting usually serves as a frame that supports the plot and characters. In Ethan Frome, however, Edith Wharton reinvents the use of setting as an integral element of the story. She weaves the...

11th Grade

Ethan Frome

Although by definition, a classic tragedy takes place when a character’s downfall is the direct consequence of a personality flaw, Edith Wharton’s novella Ethan Frome rejects this concept. As a story written by an author schooled in naturalistic...

College

Ethan Frome

In order for a successful society and government, true emotions and feelings must be expressed at the essential times. Manipulation is constantly used worldwide in areas such as advertisements to movies. They act as unfair persuaders to make a...

College

Ethan Frome

Many feminist scholars have lauded Edith Wharton for her refusal to shy away from portraying the misery of married women. A common interpretation of Wharton’s intentions were that this misery stems from the dissatisfaction her characters suffer at...

House of Mirth

One of the tragedies in The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton is that Lily Bart is unable to marry Laurence Selden and thereby secure a safe position in society. Their relationship fluctuates from casual intimacy to outright love depending on how...

House of Mirth

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth creates a subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted picture of the social operation of turn-of-the-century New York. In her harsh expression of community, she succeeds in portraying a world of calculation operating...

House of Mirth

The society in Edith Wharton's House of Mirth is immersed in an economy of risk. The men work as businessmen, trading on the fluctuating stock market; the women spend their time at the bridge table wagering their family savings. Wharton makes a...

House of Mirth

Nature, whether in the form of the arctic tundra of the North Pole or the busy street-life of Manhattan, was viewed by Naturalist writers as a phenomena which necessarily challenged individual survival; a phenomena, moreover, which operated on...

House of Mirth

You are Ibsen. Review House of Mirth.

Which of the domestic palaces in Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth claims itself as the titular source of the tragic novel? Each offers strong evidence in its own favor. There is the bucolic decadence of the...

House of Mirth

The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton, chronicles the tragic life of Lily Bart in New York's fashionable high society. Exquisitely beautiful, Lily was trained to think of herself not as a woman capable of defining her own goals and making emotional...

House of Mirth

According to the Marxist theoretician Louis Althusser, society's class structure and gender roles depend primarily not on economics, but on the power of attitudes and ideas. In Edith Wharton's classic work, The House of Mirth, characters show...