ISR Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
From International Socialist Review, Vol.23 No.3, Summer 1962, pp.91-92.
Transcribed by Daniel Gaido.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton
New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1962 (copyright 1905); 329 pages; $1.45.
The bourgeois academicians and critics of our middle-class culture (with the exception of Edmund Wilson) maintain that Edith Wharton, one of the finest writers in American Literature, is not only a disciple of Henry James, but is also a second-rate novelist of the Genteel School. Neither allegation is true. Quite contrary to the style of James, Wharton has a lucid, concrete prose that, unfortunately for James, influenced him only occasionally. Secondly, Mrs. Wharton, in her best works, and House of Mirth is one of the best, was hardly genteel. As Edmund Wilson says,
“it is true that she knew the top strata better than she knew anything else; but ... she is always aware of the pit of misery which is implied by the wastefulness of the plutocracy, and the horror or the fear of this pit is one of the forces that determine the action.”
The House of Mirth is, I believe, a new genre: a fusion of the novel of manners and the novel of naturalism. (Perhaps it should be called a dialectical novel because these two opposite genres are perfectly fused.) It is a novel of manners because it satirizes the manners and other trivia of the leisured class of New York City in the 1900’s; and it is a novel of naturalism because environment and heredity combine to work the crushing defeat of the heroine.
The main character of The House of Mirth is Lily Bart, a parasite living on “society,” an impoverished young woman who, because she was raised to be only beautiful and charming, must dig out a living for herself by performing petty and sometimes reprehensible tasks in return for the luxurious housing and food provided by her wealthy “friends.” Lily is weak and selfish, craving the ease that goes with a life of luxury. She is also cunning, and plots to marry a wealthy boor of one sort or another. There is an unconscious conflict of values in Lily, however; a conflict that speaks through her glands, for whenever she traps a wealthy young prig she somehow always sees another man, fascinating but broke, and openly flirts with him. The rich boy is frightened off, and Lily must again chase another prey. After ten years of such performances Lily might be called self-destructive. She is not, however; on the contrary, she is making attempts – although unconscious and stupid – to break out of her luxurious prison and lead a life of freedom and independence. This is one of the main points of The House of Mirth: that a life of independence is better than the parasitical life of “society.”
The other main point of the novel is that one must establish decent, non-exploitative relationships with others. Selden, the man who should have married Lily, is also weak. His weakness consists of backing off in pious self-righteousness whenever he finds Lily in one of her many ugly situations (for example, flirting with a married man to accommodate his wife who is sleeping with a young boy), instead of pressing on to offer Lily both his confidence and an honorable escape. When Lily and Selden finally come to a fully conscious realization of themselves and their love for each other, it is too late; both are ruined.
Wharton is saying two important things: first, one must choose between comfort and ethics – to have both in this vicious society is impossible; second, despite accidents of “mistiming” and other elements of change that interfere with human happiness, one must still muster the courage to take a stand.
ISR Index | Main Newspaper Index
Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Last updated on 21 May 2009