The House of Mirth 1129was better than the one she now shares with Ethan.
She claims to be sick much of the time, and her ill-
ness further isolates her from her husband. Resting
on an unsteady foundation, the Frome marriage
experiences further challenges when Mattie Silver,
Zeena’s cousin, arrives from Stamford to assist the
sick woman with her household duties. Ethan’s
attentiveness to Mattie clearly separates him from
his wife, but Zeena isolates Ethan herself by focus-
ing on her various ailments, exiling herself to the
bedroom, and not caring about her appearance.
Upon the death of her parents, Mattie at 20
has nobody to care for her, and when Zeena and
Ethan take her in, none of the parties bring much
comfort to the others. As Mattie’s relationship with
Ethan warms, in fact, her contact with Zeena grows
colder. Zeena goes so far as to throw Mattie out of
the house, banishing her for Ethan’s interest in her.
When Ethan is faced with the obligation of driving
Mattie away, he cannot face the possibility of return-
ing to the house without her. The narrator learns by
the story’s end that, after the accident, Mattie does
stay at the farm, but in her stricken condition, she
shares it with Ethan and Zeena. Mrs. Hale explains
the final state of affairs as Wharton leaves the three:
“[T]hey’re all shut up there’n that one kitchen. In
the summertime, on pleasant days, they move Mat-
tie into the parlour, or out in the door-yard, and
that makes it easier . . . but winters there’s the fires
to be thought of; and there ain’t a dime to spare up
at the Fromes.” In the first chapter of the novel, the
narrator wonders what “obstacles have hindered the
flight of a man like Ethan Frome,” and by the last
chapter, he realizes the depth of isolation that Ethan
has experienced and continues to endure.
Tracy Hoffman
wHarToN, EDiTH The House of
Mirth (1905)
Edith Wharton’s novel of manners, The House of
Mirth, opens a window on the mechanisms of
moneyed New York City by following the struggles
of the remarkably beautiful Lily Bart. Lily, having
lost both her mother and father, relies on her aunt,
Mrs. Peniston, to assist her in her quest for a suit-
able husband. Despite Lily’s desire to attain great
wealth, she constantly frustrates her matches at
critical moments. The novel is naturalistic insofar
as Lily is fated to fail in her quest for marriage and
because the novel examines various forces, such as
materialism and desire, that motivate her actions.
Despite the fact that Lily demonstrates a keen abil-
ity to manipulate those around her, she also seems
victimized by society.
Part of the force of this novel derives from the
tension between Lily’s ambition for affluence
and her desire to rise above the materialism of her
contemporaries. Lawrence Selden represents the
possibility for a union based on love, but his inad-
equate income renders him an unsuitable match.
Lily’s destiny at the close of the novel hinges on
whether she will choose the moral path or surrender
to vice as a way to ensure material gain. She makes
the virtuous choice, thus condemning herself to the
destitution in which she finds herself at the close
of the novel. The work is an insightful critique of
the superficial aspects of society at the turn of the
century, especially with regard to the limitations put
upon women such as Lily.
Lisa J. SchneidercommodIFIcatIon/commercIaLIzatIon
in The House of Mirth
Commerce is one of the central themes of Whar-
ton’s The House of Mirth, a novel focused on mon-
eyed New York at the turn of the century. All that
occurs in that society and to the main protagonist,
Lily Bart, revolves around the pursuit of wealth. Lily
is often described in terms of an object in the novel,
one whose value is determined by the marketplace
that is society. The novel opens with Lawrence
Selden’s ironic observation that “she always roused
speculation.” As characters such as Simon Rosedale
and Gus Trenor speculate in the stock market, from
these earliest pages, one learns that Lily is herself a
type of currency.
In chapter 3, we learn that Lily came from a
family of money, but by her 19th year, her fam-
ily was confronted with financial ruin. Without
independent wealth, Lily is dependent on a suit-
able match to provide her with the type of lavish
lifestyle to which she aspires and is accustomed.
Lily had learned from her mother that her good