& # 8217 ; s The Age Of Innocence Essay, Research Paper

Edith Wharton depicts in her novel the nineteenth century life of the New York elite through the eyes of Newland Archer. The society is seen as smothering its members by rigorous regulations on behavior and merely the reaching of Countess Ellen Olenska begins to open Archer s eyes to the narrowness of the society and its alienation from world.

There are many mentions to asphyxiation and decease in the novel. Most dramatic is the scene where, after their matrimony, Archer and May are passing the flushing reading in the drawing room when Archer, all of a sudden experiencing the demand to open a window, says The room is smothering: I want a small air. When May warns him that he will catch his decease Archer must stamp down his answer: But I & # 8217 ; ve caught it already. I am dead & # 8211 ; I & # 8217 ; ve been dead for months and months & # 8221 ; ( p. 298 ) . Besides the societal leader of New York is described as holding been instead gruesomely preserved in the airless ambiance of a absolutely blameless being, as organic structures caught in glaciers keep for old ages a rose-colored life-in-death ( p. 50 ) ; and a adult females s summer archery competition becomes to Archer a image of kids playing in a cemetery ( p. 208 ) . Even in the nuptials scene the visual aspect of the Sexton, a church officer whose responsibilities besides includes grave excavation, can be

seen as contemplation of Archer s desperation over the matrimony and his hereafter being bound by the regulations of society he no longer values ( p.179 ) .

Ellen is the lone character that is strong plenty to get away

the decease that the New York society has sentenced its members to. At the terminal of the novel, after May & # 8217 ; s decease, Archer goes to Ellen & # 8217 ; s Paris flat. The flat is many-windowed, and cheerily balconied ( p. 363 ) and it seems as though the Sun has merely left it. The ejection of Ellen from the asphyxiation of New York released her into the visible radiation and openness of a new life.

Archer, on the other manus, feels that he is a mere Grey pinpoint of a adult male compared with the ruthless magnificent chap he had dreamed of being & # 8230 ; ( p. 357 ) . However Archer becomes witting on the journey to run into Ellen that his life has likely been better populating within the restraints of the New York society, because he is in nature a dabbler. Archer would hold preferred to hold been like Ellen, but he sees that Ellen s life which had been spent in & # 8230 ; rich ambiance was excessively heavy and yet excessively exciting for his lungs ( p.362 ) and he both honoured his ain yesteryear, and mourned for it ( p.350 ) .

Notes

All mentions are to the Penguin Popular Classics edition of the novel ( Harmondsworth, 1996 ) .