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aurorasreadingchair 's review for:
The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton
Possible trigger warnings: gambling addiction, possible suicide, classism
Ahh Lily…what am I to do with you?!lol She is both exasperating and tragic, but I missed the “tragic” component the first time I read this book.
The first time I met Lily I just didn’t “get” her and she annoyed the crap out of me, I was too irritated to “think deep” and critically about her character. This time? She still exasperated the crap out of me (LOL) but I have sympathy for her and can understand better why she is the way she is.
Lily is not only a product of the high class NY society of the time, but also the trappings and emotional and psychological demands of her mother, who was never satisfied, squandered their wealth, and foisted all of her hopes of “returning” to their proper place on the “marketable” beauty of her daughter (as a hook to catch a wealthy suitor). Her mother also foisted all of her despondency and dissatisfaction when things did not work out on Lily. What a horrible burden for a child…a woman…to grow up thinking that all of her worth and value as a human being is tied up on her pretty face. Her mother also did Lily a disservice by raising her to think she was better than others (even the “rich” relatives she came to depend upon), so there is that constant thread of dissatisfaction and superiority in her dealings with others.
Lily needed to secure her financial security through an advantageous marriage and did everything she could to make it happen. She was beautiful and knew this was her “ticket” to secure a wealthy husband. Yet, whether consciously or not, she would self-sabotage at every turn. Like she said “Younger and plainer girls had been married off by dozens, and she was nine-and-twenty, and still Miss Bart.” This is the infuriating part about Lily. She “wants” money (“she knew she hated dinginess as much as her mother had hated it, and to her last breath she meant to fight against it, dragging herself up again and again above its flood till she gained the bright pinnacles of success which presented such a slippery surface to her clutch.”) and knows it will take work (and her beauty) but refuses suitors, makes mistakes, poor alliances, etc., which take her further away from her goals. Why? Is it that at heart, she does not want to be part of it? That she is trying to please her dead mother by becoming what she is expected to be? Does her emotionally distant father, who only served as an inadequate provider in her mother’s mind, failed her and she does not trust? These things are not fleshed out, which is what makes the writing so good and the reason I missed so much the first time around.
We get glimpses of her insight as to her unsuitability to be part of her “society.” There’s a section in the beginning where her relative, who is trying to “secure” Mr. Selden for Lily (or at least help Lily secure him) by keeping another woman (Bertha) away says: “Every one knows you’re a thousand times handsomer and cleverer than Bertha; but then you’re not nasty. And for always getting what she wants in the long run, commend me to a nasty woman.” This pretty much encapsulates Lily’s inability to “swim” in the toxic and competitive miasma of her high class world. She is unable to “sink” those around her, even to save herself and this is the tragic part. She could have ensured her own existence in that world, but she burned the letters. She could have married Selden but he was not rich enough. Never mind she kept digging a bigger hole with debts and decidedly stupid (I use this word sparingly but she should have seen the writing on the wall, hence my opinion as to self-sabotage) alliances resulting in ruination and getting further away from the “world” she craved.
This “money hunger,” insecurities, sense of superiority and her own inability to lower expectations combined with her lack of deviousness and meanness leads to an unsurprising end and the belated sad realizations by Selden. Lily may be contrary, entitled, and exasperating, but she was not “nasty” enough for her world. I missed that the first time I met her.
Ahh Lily…what am I to do with you?!lol She is both exasperating and tragic, but I missed the “tragic” component the first time I read this book.
The first time I met Lily I just didn’t “get” her and she annoyed the crap out of me, I was too irritated to “think deep” and critically about her character. This time? She still exasperated the crap out of me (LOL) but I have sympathy for her and can understand better why she is the way she is.
Lily is not only a product of the high class NY society of the time, but also the trappings and emotional and psychological demands of her mother, who was never satisfied, squandered their wealth, and foisted all of her hopes of “returning” to their proper place on the “marketable” beauty of her daughter (as a hook to catch a wealthy suitor). Her mother also foisted all of her despondency and dissatisfaction when things did not work out on Lily. What a horrible burden for a child…a woman…to grow up thinking that all of her worth and value as a human being is tied up on her pretty face. Her mother also did Lily a disservice by raising her to think she was better than others (even the “rich” relatives she came to depend upon), so there is that constant thread of dissatisfaction and superiority in her dealings with others.
Lily needed to secure her financial security through an advantageous marriage and did everything she could to make it happen. She was beautiful and knew this was her “ticket” to secure a wealthy husband. Yet, whether consciously or not, she would self-sabotage at every turn. Like she said “Younger and plainer girls had been married off by dozens, and she was nine-and-twenty, and still Miss Bart.” This is the infuriating part about Lily. She “wants” money (“she knew she hated dinginess as much as her mother had hated it, and to her last breath she meant to fight against it, dragging herself up again and again above its flood till she gained the bright pinnacles of success which presented such a slippery surface to her clutch.”) and knows it will take work (and her beauty) but refuses suitors, makes mistakes, poor alliances, etc., which take her further away from her goals. Why? Is it that at heart, she does not want to be part of it? That she is trying to please her dead mother by becoming what she is expected to be? Does her emotionally distant father, who only served as an inadequate provider in her mother’s mind, failed her and she does not trust? These things are not fleshed out, which is what makes the writing so good and the reason I missed so much the first time around.
We get glimpses of her insight as to her unsuitability to be part of her “society.” There’s a section in the beginning where her relative, who is trying to “secure” Mr. Selden for Lily (or at least help Lily secure him) by keeping another woman (Bertha) away says: “Every one knows you’re a thousand times handsomer and cleverer than Bertha; but then you’re not nasty. And for always getting what she wants in the long run, commend me to a nasty woman.” This pretty much encapsulates Lily’s inability to “swim” in the toxic and competitive miasma of her high class world. She is unable to “sink” those around her, even to save herself and this is the tragic part. She could have ensured her own existence in that world, but she burned the letters. She could have married Selden but he was not rich enough. Never mind she kept digging a bigger hole with debts and decidedly stupid (I use this word sparingly but she should have seen the writing on the wall, hence my opinion as to self-sabotage) alliances resulting in ruination and getting further away from the “world” she craved.
This “money hunger,” insecurities, sense of superiority and her own inability to lower expectations combined with her lack of deviousness and meanness leads to an unsurprising end and the belated sad realizations by Selden. Lily may be contrary, entitled, and exasperating, but she was not “nasty” enough for her world. I missed that the first time I met her.