Personality Leads to Tragedy

Why did you choose this particular book?

    I choose this particular book “The Age of Innocence” for the following reasons:

First, the author Edith Wharton is considered as one of the most successful novelists in American literature. And it purports that she and Jane Austin both belong to prominent novelists of social manners, for her, the accurate depiction of the New York society is the most impressive. I want to read a book of female writer.

Second, the book The Age of Innocence is one of the most representative books of Edith Wharton. It wins the Pulitzer Prize for literature for her, which made her become the first woman to win this prize. And the story has been filmed well.

Third, I have read some introductions of the book, it involves love and family. I think at my age, it is necessary for me to gain some knowledge in these aspects. I believe I will benefit from the book.

Fourth, occasionally, I borrowed this book from the library and it was among the book lists which our professor gave us. So I began to read this particular book The Age of Innocence.

 

 

 

 

 

Personality Leads to Tragedy

Abstract：

With New York society as background, Edith Wharton’s famous work The Age of Innocence centers on the upper class’s daily life, love and marriage, especially the relations between Newland Archer, Ellen Olenska and May Welland. Through a deep and vivid depiction in the novel, human beings’ confusion, bewilderment and perplexity when facing their own chaotic sensibilities is thought-provoking. The love triangle, the departure of Newland Archer and Ellen are tragedies that mainly leaded to by Newland Archer’s weakness in personality as well as the society.

Key word:

Character, love, personality, tragedy

 

 

1. Brief Introduction of Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton ( January 24, 1862- August 11, 1937 ), was born in New York City. In 1885, at her age of 23, she married Edward Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years older than her. They shared the love of travel but had little in common intellectually. She traveled a lot especially in France. In the series of articles Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort she described those trips. In 1908, the mental state of her husband was incurable and they divorced in 1913. Then she had an affair with a journalist who was an intellectual partner of her. During the World War I, Wharton spared no efforts in charity for refugees, and in 1916, she was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Besides, Wharton was a supporter of French imperialism. Having grown up in upper-class, she became one of the critics and her novels were featured by the use of dramatic irony and social manners especially the depiction of New York society. Wharton acquainted with many other famous figures of her times, including Henry James and Theodore Roosevelt. She had a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels and short stories of social psychological insight with combining her insider’s view of America’s privileged classes. And she died of a stroke in France.

Edith Wharton was an American novelist, short story writer and designer. She finished The Age of Innocence in 1920 in Provence, which won the 1912 Pulitzer Prize for literature, giving her the honor of being the first woman to win the award. She wrote novels like The Touchstone ( 1900 ), The Valley of Decision ( 1902 ), Sanctuary (1903), The House of Mirth (1905), Madame de Treymes, The Fruit of the Tree (1907), Ethan Frome (1911), The Reef (1912), The Marne (1918), The Glimpses of Moon (1922) and so on; in addition to novels, she at least had 85 short stories. Her short stories collections like The Greater Inclination (1899), Souls Belated (1899), The Descent of Man and Other Stories (1903), Tales of Men and Ghosts (1910) and so on; she also wrote poetry as Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verse (1909) and Twelve Poems (1926) and non-fictions like The Decoration of Houses (1897), Italian Vilas and Their Gardens (1904), France, from Dunkerque to Belfort (1915) and so on.^[1]

 

2. Plot

Regarding the New York as background, The Age of Innocence centers on a upper class couple’s impending marriage and also a story of love triangle. Newland Archer, who belongs to upper class and whose life is patterned by the social custom, is happily taking part in a marriage to a pretty girl May Welland. May Welland is purported to be a perfect wife and mother who complys with all the social custom. However, when Countess Ellen Olenska appears, Newland begins to doubt whether his choice of marrying May is right or not. Countess Ellen Olenska, who is May’s cousin, has been living in Europe and has returned to New York after separating herself from a bad marriage scandalously. Firstly, Newland helps Ellen as a support to May’s family because Ellen’s decision to divorce is a social crisis for the other members in her family. However, with Newland’s love for Ellen growing, he starts to confuse about the values on which he was raised and he struggles to balance social commitment to May with love for Ellen. Even after his marriage with May, he still wants to have Ellen to be his lover. When Newland decides to tell May that he will leave her for Ellen, but May’s pregnancy stops him and meanwhile Ellen returns to Europe because May has told her of her pregnancy earlier, in spite of not being sure of it. Feeling in a trap, Newland decides to surrender his love for the sake of his children and remain in a loveless marriage to May instead of following Ellen. Twenty-six years later, after May’s death, surprisingly Newland finds that May knew his love to Ellen. And he has an opportunity to meet Ellen again. But he declines and walks away because he realizes that the only place for their love is in his memory.^[2]

 

3. Character Analysis

In order to make a better analysis of the tragedy of love triangle and the departure of Newland Archer and Ellen that leaded to mainly by the weakness in personality of Newland as well as the society, I have first to analyze the main protagonists one by one.

Newland Archer: belongs to upper class. Living with his mother and sister in a graceful house in New York City, he is a handsome, popular and successful lawyer. His life has been shaped by social custom and conventions since his childhood. At the very first, he is satisfied to expect a traditional marriage. But it changes when Ellen appears. When he falls in love with Ellen, he begins to confuse about the values of his society. He struggles between social commitment and true love. At last, due to his weakness in personality and the restraints of the society, he finds the only place for his true love is in his memories and he surrenders himself into a loveless marriage with May.

May Welland: first Newland Archer’s wife-to-be, then wife. She is raised to be perfect wife and mother who complys with all social custom and conventions perfectly. Mostly, she is the shallow, uninterested and uninteresting young woman that the New York society requires. Even after marriage, she suspects Newland and Ellen, she still pretends happiness before public and holds the illusion of perfect marriage. And her unhappiness stimulates her manipulative nature to tell Ellen of her pregnancy before certainty which makes Ellen’s long leaving. However, compassion still lays in May. She has always known Newland’s love for Ellen until her death.

Ellen Olenska: she is May’s cousin and Mrs. Manson Mingott’s granddaughter. She married a Polish Count who is cruel, abusive and has an affair with others. So Ellen wants to get divorce and returns to New York City. She is a free spirit and helps Newland to see beyond narrow New York society. But her affair is a crisis to the society and she is disreputable and suffers a lot. When she falls in love with Newland, she feels in trap. Her conscience and responsibility to family complicate her love for Newland. Finally she leaves America to refuse Newland to follow her after she learns May’s pregnancy and so allow May and Newland to start a new life.

New York City society: a society of powerful and wealthy families. Following and imposing a strict, rigid code of social conventions and behaviour, they can not bear any one who break their rules. And such a society regards inappropriate for a woman parted from her husband, so Ellen is disreputable. The judgment in New York City can not be clear any more. ^[3]

 

4. Comment:

The plots of the novel The Age of Innocence are relatively simple. The story regarded New York City which Edith Wharton did best in depicting as the background. As a person who strongly hated the false ethics and values of upper class society, Newland Archer, the reluctant vindicator of those was doomed to be a tragic character, especially in his love and marriage.

At the very beginning, when reading the book, I had the idea that Newland Archer had a great personality because he chose the way of sacrificing himself to maintain the public order of New York City. However, after finishing reading and pondering this over, I began to realize that sacrificing for a hypocritical and snobbish society was not the original intention of Newland Archer. On the contrary, he was no more than a failure who fell into a contradiction between commitment and love and just could not find proper way to turn out right from the dream. Newland Archer had a very deep insight of the hypocrisy, provinciality, ignorance and conservatism of the upper class society in New York City. He regarded it as a small and slippery pyramid, and on the bottom of the pyramid were a group of creditable but noteless and decent families. These families lifted their status up and pushed their fortune by intermarriage with the dominant families. Taking these rich but inconspicuous families as the pinnacle of the pyramid, then a ruling circle which was massy, firm, close and packed was gradually taking into shape. So called social custom, etiquette and taboo were all laid down according to the standards of those families of the pyramid pinnacle. In order to maintain the stability of the pyramid, those families in  ruling circle were united as one and concentrated their attentions and efforts on strictly and rigidly boycotting any intruder out of the pyramid. They never allowed even one action to exist that was bucking the code and the standard. What’s more, they looked down upon writers, artists and even those who was full of imagination and seemed to exceed their conventions. As a consequence, under their control New York City had been in a state of culture hungriness. Newland Archer seemed to be among the pinnacle of the pyramid but also an outsider of the pyramid. He had a relatively higher cultural cultivation and he could hardly bear the life in the pyramid which was stuffy, tasteless and ignorant. He had read some books about anthropology, which would make him think about social relations in a new way. Always, he was just like a natural historian or an anthropologist observing the New York City society with cold composure. Tragically, the more objectively he observed the society, the more strongly he felt the sense of alienation. Even, he thought the traditions of engagement and marriage laid down by the society as well as so called civilized behaviours in civilized life were just paralleled with the barbarous rites of primitive tribes. Because they all stemmed from the blind worship for a certain rite. ” In reality, they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs. “^[4] That was what Newland Archer recognized.

Then the arrival of Ellen Olenska brought the new promise land for Newland Archer. Ellen was bold, untrammelled, unconventional and beautiful. In comparison to May Welland, she was also mature, confident and glamorous. So Newland Archer soon fell in love with her fanatically but he was not willing to speak out his true feeling at first. With the dispassionate appearance, Newland Archer was going through a torment of inner suffering and grief. Actually, whether love or hatred Newland Archer never took action in reality or put into practice. He strongly hated all kinds of rules and punishments of the upper class society, however, all the time he behaved in a most cautious orderly way for fear that he violated the rule unconsciously. One the one hand, he showed sympathy to Ellen in his innermost heart and decided to fight against all his family members and even the whole society. Besides, he was in support of Ellen to get divorce with her libertine husband. On the other hand, however, when he was sent to deal with this affair as the identity of a lawyer, he violated his own willingness and stated the decisive talks to Ellen which pulled he himself and Ellen into the deep abyss of pain. He said to Ellen that on such occasion, the individual must always sacrifice for the interest of the collective. People must adhere to all the conventions firmly in order to maintain the unity of a family in order to protect their children. Newland Archer was quite clear about what the so-called interests of the collective was, but he was not willing to sacrifice himself heart and soul. It was his fear that Ellen would be condemned by society that made him to act out his hypocritical statement. After he persuaded Ellen to give up the intention of getting divorce, he persuaded May to bring the wedding day forward, but at the same time he expressed his love for Ellen at all hazards. Unfortunately, at that time Ellen had already deeply accepted his opinion of self-sacrifice. So she mentioned she had learned a good knowledge from him that people utterly detested those who exchange happiness with disloyalty, cruelty and absence of nerves. And Ellen told Newland Archer that she could love him only by giving him up. In the meantime May sent a telegram to tell Newland Archer that she agreed to bring the wedding day forward. So from here, it was not so much to say that the strict social custom constrained Newland Archer to make decision as to say that his innermost fear of these conventions and custom make him lose the chance of being together with Ellen. That is, the weakness of Newland’s personality mainly led to his tragedy in love. 

Newland Archer was not at all lofty to restrain his selfishness and be strict with himself, but only to reflect his personalities of indecision, cowardice and flabbiness. After his marriage, Newland Archer did not take the responsibility of family and marriage, instead, he began to pursue the happiness of love from dream and fantasy which he could not attain in reality, although from the surface he was a faithful, dutiful and responsible husband. However, there existed a secret world that only belonged to Ellen and him. He set up a palace in his heart and put the most secret thoughts and desires there. Even sometimes he considered that his spiritual world with Ellen was more real than his life in reality. Once he sit in his wife’s cart with Ellen shoulder to shoulder, he told Ellen that for him, this was the only thing to be reality. But when Ellen questioned him whether he wanted her to be his mistress, Newland Archer like a drowned mouse answered stutteringly, ” I want… Somehow, I want to get away with you… And…and find a world where words like that don’t exist！”^[5] Newland Archer seemed that he wanted to elope and run away with Ellen, which was totally paradoxical with his precious thought. Once when one of his friend, a low status correspondent said to expatriate himself, Newland Archer disapproved and did not concern about the idea. He thought that expatriating was just like a gentleman casting away his mother country. Actually, a man indeed could not at random run away from the culture that moulded him. Besides, just as Ellen put it, a man who departed from his national culture was like an exile. If a person even could not adapt to his own national culture, how could he adapt well to another culture, so it is doomed for him to feel more lonely in another cultural circumstance. Newland Archer’s personality of indecision forced him tragically to have no chance to choose another social and cultural circumstance that was in harmony with his life. In the novel, it was proven that he should have chosen another life way that was more suitable except for an exile because some people really had a different life way and relatively closer to reality. For example, artists of New York City apparently were not disturbed by the rules and punishments which dominated New York City society. They did not have the wish or desire to blend with the society’s structure. Maybe among the characters Edith Wharton praised most was the archaeologist Emerson. Although he also got married with the daughter of the prominent family, he and his wife conformed to no convention pattern. They annually regarded the form of holding garden party as complying with their social obligations. In the rest of time they all worked in the activities they were indeed interested in. He had the courage to break with the tradition, but he still lived a full and substantial life. From this perspective, for those who wanted to live a Bohemian life, there still exists room for one to be flexible and take action. 

In order to become a man who could live freely in a foppish world, Newland Archer must at first learn to choose and accept the most valuable thing in his national culture and give up the rest. However, he was lack of this kind of ability or he was just unwilling to make decision. He was an idealist who succumbed to vulgar demand. On the one hand, he wanted to get the ideal romance with Ellen. On the other hand, he was unwilling to fight against the system which constrained such kind of love and romance. What’s more, he wanted to get the extramarital love but at the same time he wanted to carry out his duty and responsibility of being a husband with loyalty. Except for the Utopia, there was no social system that could satisfy his two strongly conflicted desires at the same time especially in such a New York City society. Newland Archer’s personality of swaying between gain and loss, and the contradictory psychology of cowardice and hesitation were destined to make him let the blossom of life slip and tragedy was there only to be left. .

This novel through depicting the psychological development of Newland Archer, one of the themes that the conflict between individual requirement and social etiquette finally leaded to individual tragedy was seen clearly. The contradictory psychology of Newland Archer was also a plight of a common person. Each of us has two kinds of consciences: the first kind of conscience is totally consistent with our community, so it can not represent ourselves, instead, it stands for the society which restrains our life and behaviours. The other kind of conscience thoroughly stands for our innermost self, so it is personal and the very one makes us to be the individual. Any one in any society will have the case that two consciences occur at the same time. How to deal with the two consciences and two self relations well is the key to reach one’s happiness. Thus the individual should cultivate the abilities of judgment, selection and reconciliation. Besides, the individual should deal properly with the relation of self-control and aggressive pursuit, the relation between when to hold fast and when to let go. If we think for ourselves, the desire for self behaviour will be stronger and stronger, so it is not easy for us to comply with others’ thoughts and behaviours. Moreover, once these two kinds of thoughts and behaviours combine and begin to function, then our personality and individuality will disappear. Because we are not ourselves any more, we are only part of the life of the collective. The psychological development of Newland Archer just went through the process of transferring from the first kind of extreme to the second kind of extreme. Due to his unwillingness or inability of cohering with the two conflicts, he went through the process that was from at first hope for getting everything to at last losing everything. Therefore, Newland Archer’s tragedy was mainly individual, it was principally his personality of hesitation, mutability, cowardice and flabbiness that leads to his tragedy in love and marriage.^[6]

 

5. Conclusion:

    In conclusion, there is a pity for Newland, Ellen and May, for their tragedy of love. To some extent, there is on doubt that they are all victims of their society which has a strict and rigid code of social custom and convention. But mostly the tragedy results in the protagonists’ personality especially the indecision and cowardice of Newland Archer. I firmly believe that if Newland is decisive and bold enough, he is bound to be with Ellen. So from this, I realize that it is of importance to cultivate a good personality and quality, I should strive for it on and on. Besides, I begin to consider the balance between passion and duty in marriage. All in all, finishing reading The Age of Innocence, it enlightens me with many ideas on personality, marriage, love and duty, thus it really worth reading.