1921 - The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Introduction

As I said last entry, I was unaware that the Prize for Fiction was once called The Prize for Novel and had started some 50 years earlier. The library didn't have the 1918 or 1919 winners, but I was able to find Edith Wharton's 1921 prize winner.

The cover had a classically-painted pale brunette woman staring distantly into a mirror and the painting is surrounded by a flowery border. What I imagined the book to be and what this image portrayed weren't too dissimilar, with the exception of a male main character. I did consider that perhaps the nosy book-cover lookers on the train (myself included) would take issue with this floral-themed book, but nevermind them! Today a woman who sits silently next to me nearly every day (we're in the quiet car) whispered that she had just finished The House of Mirth, which is the most popular and acclaimed novel by Wharton.

Even though I showed little enthusiasm in seeing the South Pacific play, in my searches about this book I discovered Martin Scorsese had made a film version of this novel. I believe at some point in my Netflix queue there is a section of Scorsese's filmography and I hope this one didn't slip by.

The book takes place in the late 1800s, but the time is mainly referred to as Old New York (no wonder Scorsese used it). I have little experience reading stories taking place in this time and place. However, I have understanding enough of the high-class 19th century European society the Old New Yorkers are emulating and trying to keep alive through the novels of Émile Zola, Leo Tolstoy, etc.

Plot Summary

Newland Archer is soon to be wed to his expected sweetheart, the "ideal" May Welland. Archer secretly has dreams of an exceptional marriage based on openness and passion, but has a pretty good understanding that, amongst his people in Old New York, such a marriage is discouraged.

With a new sense of awe he looked at the frank forehead, serious eyes and gay innocent mouth of the young creature whose soul's custodian he was to be. That terrifying product of the social system he belonged to and believed in, the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything, looked back at him like a stranger through May Welland's familiar features; and once more it was borne in on him that marriage was not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think, but a voyage on uncharted seas.

Right before the engagement is announced, May's cousin Ellen Olsenka appears, after fleeing her European husband. Everything about Ellen, from the neighborhood she lives in, the company she keeps, and even the manner of her speech and character, is out of step with Old New York. She is generally accepted into society, but not without pity ("poor Ellen").

Newland's secret dreams of a passionate love and of transcending tradition soon find a personification in Ellen. He finds her openness refreshing. She is the only one in the story who says exactly what she feels. The rest of the characters dance around their true feelings and the subjects of their conversations.

Archer, perhaps in error, places all his deep longings as having been fulfilled in the person of Ellen. In truth, he loves her because she is different. And when compared to the rest of Society, Ellen finds Archer different, as well. Unlike most of her suiters, Archer is not after her as a conquest, but longs for her because he has an emotional and philosophical need that seemingly only she can fill. In the proudly closed society of Old New York, perhaps this is true.

Newland's guilt at loving one but being engaged to another causes him great confusion and to atone for the contradiction he hurries along his marriage to May. Ellen leaves town and Archer soon finds himself accustomed to the dull married life he had criticized his peers for.

Archer had reverted to all his old inherited ideas about marriage. It was less trouble to conform with the tradition and treat May exactly as all his friends treated their wives than try to put into practice the theories with which his untrammelled bachelorhood had dallied.

Even his earlier admirations of May dry out and his concept of her changes to a purely functional role.

He had married (as most young men did) because he had met a perfectly charming girl at the moment when a series of rather aimless sentimental adventures were ending in premature disgust; and she had represented peace, stability, comradeship, and the steadying sense of an inescapable duty.

Newland settles into this docile role until a chance near-meeting with Ellen occurs and sparks his love again. He falls into unusual and desperate behavior and announces to his wife sudden trips that need to take place where Ellen is. Without knowledge of Ellen he became a typical bland society member, but her sudden reappearance brings back passion in his life and also sheds a sad light into his current situation.

His whole future seemed suddenly to be unrolled before him; and passing down its endless emptiness he saw the dwindling figure of a man to whom nothing was ever to happen.

The affair occurs only in their hearts, however (Age of Innocence, after all). Ellen swears that if Newland does anything improper that she will disappear indefinitely. This doesn't prevent a few stolen kisses, instigated by each, or even Ellen moving back home with the matriarch of the family, Mrs. Mason Mingott. Archer spends much of his time justifying his suspicious and unusual actions.

Ellen Oslenska was like no other woman, he was like no other man: their situation, therefore, resembled no one else's, and they were answerable to no tribunal but that of their own judgement.

This tribunal ends up being the silent and overwhelming one of Old New York society. After a secret announcement of May's pregnancy, Ellen makes the decision to move back to Europe. Once an outcast of society, she is given a farewell dinner featuring every respectable member treating her as one of their own. They suspected the near-affair, but they are able to celebrate her because Society has been preserved.

In the last chapter we find a middle-aged Newland reflecting on the years in between. He and May raised three children, he became contented with his lot in a passionless and common marriage, and May eventually passes away. His children no longer hold Society sacred, and openly act and speak in a way that would have guaranteed disdain. His son even openly suggests that he and his father visit his old flame Ellen Olsenka one last time. In the end, Newland once again chooses to remain old-fashioned and stays behind.

Notable Characters

Mrs. Manson Mingott is the matriarch of the Welland family where May and Ellen are from. She is described in detail as a very large woman who rearranges her house and life to accommodate her mighty girth. She must accept visitors on the same floor she sleeps on (uncommon in this society) and even misses the Archer's wedding because the aisles could not be made to fit the chair she is rolled around on.

She is accepted by the high and strict society that her daughter and the Archer's belong to, but at the same time she is able to ignore the many conventions of it. She takes Ellen into her home and supports her, primarily because Mrs. Manson Mingott cherishes the originality of Ellen. She speaks near bluntly to Newland that he should have married Ellen, and is able to see directly his nervous desire.

The presence of Mrs. Manson Mingott made clear that Old New York society was not always as stagnant as the generation below her makes it seem. The younger generation (May and Archer's parents) cower in fear and speculate endlessly about the end of society. May and Newland's generation accepts their parents' views, but have an inward struggle against them. By the end of the book, the Archer children have tossed it all into the wind. It is easy to imagine that society had completely dwindled down. However, as the only one of the eldest generation, Mrs. Mason Mingott's character shows that the desire to hold society closely wasn't always so important. This desire reached a peak with the Wellands and Archers, but wasn't always in vogue.

Mrs. Manson Mingott made for an enjoyable read whenever she appeared. Her direct style of confrontation and her sense of humor helped her break free of the constraints every other character felt (even Ellen felt oppressed). Perhaps when she was younger she was concerned with the proper way of doing things, but she has since aged wisely and gained perspective of what is important. This perspective is lost to the younger generations, because of fear, and even the youngest generation's directness is missing context or meaning.

Favorite Passage

Archer, who seemed to be assisting, ate the scene in a state of odd imponderability, as if he floated somewhere between chandelier and ceiling, wondered at nothing so much as his own share in the proceedings. As his glance travelled from one placid well-fed face to another he saw all the harmless-looking people engaged upon May's canvas-backs as a band of dumb conspirators, and himself and the pale woman on his right as the centre of their conspiracy. And then it came over him, in a vast flash made up of many broken gleams, that to all of them he and Madame Olsenka were lovers, lovers in the extreme sense peculiar to "foreign" vocabularies. He guessed himself to have been, for months, the centre of countless silently observing eyes and patiently listening ears, he understood that, by means as yet unknown to him, the separation between himself and the partner of his guilt had been achieved, and that now the whole tribe had rallied about his wife on the tacit assumption that nobody knew anything, or had ever imagined anything, and that the occasion of the entertainment was simply May Archer's natural desire to take an affectionate leave of her friend and cousin.

It was the old New York way of taking life "without effusion of blood": the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes," except the behavior of those who gave rise to them.

As these thoughts succeeded each other in his mind Archer felt like a prisoner in the
centre of an armed camp. He looked about the table, and guessed at the inexorableness of his captors from the tone in which, over the asparagus from Florida, they were dealing with Beaufort and his wife. "It's to show me," he thought, "what would happen to me-" and a deathly sense of superiority of implication and analogy over direct action, and of silence over rash words, closed in on him like the doors of the family vault.

He laughed...

I chose this passage because it was, more or less, Newland's internal climax. Although everyone at the dinner party had never showed a hint of suspicion about the affair, Newland realizes that they all knew exactly what was going on. They could never vocalize it, for that would be indecent, and they could never interfere, for that might border on courageousness. Instead, they act as if nothing happened, and have an unrealized celebration at the status quo remaining.

Beaufort and his wife (mentioned in the passage above) had an unexpected financial ruin, which is sweepingly deeply condemned by society. The months surrounding the failure were littered with gossip and restrained disgust, although never to the Beauforts directly. The Beauforts were cut off. This helped society remain superior, and also served as a warning to anyone thinking of breaking it's well-defined rules.

Newland was always slightly bothered by the eternally closed nature of Old New York, but finally found it oppressive.

Conclusion

Newland, at one point, tries to explain to May his complicated situation with Ellen, but she brushes it off. Their lives follow her lead, continue uneventfully, and stay shallow. Without the option of sitting your loved ones down and speaking with seriousness and honest expression, your relationships would be stuck in the lifeless formality of Old New York.

In the end, however, Newland seems to have grown accustomed to and finds comfort in the oppressive traditions of society. He lives the rest of his life how he was taught and the only way he knows: without reflection, passions, or anxiety.

The younger generations will follow his footsteps, in a way. Instead of creating and avoiding societal taboos, they will flaunt them as a way of guarding their inner most thoughts and desires. The only real result of this unbalanced shift is to leave innocence behind.

Instead of a conscience, a collective-consciousness morality, or a belief in a higher power, the people of Old New York judged themselves on their own god of Society. Their Society always watched them, even during their most private moments, and was ready at all times to smite them. Even the younger generation's rebellion is rooted on the traditions of their ancestors.

The Old New York society and the younger generation's rebellious society couldn't possibly be maintained and kept in-tact over time (unless the flexibility of Mrs. Manson Mingott was applied). Every significant problem that man faces in this world (internally or externally) will eventually require honesty and openness to be applied to it. Life does not always require courage or directness, of course, but this route must remain open to us. Otherwise we will end up comfortable and dull in a shapeless existence.