Reflections on The Age of Innocence

In my Modern American Novels class, we recently read Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.  Although I read the piece in high school, the story seems even more symbolic and meaningful than when I first encountered Wharton’s writing, as is the case for modern literature of the sort. In lecture, we learned that the New York of Wharton’s fictional world is not unlike that in which the author grew up. In other words, she wrote what she knew. The details of décor, the subtleties of language and the suggestiveness of minute gesture reveal grand emotions which none of the characters can seem to express through language alone.
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Slowly becoming aware of his attraction to Madame Olenska, Newland Archer is visibly moved by an opera and projects his complicated feelings onto the plot of the observed performance. He is moved to tears, and because he is entrapped to society’s rigid expectations, cannot verbalize to anyone, let alone himself, these sentiments. This novel is a coming-of-age tale for an entire society developing in the Age of Innocence. May Welland is the quintessential innocent figure who must undergo transformation to be considered a mature member of her elite society. It is Newland Archer, however, who is the true protagonist and one to whom the term coming-of-age applies. It is a reversal in the standard social development, though. He borrows the perspective of the foreigner Madame Olenska and, after having viewed New York through her eyes, sees the frivolities of a broken society as though they were cracks in the lens.

Throughout the development of the plot, New York society becomes both his ally and enemy. It is a force that both stabilizes and infuriates him. The power of Wharton’s writing derives from the narration’s ability to capture the society’s restraints within the language itself. The narration may not address explicitly the growing love felt by Newland for the Madame Olenska but Wharton’s description of something as subtle as his reddening cheek implies as much.

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As the story progresses, Wharton adds layer upon layer of templates through which to examine the rest of the plot. By the second to last chapter, Newland Archer has suffered a series of anxieties beginning with his curious feelings about the Countess Ellen Olenska. After having pictured what New York society must look like through her eyes, he subconsciously adopts Ellen’s perspective and begins to experience an altered reality. Whereas in the beginning of the novel he thinks his bride-to-be May Welland a perfect creature of innocence, light, and beauty, he begins to eventually judge her to be nothing short of a vapid woman, doomed to turn out just as her mother did. Subsequently Newland develops strong feelings for Ellen and wishes desperately to divorce himself from the elitist society and inhabit a world wherein he and Ellen can be together without any social stigmas. He begins to fantasize about such a place and thus every encounter with Ellen is marked by mystical elements. During these particular passages, Wharton pays closer attention to landscapes and sentiments as opposed to accessories and garments of the “clan.” In such a world, he and Ellen exist independently of any others and are therefore free to become romantically involved.

Wharton continuously juxtaposes these imaginary worlds with the restrictions of Newland’s reality. These tensions culminate perfectly in the final moments of the novel and, just like the closing scenes of the opera, Wharton’s writing has left a lasting resonance.