Objectification of Women in The House of Mirth Essay -- House Mirth Es

Objectification of Women in The signal of glee Edith Whartons The House of Mirth is an affront to the false social values of fashionable immature York connection. The heroine is Lily Bart, a woman who is destroyed by the very society that produces her. Lily is well-born alone poor. The story traces the decline of Lily as she moves through a series of alive residences, from houses to hotel lodgings. Lily lives in a New York society where appearances are all. Women fox a decorative function in such an environment, and even her name, Lily, suggests she is a bang of femininity, i.e. an object of decoration as well as of desirability to the manly element. We see this is very true once Lilys bloom fades, as it were, a time when she is cast aside by her peers no longer cosmos useful as something to admire on the surface. The theme of the novel in this aspect is that indistinguishability based on mere appearance is not enough to sustain the human soul physically or metaphysically . once she is no longer able to keep the eye of her peers, Lily finds herself with no identity and dies. This analysis will discuss the theme of the objectification of women in a mannish dominated society inherent throughout the novel. Lily Bart and her mother have been socially ruined in a sense because of the economic failures of their fetch and husband respectfully. However, Lilys mother teaches her that she can still maintain a graduate(prenominal) social status if she marries well, i.e. a rich man. In fact, Lilys mother is know for making the most out of the least as she is famous for the straight-out effect she produced on limited means (Wharton 48). In a society where women are considered valuable only for the appearance they present, it is impossible f... ...vel could possibly be that women are commodified from the cradle to the grave and that never in a manlike dominated society will they ever be fully comprehended as separate entities with whole identities equal a nd separate from males. WORKS CITED Restuccia, F. L. The trope of the Lily Edith Whartons Feminism(s). The House of Mirth Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Benstock, S. (ed.). New York, Bedford Books, 1994, 404-418. Robinson, L. S. The trade in Women A Cultural Critique of The House of Mirth. The House of Mirth Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism. Benstock, S. (ed.). New York, Bedford Books, 1994, 340-58. Wharton, E. The House of Mirth. New York, Bedford Books, 1994. 2