Abstract
This paper examines how although Edith Wharton chooses a female protagonist and presents issues sympathetic to the unique vulnerabilities of women, "The House of Mirth" applies itself far better as a social commentary than as a feminist manifesto. In particular, it looks at how while the society within the novel- that of New York during the Gilded Age- victimizes Lily Bart and drives her to her death, it does not discriminate by gender as to who bears responsibility. It discusses how Wharton shows us, through Lily's carefully constructed relationships with men; her vacant, unsatisfying relationships with women and also through her dramatic death scene a neutral, unmotivated narration that bears no resemblance whatsoever to feminist propaganda.

From the Paper
"Given their nearly voluntary impotence, Lily's destruction occurs without any intervention from her female peers. Only Gerty Farish and Carry Fisher, in fact, display any empathy, and society would hardly have considered them peers of Lily at the opening of the novel. According to Elizabeth Ammons, the system is designed to keep women in divisive and relentless competition for the money and favor controlled by the men. Forbidden to aggress on each other directly or on men at all, women prey on each other- stealing reputation, opportunities, male admirers- all to parlay or retain status (1). In The House of Mirth, this system succeeds. The women Lily once interacted with now prey upon her, and the language used in such situations reflects this."

Tags:propaganda, new, york, death

Abstract
This paper gives an analysis of the transformation of the character of Lily Bart in Edith Wharton's novel, "The House of Mirth." The paper focuses on New York Society in the Gilded Age. The paper concludes with a look at Bart's spiritual and psychological transformation.

From the Paper
"In Edith Wharton's novel "The House of Mirth" the central character Lily Bart experiences a spiritual as well as psychological transformation, a journey from a separation from others to a greater sense of both personal identity and authenticity and engagement with her fellows. Lily as Wharton's novel comes to a conclusion recognizes that virtually from birth on she has had little or no real relation to life. She lacks a center a core of character and experience and..."

Tags:Edith Wharton, character, Gilded Age, The House of Mirth, Lily Bart

Abstract
The paper presents the thesis that in the novel "The House of Mirth", Lily Bart actually wished to marry someone for love, but she was taught by her family to marry a man of wealth, and thus she was trapped in a world she was not truly happy in. The paper looks at the evidence that Lily Bart was just a pawn in New York society's social game, and asserts that it seems unfair to assume Lily could beat the odds in her life.

From the Paper
"On page 699 of his long critical essay, Carson writes that Wharton was actually attacking the "malignant process" (of how women were supposed to act, and how they were trained, as Lily Bart was, to seek wealth and the good life) and what Carson calls the "consciousness of oppression" by Wharton's exposure of New York society's "insidious nature" (Carson, 699). There seemed nothing "insidious" about Lily's lovely physical appearance on page 6, although it was clearly a manipulated beauty, largely her mother's doing. Wharton's description of Lily and her friend Selden strolling north on Madison Avenue is telling: "[Selden] was aware that the qualities distinguishing her from the herd of her sex were chiefly external" (Wharton p. 6).
"Selden asks Lily (p. 11), "Isn't marriage your vocation? Isn't it what you're all brought up for?" Lily sighed and answered, "I suppose so. What else is there?" Did she say that in jest? Reading between the lines one discovers Lily is just putting forth a ruse, because she really does want to marry someone she truly loves. She really would like to escape the bondage, if you will, of being something someone else created. When she chats with Selden about Selden's cousin Gerty Farish (Wharton p. 9), who lives in a "horrid little place" with "no maid" and "such queer things to eat," Lily's desire to be herself rather than the creation of her mother comes out."

Tags:wealth, marriage, values

Abstract
This paper looks at the life of novelist Edith Wharton. The author discusses her upper class status in New York, her lavish and privileged upbringing, and her decision to write about the old monied society life in the American Victorian Era, and her staunch feminist beliefs. The paper argues that Ms. Wharton's main protagonist in "House of Mirth", Lily Bart, is in fact, a mirror image of the author, and Lily's experiences, very much her own.

From the Paper
"Wharton and the character Lily were also very indicative of New York society, and very much products of their time. Regardless of their success or failure as feminist models or members of that society, both women may be seen as decent metaphors for the development of New York's uppercrust high society during the Gilded Age. First off, the struggle that both women were involved in regarding the encroachment of the "new money" on the domains of the "old blood" was very typical of society at large during this time period. There remained a narrow group of millionaires that had dominated New York since the days of the Dutch, and it was from this pool that Lily and Edith both sprung. This group had married almost exclusively within itself for decades, and the idea of widening its boundaries to include other families had to be difficult. However, the entire basis of this groups status was based on their wealth, and when their wealth was dwarfed by that of the new industrial giants, it threw a monkeywrench, so to speak, into the machinery of their lives. The question for both Lily and Edith, as for all of New York's very rich, was basic in nature: is marriage about breeding or money?"

Tags:lily, bart, edith, wharton, society, new, york, house, of, mirth, marriage, feminism, gilded, age, wealth, american, literature, selden, character, europe, aristocrat

Abstract
The paper demonstrates how Lily Bart was a product of her times and shows how it was almost inevitable that she would die as she did: alone, poor, and with hope being only an elusive dream. The paper discusses how today, Lily Bart would have more options open to her; she would have access to social services programs and she would also have the ability to work and to think for herself.

From the Paper
"Edith Wharton lived and wrote in a time during which societal roles were strictly defined, particularly for people in the "upper class." She, like her contemporaries, lived in a circumscribed world of tight, narrow boundaries. Like Lily Bart, Edith Wharton had the responsibility of learning to function as a member of that class, although she turned away from the strictures of her youth as she grew older. For that reason, Wharton was familiar with the world into which she put Lily Bart in the first part of "House of Mirth." Coming from the moneyed class, she would have understood the constraints that held Lily Bart in the role into which..."

Tags:wharton, mirth, society

Abstract
This essay deals with the character Lily Bart in "The House of Mirth" by novelist Edith Wharton. One critic has argued that Lily Bart "has an unstable and insecure sense of her own identity and a compulsive need to find some 'mirror' in which an acceptable 'self' will be reassuringly reflected back." This essay analyzes to what measure this statement is true.

From the Paper
"A third factor to influence Lily's self is the fact that she is or becomes what others perceive or want her to be. She adapts to people, she does whatever is requested of her. When her friend Judy wants Lily to help with 'tiresome things' Lily does not give her true feelings but goes downstairs and helps, when Lily meets Percy she adjusts her personality to him, when Lily is accused by Bertha of having an affair with her husband she does not fight off the allegations. It is at times as if Lily has no real opinion on anything, as if she does not really want to fight for herself. Lily speaks a lot but she never really says what she means."

Tags:nouveau, Percy, Gryce, Gus, Trenor

Abstract
In this article, the writer notes that the author of 'Truth or Fiction in 'The Da Vinci Code': A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine' is a scholar of early Christianity who enjoyed Dan Brown's book 'The Da Vinci Code', and the film based upon the wildly popular work of fiction. The writer discusses that Bart Ehrman stresses that Brown's work is imaginative, not factual, despite Brown's claims in the introduction to his novel. The writer notes that the novel tells the tale of a longstanding 'cover-up' by the Vatican of the fact that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene, had a child by her, and thus has mortal descendants. The writer concludes that in detailing Brown's inaccuracies, Ehrman presents a compelling and readable account of how what we think of as modern, institutionalized Christianity came into being.

From the Paper
"Contrary to Brown's assertion, the Emperor Constantine did not control the creation of the Christian canon, much less try to cover up Christ's humanity as expressed in the currently canonized gospels. The process of canonizing the books of the Christian Bible was a long one, and involved much discussion and debate between many competing sects. Many of these sects were later deemed heretical. But the majority of the heretical gospels excluded by the church patriarchs at the council of Nicaea did not conceptualize Jesus as a more sexual and human being. These gospels saw Jesus as even more divine and ethereal, as entirely removed from the realities of the world, in contrast to the more human, suffering Jesus of the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John."

Tags:Jesus, Christ, sacrifice, humanity, gospels

Abstract
"The Last of the Just" by Andre Schwarz-Bart, focuses on an old Hebrew legend of a group of men destined by God to be the culmination of the hearts of all mankind. The account traces the existence of the 'Lamed-Vov' through the male offspring of the Levy family, beginning in the twelfth century - with each of the chosen living and dying their destined martyr's death. The paper shows how the book travels down in time through the successive generation to the generation of the Second World War, ending with the intimate and extensive life of Ernie a Jew, the Last of the Just, who lives through the ghetto and dies in the Auschwitz gas chambers. The paper discusses the author's ability to convey the emotions and feelings of anti-Semitism from each generation, culminating in the most horrific act of all, the Holocaust.

From the Paper
"This document does better than almost no other I have read tracing the history of anti-Semitism through the past two thousand years. With the life and death of each Just Man lived a generation of sorrow and a multiplication of the suffering heart of all humanity. The special attention that Schwarz-Bart plays to the modern, and the repetitive cycle of horror makes clear that the message of this text is one of horror, hope and, of course, a warning. Schwarz-Bart has given a very personal narrative that brings to light the humanity of those Jews who have died in the last two thousand years for the simple reason of just being Jews."

Tags:Baal, Shem, Mordecai

Abstract
This paper discusses why the character Lily Bart from Wharton's "The House of Mirth", is a failure in the business world. He explains that this is because she has been raised, as most women of the time were raised, as a wealthy pampered woman who has no understanding of the business world. The paper also presents the concepts of poverty and wealth as understood through the male characters. The author believes that the only skills that society teaches women is to look pretty and snag a man.

From the Paper
"Selden's idea of success is similar to whatever Lily may think, "My idea of success, he said, is personal freedom ...Freedom from worries...from everything; from money, from poverty, from care and anxiety, from all the material accidents. To keep a kind of republic of the spirit,...that's what I call success". That idea of success is "rich" in one word. If you are rich enough to be free from worry about money, then you are successful in Selden's eyes and in society's eyes. If you are poor, you are clearly a failure, and it does not matter if you are happy or not, you are only successful if society says so. "

Tags:society, money, wealth, pamper, career

Abstract
The author demonstrates that the novel, "The House of Mirth", revolves around a young beautiful woman (Lily Bart) who aspires to join the upper class and in her quest for success ruins her own life. The paper studies the many faces of Lily?s ambition and shows why it turned into a negative force for the protagonist. The author feels that Edith Wharton's strength was exposing readers to both sides of ambition.

From the Paper
"She was proud of the fact that unlike other women, she did not think that marriage was the solution to all her problems. She did not want to be an ordinary woman and thus marriage for its own sake was not important to her. In Book I, we see the rebellious side of Lily's personality. It is here that we learn of some really important things about this character and her wild rather unrealistic ambitions. She harbors some foolish beliefs that make it impossible for her see beyond the obvious."

Tags:beautiful, woman, upper, class, ruins, negative, force, strength, sides