Questioning the Social Order Anonymous

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth creates a subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted picture of the social operation of turn-of-the-century New York. In her harsh expression of community, she succeeds in portraying a world of calculation operating under the pretenses of politeness. The characters become competitors in the highly complex game of social positioning with an amorphous body of socially formed laws. Through her presentation of Lily Barton's ongoing struggles to "recover her footing-each time on a slightly lower level" in this game of skill, Wharton forces her audience to question this social order (272). Lily's fate gives way to a satirical commentary on how a social order governed by convention, sanctions, beliefs, and customs can crush its individual members by mutating into a force greater than its collection of participants.

Wharton's bleak portrayal of this environment reveals an exchange system in which transactions are made only to further one's personal interest. Shaping this perception are the relations between men and women; as Lily explains to Selden, women must enter into "partnerships" (14) to strategically enhance their standing in the social regime. Lily must use her...