Broken Marriage in Aristocratic Societies in Edith Wharton’s Selected Novels

Soofastaei, Elaheh; Mirenayat, Sayyed Ali

doi:10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.49.192

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Broken Marriage in Aristocratic Societies in Edith Wharton’s Selected Novels

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Abstract:

Family is a bridge between individual and society. In my paper, I will survey broken marriage and individual dissatisfaction in two novels by Edith Wharton. The novels in question are The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1920). Edith Wharton portrays her concern by the conflict between the individuals and the social groups which they live in there. Her treatment of the family is always in association with the bourgeois society, with the ambitious stock brokers from the west. This conflict can be seen in their attitudes to love, marriage, divorce, and remarriage. In the novels, Marriage, as an indissoluble matter and even an invariable failure, is main concept and sex outside marriage is meaningless. Wharton shows divorce in aristocratic societies in an old-fashioned lifestyle.

Info:

Periodical:

International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences (Volume 49)

Pages:

192-196

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.49.192

Citation:

E. Soofastaei and S. A. Mirenayat, "Broken Marriage in Aristocratic Societies in Edith Wharton’s Selected Novels", International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, Vol. 49, pp. 192-196, 2015

Online since:

March 2015

Authors:

Elaheh Soofastaei, Sayyed Ali Mirenayat

Keywords:

Aristocratic Societies, Bourgeois, Broken Marriage, Divorce, Individual Dissatisfaction

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

References:

Ammons, Elizabeth. Edith Wharton's Argument with America. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, (1980).

Bauer, Dale M. Edith Wharton's Brave New Politics. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, (1994).

Bell, Millicent. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Edith Wharton: New York: Cambridge University Press, (1995).

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Lindberg, Gary. Edith Wharton and the Novel of Manners. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, (1975).

Peden, Joseph R. and Fred R. Glahe. Introduction: The American Family in a Free Society.

Poster, Mark. Critical Theory of the Family. New York: The Seabury Press, (1978).

Wershoven, Carol. The Female Intruder in the Novels of Edith Wharton. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, (1982).

Online Resources: Scorsese, Martin. (1993). The Age of Innocence,. Retrieved from http: /www. thefreelibrary. com/The+Age+of+Innocence%3a+Martin+Scorsese%2c+1993 -a0112720631.

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