The Age of Innocence
The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
It is strange to note that I still don’t feel up to writing a review about The
Age of Innocence, even though I have finished it days ago. It came home to me that this novel is somewhat similar to Babbit, by Sinclair Lewis. Both Sinclair Lewis and Edith Wharton set up their story background in America at a time when conformity is superior and noble, whilst individuality is foreign and distasteful.
But Edith Wharton’s the Age of Innocence stood out, as for me, in the way that
Edith Wharton’s panoramic delineation of the people and events in the New York’
s society stuck you that conformity was not a personal feeling but the overall atmosphere of the whole society at that time; and it might, and did, pass by eventually, but, whilst it was there, was enough to change the fate of those who were stuck in it.
Newland Archer, the protagonist, was to be engaged to May Welland, when he met May Welland’s cousin Ellen Olenska, who returned from Europe, fleeing away from
her brutish husband. It astonished Newland Archer that Ellen Olenska was so unaware of the terrifying conformity atmosphere of New York, which was something he
yearned to break but did not in prudence. Reading the novel, you experienced that how one’s soul (Newland Archer’s) yearned for freedom and independence under
the smothering social ambiance, whilst the other’s (Ellen Olenska’s), though
owning the freedom and independence, craved for understanding and accompany.
Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska were attracted to each other due to the fact they owned the same spirit of disobedience of something stifling and suffocating.
But their attempt ended in failure eventually. The reality of conformity and social etiquettes and the conscience of the two regarding to others were to blame.
It is hard for me to judge which one is to sympathize. Or maybe it is essentially impossible. In the novel, everyone is the sacrifice for the society.
Newland Archer ended in staying with May, who he couldn’t share his thoughts with, most of his life time; May married to Newland even after she knew his feeling for Ellen, and gave birth to three children for him faithfully; and Ellen, after knowing Mary got pregnant, left Newland once and for all, and spent most of her life without mutual comfort and accompany. The storied ended in thirties years later after Newland parted from Ellen; Newland was due to meet Ellen in Paris.
But he forwent the appointment, and went back home alone in the thickening dusk.
In Babbit, the title-named character attempted to break away from the social forms but eventually went back to the way he was due to the pressure from the society. In the Age of Innocence, both Newland and Ellen, though attempting to do so
more than once, ended in a similar way. But what was ironical and tragic was that thirty years later Newland found, after his generation passed its consummate time, what was forbidden and abominable before had long since become normal and acceptable.
“The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they’re going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn’t...Only, I wonder—the things one’s so certain of in advance: can it ever make one’s heart beat as wildly.” Upon the end of the story, Newland
Archer mused in thoughts. For me, listening to his thoughts is like listening to buried sighs and impossible yearns in the sonorous bell that beckoned the upcoming of the new era and meanwhile closed the old one. It made you sympathize; and it made you think.
( Written upon request.)
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