Gender, class, and freedom in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth

Edith Wharton was a social critic of the America of the late 19th century and early 20th century. She was a child of her time, certainly influenced by the mindset and attitudes of the beau monde in which she was born, but she was also insubordinate and audacious, challenging affirmed conceptions of the world and stereotypes of women, especially women writers. The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1920) are her two most famous novels, presenting New York’s society principles and rituals as they affected men and women differently. Wharton allows the reader to follow the female characters’ journey as they navigate a patriarchal society in which they try to affirm themselves as independent and artistic beings, but she exposes how they never fully succeed as they are not free. Along with gender, the author concentrates on historical progress and the cultural changes it brought along, showing how ephemeral society’s conventions really are.