The Age of Innocence

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1920

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-9

Chapters 10-18

Chapters 19-27

Chapters 28-34

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Hieroglyphic World of Old New York

Archer considers Old New York “a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs” (Location 565). Archer’s reference to Egyptian hieroglyphics, stylized pictorial signs only recently deciphered in the 1820s, is a metaphor for obliqueness. People around him do not communicate directly, but instead talk around everything with veiled meaning. For example, when Mrs. Welland understands the need to announce May and Archer’s engagement at the Beaufort ball in order to detract from Ellen’s arrival, she feels “obliged to simulate reluctance, and the air of having had her hand forced” (Location 567). Mrs. Welland’s performance of reluctance arises from her predilection to disguise urgency—she prefers to project the illusion that the engagement announcement was not rushed out of fear that Ellen’s arrival compromised the family’s social position. Similarly, Miss Jackson’s euphemistic comment that “Madame Olenska is a great favorite with the gentlemen,” which sounds like “something conciliatory when she knew she was planting a dart” (Location 3362), is a hieroglyphic performance of innocence.

Obfuscation serves two purposes: First, it acts as a marker of breeding for Old New York’s denizens, euphemizing coarse matters they associate with the lower classes; and second, it quickly identifies those who do not socially belong because they fail to communicate in the prescribed manner. Women in particular must embrace the extremes of this style of language and self-presentation, aspiring to what Wharton mockingly calls a lifelong innocence: They not only refrain from referring to unpleasant or controversial things, but pretend that they have not seen them. This well-bred naiveté is an “artificial product” (Location 578) of effort and training. Archer and Ellen consider “this creation of factitious purity” oppressive (Location 579). However, although for Archer this attitude makes him seem a modern and progressive man, for Ellen, the inability to confide in any of her female peers and trust that she will be accepted is punishing and traumatic. She is at the center of an unpleasant separation from a man who abused her, but only Archer will look at her misfortune directly.

This hieroglyphic code means that May is unable to communicate sincerely with Archer, who often finds her inscrutable. While he imagines that after their marriage May will be more honest and find an identity separate from her family, he discovers that her views exactly align with theirs. As a result, Archer is ever more drawn to Ellen, with whom he can be himself. Even without a sexual relationship, they can honestly communicate their desire for each other, an openness Archer finds extremely seductive. Unlike kissing May, which is awkward at best, any physical contact with Ellen thrills Archer: her touching his knee with her fan, his wanting to put his body in the places that hers occupied, and later, him unbuttoning her glove and kissing her arm.

Archer’s desire for Ellen puts pressure on the polite hieroglyphic system of communication. Although May pretends not to know the truth, barbed comments leak through her deflective chatter. When she notes that Ellen might be happier with her husband, the comment strikes as uncharacteristically cruel and alerts him to May’s awareness. Still, while it refrains from directly addressing vulgarities, Old New York’s system of hieroglyphic communication adapts to defend its values and keep out those who threaten them—as evidenced in Archer’s eventual capitulation to staid propriety.

The Love Affair: Between Fantasy and Truth

Archer seeks to make his relationships with women like the intimate ones he reads about in European novels. While his friends are content to pursue marriages that advance their social interests and communicate insincerely with their wives, he craves a “passionate and tender comradeship” (Location 555). He hopes that marriage will unite the passion of a love affair with the frank conversation of a close friendship. While such a desire seems conventional to modern readers, by the standards of Old New York, it was radical because instead of possessing “the experience, the versatility, the freedom of judgment” expected of men (Location 556), women were trained to cultivate innocence and ignorance.

Archer finds it difficult to realize his romantic ideal. Prior to his courtship of May, he embarked on a not so secret “love-affair with poor silly Mrs. Thorley Rushworth” (Location 1236). However, this affair was not what he was looking for: Mrs. Rushworth was more attracted to the thrill of adultery than to Archer. While May is the antidote to Mrs. Thorley Rushworth, her propriety and reserve do nothing to fulfil his longing for adventure and intimacy. When May, suspicious of his affections for another woman, briefly drops the veil and is frank with him, Archer enjoys this new “mystery of young-girlhood” (Location 1932). However, she quickly retreats into her more predictable, mealy-mouthed self as “an adventurous child takes refuge in its mother’s arms” (Location 1944). The simile likening May to a child that runs to its mother after venturing out on its own is apt—instead of imagining new models, she reinforces the social norms of Old New York. This continues throughout their marriage, as she holds up the ideals of her age long after it has passed.

Ellen meets Archer’s criteria for independence of aesthetic and thought, but she keeps him on tenterhooks by entertaining the advances of other suitors. Still, their relationship is impossible: They can only be alone in liminal, transitory spaces, such as a day’s paddle boat trip, on the carriage that will bring her to her ailing grandmother, or at a public museum. This gives their encounters the thrill of unpredictability, but no footing. Ellen, who hates the idea of betraying her family, will not allow the relationship to become an affair, insisting on remaining Archer’s friend. This creates a heightened state of limerence: Without consummation, their love remains in a thrilling, youthful stage. Archer has fantasies of sailing away with Ellen to some unknown place where they can start anew—dreams that reveal his lack of experience. Ellen knows that becoming pariahs would be too difficult to sustain a relationship. Throughout his married life, the tempting and unattainable fantasy of Ellen satisfies Archer and keeps him faithful to his wife. After May’s death, when he refuses to meet Ellen in Paris. This implies that in the manner of true romantics, he prefers his internal fantasies to creating a new reality with Ellen.

False Dichotomy between Innocence and Experience

Wharton sets up Ellen and May as physical, emotional, and moral opposites. Ellen is slight and dark, while May is fair and statuesque; May is All-American, while Ellen has European mannerisms; May is studiously innocent, while Ellen is curious and experienced. Patriarchal society classes May as a nubile virgin and Ellen as a morally tainted, separated woman: May is inviolate and marriageable, while Ellen is someone who might be pitied, shunned, or entertained as a mistress. While Ellen is associated with Europe, with its centuries of white history, culture, and corruption, May’s innocence reflects the dreams of white Americans to set up a new civilization without the worst vices of the old. However, the artificiality of May’s innocence reveals the hypocrisy of the American position.

Still, despite this apparent contrast, both states were intimately familiar to Wharton herself. As Elif Batuman points out, “the choice of roles—nubile virgin or sexy outcast—was an impoverished one, corresponding roughly to the stages of Edith Wharton’s life, from society bride to divorced expatriate” (Batuman). Batuman draws attention to the falseness of creating a dichotomy based purely on sexual experience, which only demonstrates a patriarchal perspective. This way of sorting elides over a fact the novel highlights: There are many different kinds of innocence, not all of which May embodies. Since May and Ellen’s fates are determined by their marital status, each must use creativity and ingenuity to create the life she is looking for.

Both women use the resources available to them to achieve what they want. While Ellen has sexual experience, May is more knowledgeable about the rules of New York society. She is fluent in the hieroglyphic speech and pretense required of the upper class. May’s unquestioning devotion to the ideals and institutions of her upbringing make her seem old-fashioned, but she knows how to maneuver both Ellen and Archer through wedding and pregnancy announcements to end up with her ideal life: a proper family that abides by the old codes of behavior. Interestingly, the novel notes that May clings to this model even in the face of a changing world—and does so successfully, with her family supporting her willful self-delusion.

In contrast, though Ellen at first shows her naiveté by believing that her family would support her escape to New York and her desire for divorce from her abusive husband, she eventually figures out how to achieve the independence she craves. Resisting the indirect stratagems her family orchestrates to ensure that she complies with their interests, Ellen learns that she must imitate their subtle methods, making herself indispensable to her grandmother to win a new benefactor and financial backer. Ellen’s progressiveness—her frankness, display of emotion and propensity to entertain divorce—serves her well in aligning with her grandmother’s self-congratulatory outspokenness. Eventually, this connection allows Ellen to create a Parisian salon where she can use her influence to help other figures from society’s margins.