The House of Mirth

Lawrence Selden, a young lawyer, is repeatedly rejected as a potential husband by Lily Bart because of his lack of wealth, despite her attraction to him. Selden is tall, with keenly modeled features. Selden and Lily are similar in their fastidious taste, aestheticism, and literary interests. Both have been raised to participate in high society, without possessing great fortunes. Selden’s parents disdained money while appreciating exquisite quality. In contrast, Lily’s mother worshipped money while insisting on the finest possessions. Selden tries to preserve a detached enjoyment of society, retaining his personal freedom in a “republic of the spirit” (71). He finds Lily to be the unique combination of beauty and charm that he desires in a wife, yet he distrusts her. Selden cynically watches her maneuverings to acquire a rich husband. When scandalous rumors circulate about Lily, Selden is unsure whether they are true. His cousin Gerty encourages Selden to have faith in the “real” Lily, but he witnesses Lily’s exit from Gus Trenor’s townhouse at night and Bertha Dorset’s public rebuff of Lily on the French Riviera.

Selden’s critical comments to Lily that her ambition to marry for money was unworthy of her and that such a life would never satisfy Lily, help her to avoid some mistakes. Selden and Lily miss opportunities to declare their love to each other, but he eventually realizes what they shared.

Gerty Farish is Lily Bart’s foil in The House of Mirth, as a contrasting character who highlights Lily’s characteristics. Lily declares that Gerty likes being good and happy. Selden’s cousin Gerty typifies mediocrity and dinginess to Lily. With her wide frank glance, plain face, and workaday grey eyes, Gerty seems designed for spinsterhood and philanthropy according to Lily. Lily pities Gerty’s limitations and becomes irritated by Gerty’s cheerful acceptance of them. Gerty’s dullness accentuates Lily’s exceptional beauty. Gerty willingly lives in a cramped apartment within her means, while extravagant Lily only feels her best in a luxurious environment. Gerty admires her brilliant friend, even when she realizes that Selden loves Lily instead of herself.

Despite Lily’s ridicule of Gerty’s ways, Lily turns to the plain, young woman for help at an extreme moment of distress, following Gus Trenor’s brutal treatment of Lily. Through Gerty’s charity, Lily briefly experiences the benefit of giving to impoverished working girls. Gerty’s affirmation of Lily’s essential goodness helps Selden in Lily as well. Gerty’s innocent loyalty and sympathy to Lily continues to the end, although Lily wants to avoid burdening her.

Simon Rosedale is an affluent Jewish businessman whose monetary assessment of value and acquisitive sense initially offend Lily Bart. Lily feels that he views her as a piece of fine and rare merchandise to collect. As a nouveau riche social climber, Rosedale perceives the elegant Lily as a potential wife who can smooth his entrée into high society. Rosedale owns the Benedick building where Selden’s apartment is located. Rosedale’s observation of Lily’s exit from the Benedick and her unconvincing explanation of visiting her hairdresser there, compromise Lily’s reputation. Rosedale gossips with other men about her visit, knows about Gus Trenor’s payments to Lily, and learns about Lily’s purchase of Bertha Dorset’s letters from the char-woman.

Rosedale’s Wall Street financial achievements gradually enable him to overcome the bias against his Jewishness in terms of receiving invitations to society clubs and committees. His awareness of the social ostracism of Lily following Bertha Dorset’s rebuff diminishes Lily’s value to him as a possible wife. He proves to have a certain kindliness, fidelity, and candor beneath the hardness of his material ambitions. Concerned about Lily’s poverty, Rosedale tries to help her in an expedient way, suggesting he would marry her if she blackmailed Bertha and regained her social standing. Lily eventually dismisses this unethical temptation.

Mrs. Hudson Bart sets an example for her daughter Lily of living lavishly beyond her means. Mrs. Bart instills in Lily the belief that no matter how much it costs she must always wear expensive dresses and employ a good cook. Mrs. Bart teaches Lily to view those whose dinginess does not conform to her taste for splendor as inferior. Mrs. Bart’s pursuit of fashionable amusement creates a chaotic life of travel and luxury, followed by a deluge of bills. When Lily’s hard-working father faces financial ruin, Mrs. Bart blames him and fate for this outcome, instead of her spendthrift habits.

In the wake of her husband’s death, Mrs. Bart and Lily pay long visits to relatives or stay in cheap hotels abroad. Mrs. Bart teaches Lily that she must use her beauty to recover their fortune by marrying a wealthy husband. She warns her daughter against marrying for love and dies two years after the humiliation of her financial decline into dinginess.

The life of Lily’s father, Hudson Bart, exemplifies the assessment of a man’s value only in terms of the money he provides. In her youth, Lily never sees her father in the daytime and only rarely on Sundays in the summer when he joins his family at fashionable American resorts. Exhausted and prematurely aged by the work of financing his wife’s extravagant lifestyle, Hudson Bart is never mentioned during the lavish European trips taken by Lily and her mother except when bills are due. Lily was influenced by her father’s love of poetry in his earlier days before he was burdened with his wife’s expensive demands. When Hudson Bart is financially ruined, Lily’s mother feels that he no longer matters since he has ceased serving his purpose. He becomes ill and dies.

After the death of Lily’s parents, Lily resides with her father’s widowed sister, Mrs. Peniston. Mrs. Peniston offers a home to Lily because no other relative will take her, and the widow feels obliged to make a public display of selflessness. Descended from Dutch ancestors, Mrs. Peniston represents the traditional New York society woman who dresses expensively and lives well, but passively conforms. Lily hates the physical ugliness and lack of charm of Mrs. Peniston’s prosperous, old-fashioned residence. Mrs. Peniston makes no effort to give Lily an allowance or assist her in making a good marriage. Instead, Mrs. Peniston gives Lily occasional presents to instill in her a feeling of dependent gratitude.

A small, plump woman who always wears black, Mrs. Peniston primarily seeks to avoid emotional scenes. Her inability to empathize with Lily’s situation makes her feel very alone. Mrs. Peniston’s resentment at learning of Lily’s debts and other possible scandalous behavior leads her to disinherit Lily.

A cousin of Mrs. Peniston, Grace is an unmarried, poorer relative who resides in a boarding house. Lily classifies Grace as dingy and, therefore, insignificant. Grace’s lack of marriageability is signaled by the description of her freckled nose and red eyelids. Grace focuses her energy on gossip and making herself indispensable to the wealthy Mrs. Peniston. Although Mrs. Peniston prefers her charming, beautiful niece, Lily, she relies on Grace’s housekeeping advice and companionship.

Lily is oblivious to how offended Grace feels when Lily persuades her aunt to omit this unfashionable cousin from a family dinner. Grace’s animosity toward Lily prompts her to inform Mrs. Peniston of Lily’s gambling debts and other potential scandals attached to the young woman’s reputation. Consequently, Grace receives the inheritance from Mrs. Peniston that was expected to go to Lily. This development puts Lily in an increasingly desperate position. When Lily attempts to get an advance on her small legacy, Grace tells the young woman that her foolish behavior caused her aunt’s illness.

A tall, fair woman, Judy Trenor exists only as a hostess. Her only rivalry is with any woman who tries to give larger or more amusing parties than her own. Judy schemes to outdo Mrs. Maria Van Osburgh, another society hostess, in acquiring prominent guests. Since Judy’s social abilities are backed by her husband’s ample bank account, she triumphs in the competition. Lily Bart assumes that Judy is her most reliable friend, the least likely to betray her, because of Judy’s focus on groups. Judy expects the poorer Lily to fill in for her absent secretary and perform the social drudgery of writing cards in return for Judy’s extensive hospitality, as well as to play bridge for money. Judy cooperates with Lily’s plan to marry for wealth, inviting Percy Gryce to her house party for Lily’s sake. When Lily spends the afternoon with Selden instead, Judy chastises Lily for not being serious about marrying Percy. Judy does not care about her husband’s dalliances with other women if these actions do not jeopardize his finances.

Lily attempts to solve her indebtedness by approaching her friend’s husband, Mr. Trenor, for financial advice, and thinks she can manage him when he pressures her for companionship. Gossip spreads that Mr. Trenor is paying Lily’s bills. Lily worries that her activities with Mr. Trenor anger her friend, so she welcomes Judy’s invitation to dine in the city. When Judy cancels her dinner plans, her husband uses her absence to lure the unwilling Lily to his townhouse. When Lily returns from her Mediterranean cruise following Bertha Dorset’s ostracism, Lily hopes that Judy will remain her friend. However, when Lily encounters Judy with her husband at a restaurant, Judy’s rejection is unmistakable. Lily knows that all their social group will follow Judy’s lead. Judy is enraged and unforgiving about the sizable sum of money that Lily received from Mr. Trenor. Lily concludes that she must repay her debt to regain her social standing, even if it leaves her impoverished.

Sweaty and massive, Gus Trenor is a catalyst for Lily Bart’s realization of the moral depths to which she has sunk in trying to escape her debt. Primarily motivated by physical urges, the heavy-drinking Gus has small, dull eyes, a broad neck, and jeweled rings wedged in the creases of his fat, red fingers. When Lily approaches Gus, the husband of her friend Judy, for Wall Street advice, Lily’s ignorance of business makes her easy prey. Lily’s denial keeps her from acknowledging that she is appealing to Gus’s attraction to her. Soon, Gu expects intimacy from Lily in exchange for the money he gives her. Lily tells herself that Gus is speculating with her own money and that she can manage him.

Frustrated with his lack of success in developing an affair with Lily, Gus tricks her into coming to his townhouse by pretending his wife is there. Gus’s assumption that Lily accepted money from other men and settled the debts with intimacy shocks her. She barely escapes from Gus’s physical clutches, but the experience sears her with a feeling of self-loathing and a desperate desire to repay the money she owes to Gus. When Selden and Ned Van Alstyne observe Lily exiting Gus’s townhouse, they assume the worst—that Lily has done something illicit.

Bertha Dorset is Lily Bart’s antagonist in the novel. Judy Trenor describes Bertha as a nasty woman who always gets what she wants eventually. Judy warns Lily that it would be safer to stay on good terms with the dangerous Bertha because she delights in making people miserable. Lily does not heed this advice when she spends time with Selden, the object of the married Bertha’s romantic interest. Bertha exacts revenge on Lily by spreading gossip about her gambling debt and destroying Lily’s chances of marrying Percy Gryce. As Lily becomes increasingly financially indebted, she attributes her troubles to the enmity of Bertha.

Despite being smaller and thinner than Lily, Bertha’s assertive personality is formidably large. Bertha enjoys adulterous affairs, formerly with Selden, later with Ned Silverton. She does not intend to divorce her husband because she would lose access to his money. Bertha takes advantage of Lily’s ability to humor her husband, using Lily to distract her husband’s attention from her own affair with Ned. Bertha invites Lily to accompany them on a Mediterranean cruise for this purpose. When Bertha wants to prevent her husband from divorcing her, she sacrifices Lily by accusing the young woman of trying to romantically pursue her husband and preventing her return to their yacht. Bertha sabotages Lily’s livelihood by maliciously gossiping about her to Lily’s employer, Mrs. Gormer. After Lily purchases Bertha’s letters to protect Selden, Rosedale encourages her to use them to blackmail Bertha and regain her social position, but Lily rejects this temptation.

Gloomy and irritable George Dorset suffers from indigestion, compounded by the deceit of his wife Bertha. Bertha conceals her adulterous affairs from sallow-faced George by pretending to be jealous of his nonexistent relationships. Since few women take the trouble of listening to his complaints, George appreciates Lily’s kindness. When George finally realizes his wife’s adulterous subterfuge on the Mediterranean cruise, he begs Lily to give him evidence so he can divorce Bertha. Lily refuses to insert herself into the Dorsets’ marital conflict. Carry Fisher advises Lily to marry George to punish Bertha and protect herself, but Lily dismisses this possibility.

Blond, reddish-bearded Percy Bryce is an unimaginative, shy bachelor, who inherited millions from his book-collecting uncle, Jefferson Bryce. Percy’s inheritance makes him the goal of Lily Bart’s scheme to marry a wealthy man. Percy’s uncle accumulated a fortune by patenting a device for excluding fresh air from hotels and Percy is equally unrefreshing. Percy’s mother, an outwardly respectable, but inwardly uncharitable woman, further inculcated in Percy suspicion and excessive prudence.

Lily’s efforts to flatter Percy by learning about the value of Americana in book collections and to represent herself as a nonsmoking churchgoer place marriage to Percy within her grasp. However, Lily sabotages her opportunity with ambiguity toward a boring future with the dull Percy and the sordidness of her marital maneuverings. As a result of Bertha Dorset’s additional interference, Percy unites his fortune with that of the conventional Evie Van Osburgh in marriage.

Carry Fisher is a striking divorcée tolerated by Mrs. Judy Trenor for keeping her husband in good humor, until Carry’s habit of borrowing money from Mr. Trenor becomes too excessive. Carry’s example of making a living from the good nature of her society friends’ husbands gives Lily the idea of asking Mr. Trenor for help in making money on the stock market.

Carry later earns a livelihood by assisting the ambitious Wellington Brys and the more jovial Sam Gormers to gain entrance to high society. Although Carry maintains herself by her expedient associations with the rich, her sympathies are with the unlucky and unsuccessful people in life. Carry tries to help Lily Bart in several ways: by offering Lily a chance to take over her roles with the Brys and the Gormers, by placing her with Mrs. Hatch, by encouraging her to marry Rosedale or George Dorset, and by getting her a job at Mme. Regina’s fashionable millinery establishment.

A spendthrift cousin of Lily Bart, Jack Stepney attempts to introduce Mr. Rosedale to their social set to repay him for loans of money. Lily is annoyed when contemplating her improvident cousin’s mercenary courtship of the wealthy Gwen Van Osburgh because it feels like a caricature of Lily’s own situation. While Jack succeeds in solving his financial problems by marriage to the Van Osburgh heiress, Lily fails to execute her similar plan. After Jack’s marriage, he gains weight and adopts the haughty attitude of his wife toward Lily.

Gwen, Evie, and Freddy are the children of Mrs. Maria Van Osburgh, a rich society hostess whose gatherings offer the primary competition to the house parties given by wealthy society hostess Mrs. Judy Trenor. The Van Osburgh sisters, Gwen and Evie, are stolid, plain heiresses whose limited perspectives typify the affluent elite. Lily Bart’s cousin, Jack Stepney, marries Gwen for her money. Percy Gryce, the wealthy but boring bachelor whom Lily tried to capture, marries the equally wealthy Evie, whose dullness reassures him. Freddy, barely out of college and the primary heir of the Van Osburgh millions, is the target of a group trying to unite him in marriage with the unsuitable divorcée, Mrs. Hatch. Lily is unwittingly being used in this effort before she extracts herself.

Ned Silverton, an aspiring poet, exemplifies the danger for Lily Bart of developing a taste for the high society life when one cannot afford it. Ned becomes indebted playing bridge at the house parties, squanders his literary talent, and lives off his unmarried, devoted sisters. Ned is passed from society woman to society woman as an entertaining lover. Mrs. Bertha Dorset invites Lily Bart to accompany her on a cruise to conceal Bertha’s affair with Ned. Bertha uses Lily’s companionship to divert her husband’s attention from her activity with Ned. After Bertha ends her relationship with Ned, he descends even further into his gambling addiction and tries to acquire money by introducing Freddy Van Osburgh to Mrs. Hatch.

The char-woman, Mrs. Haffen, represents the threat posed to the insular world of the upper class by the workers who provide the labor that maintains their luxurious lifestyle. These toilers’ proximity to the wealthy also gives them access to their secrets. Mrs. Haffen’s unattractive appearance reflects her hardships: her face pitted with small-pox scars, her scalp shining through her thinning straw-colored hair, and her fists reddened with scrubbing the floor. Lily first encounters the char-woman on the staircase in the Benedick building when she exits Selden’s apartment and again on the staircase in Mrs. Peniston’s residence on her way to her bedroom. Both times, the char-woman rudely stares with curiosity at Lily and temporarily blocks the young society woman’s passage with her pail of soapy water.

These unpleasant encounters prove to be pivotal as Lily hoped to leave Selden’s apartment unseen to prevent any possible scandal attached to her reputation. Mrs. Haffen assumes that Lily has been involved in an indiscretion and she tries to blackmail Lily with pieced-together private letters she found addressed to Selden. Bertha Dorset’s letters, purchased by Lily to protect Selden, become a source of ongoing temptation to Lily.

Wellington Bry makes vast sums of money on the Stock Exchange and his wife, Louisa, has boundless social ambitions. Mrs. Carry Fisher organizes parties for the Brys and works to introduce them to high society. Lily Bart decides to accept an invitation to spend Thanksgiving week at a gathering hosted by the Brys when she receives fewer social invitations than usual because of her failure to marry. The party is not at the level of society to which Lily is accustomed, but the Brys’ deferential treatment of Lily renews her sense of personal power.

The Brys host tableaux vivants, in which fashionable ladies pose in recreations of famous paintings to advance in society. The gathering attracts a large audience and Lily has an artistic triumph with a tableau that reveals her beauty. Lily assists in arranging a restaurant dinner for the Brys to socialize with the Duchess of Beltshire, after helping the duchess elude Mrs. Bry’s attempt to befriend her. Wellington Bry’s more natural behavior is preferred by the English aristocrats over his wife’s pretensions. After the dinner, Bertha Dorset humiliates Lily in front of the Brys and other guests by not permitting her to return to their yacht.

Sam and Mattie Gormer are a wealthy couple whose fun-loving social set includes artists and actresses. In the past, Lily would have avoided the noisy Gormer milieu as an inferior caricature of high society. After Lily has been disinherited by her aunt, Mrs. Carry Fisher persuades Lily to take over her role as social organizer with the Gormers. Gerty Farish believes that Lily is cheapening herself by associating with the Gormers, but Lily enjoys a return to luxury. When the Gormers build a country house on Long Island near the Dorsets’ residence, Bertha Dorset visits Mattie to spread bad rumors about Lily, ending her position with the Gormers.

The wealthy Mrs. Hatch, a divorced woman of vague Western origins, forms her ideas of elegance from the theater, the sports world, and the fashion journals. Her world of New York hotel life, with strange hangers-on of manicurists, French teachers, and hairdressers, startles Lily with its irresponsible, disorderly atmosphere when she takes on the role of educating Mrs. Hatch in the rules of high society. Mrs. Hatch represents the nadir of Lily’s efforts to earn a livelihood by acting as a society guide. The disreputable tone of the group surrounding Mrs. Hatch and a covert attempt to unite the young heir, Freddy Van Osburgh, in marriage with the unsuitable divorcée finally convince Lily to leave this position. Lily’s reputation further declines because of rumors that she conspired in the effort to link Freddy with the divorcée.