AOI

Question 1

Settlers Context

Answer 1

• Wharton divided herself between Europe and America, later spending more of her time in Europe.
• Her parents were descendants of Dutch and English colonists
• Wharton was disappointed with America, and found that New York was ugly

Question 2

Marriage Context

Answer 2

• At 21 met Walter Berry, a Harvard graduate who shared her interests but didn’t marry him (Ellen and Archer)
• Reluctantly married Teddy Wharton, banker 12 years her senior. Unhappily married for 13 years (Ellen and Count Olenksi)

Question 3

Teddy Roosevelt

Answer 3

-Friend of Edith and has a fictional appearance in AOI

Question 4

More Marriage Context

Answer 4

• In 1904, Wharton finds out that her husband is keeping a mistress in Boston and misappropriating money (Ellen, May and Archer)
• She was legally separated from Teddy, later divorcing him in 1913 and spent the rest of her life in France (May and Ellen)
• Wharton went into marriage totally unprepared for the sexual side of being a wife. Found that this passion that fulfilled her until much later in life

Question 5

Book Background

Answer 5

• Book published in 1920, won Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1921. First to be won by a woman
• in 1924 awarded Gold Medal by the National Institute of Arts. Again first woman too win it.
• AOI adapted for stage in 1925, had 207 performances

Question 6

More Book Background

Answer 6

• Wharton chose to write about time after the Civil War. Living through the turbulent ww1 and 1920s
• Book focused on the conflict between Old vs New. Book shows conflict on the ‘right people’, following the ‘correct rules’ and marrying into the ‘right families’.
• Wharton was taken back when reviewers failed to see the irony of the title and the social criticism of the 1870s

Question 7

Chapter 1 Analysis- Society

Answer 7

• Motif: New York society composed of tight knit families follow behaviour codes that have been passed through families
• Cultural symbol of Opera House: Members of society use it as a marriage market to reproduce their class and facilitate their marriages within the ranks. Prescribed social seasons are also a way for the rich to remain in control.

Question 8

Chapter 1 Analysis- Love

Answer 8

-Purposefully chose a Opera where the older, more experienced Faust falls in love with a young village girl. May doesn’t understand Faust’s efforts to seduce Marguerite, but her romantic innocence is underscored when she looks at Newland’s flowers- Parallels with Archer and May

Question 9

Outsiders Quotes

Answer 9

• Society is drawn to and repulsed by money and possessions of the New Rich, shown through characters like Gatsby and Beaufort. Only interested as he has a ballroom which is open 1 day a year
• “Few things seem more awful to Newland than an offence against Taste”- Finds Ellen’s words distasteful as she mentions that New York is judgemental.
• Double standard of society

Question 10

Marriage/Hypocrisy Quotes

Answer 10

• Newland believes that married couples should live in a world “where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs”
• Newland defends Ellen’s right to be “free” but contemptuously calls the Count’s women “harlots”. The women who “Free” trouble New Yorkers

Question 11

Van Der Luydens

Answer 11

• Wharton describes them as being like a “painting”- Noun reflects the intolerances and rigidness of the older generation. Stuck in position of traditional, much like paintings
• “Gruesomely preserved in the airless atmosphere” - Regarded as a sacrosanct (too important to interfere with) Mrs Mingott remarks that New York needs new blood, old line dead- shown with the dull and depressing adjectives used to describe them.
• Wharton personifies New York society as having “eyes and ears” because the Van Der Luyden’s carriage is in front of the Mingott house is news.

Question 12

Society

Answer 12

• Dinner is presented by the characters as be a venue for contrasting the old, new and Europeans. Wharton uses this to ironically portray their actual attitudes
• New workers as products of the “new world” are expected to be free and liberated but they’re the ones commenting on the breaches of etiquette

Question 13

Love

Answer 13

• “Yellow roses” too strong for May but perfect for Ellen’s free spirit. Passionate and imaginative
• “Lilies of the Valley” Orthodox choice, lacking imagination. Often used in funerals, reflects May’s ‘dead’ personality
• “Blankly at blankness”, Plosive sounds are short= shows how limited she is.

Question 14

Context- Edit and Ellen

Answer 14

• Character of Ellen is semi-autobiographical of Wharton= European intellect living an artistic life outside of America.
• Wharton understood that men like Newland do not understand women but need them to settle down and to lead responsible lives. Men must support and protect but not having affairs/leading responsible lives

Question 15

Hypocrisy

Answer 15

• Irony of Newline and May spending the night of their wedding in the same house that Ellen stayed in where she sought haven
• “It’s the only house [Ellen’s] seen in America that she could imagine being perfectly happy in”

Question 16

Appearance Vs Reality

Answer 16

• May’s world is New York City, and will “always be loyal, gallant and unresentful”, she is was which trained to be: a perfect wife”. She is her mother’s daughter.
• Newline describes May as “peace, stability, comradeship and the steadying sense of inescapable duty”. Wharton’s nostalgia for 1870s from seeing it from a new century= marriage a steady influence in a sea of chaos of ww1. Medora, Manson reminds Newland that “Marriage is a life long sacrifice”
• Newland sees his marriage as a sham, and sees life without Ellen as “Damnably dull”= strong plosive sounds create a boring monotone sound

Question 17

Hypocrisy

Answer 17

• Men are chastised for illegal financial dealings, but forgiven for immoral affairs= Beaufort
• Women are kept finically dependent and ostracised for immoral affairs= Ellen
• Mrs Wellend believes that Ellen has sunk to her own level (among bohemians) and is a “favourite of the gentlemen”

Question 18

Appearance vs Reality

Answer 18

• Strong use of non-verbal messages throughout the novel, but May eventually breaks her ‘codes’ in book 2 and knows that he is going to see Ellen.
• She tells him this with her “bright housekeeping air”, looking him straight in the eye which exasperates him. Shows how May is firm in her own legal and ethical positions in his life, knows how eventually Newland will come back to her= deep social patterns and legal ties which are too deep.

Question 19

Men and Women

Answer 19

• “The whole of New York was darkened by the tale of Beaufort’s dishonour”: family loyalty vs dishonour is a conflict which must be resolved.
• Ellen sympathies with Regina “She is the wife of a scoundrel… and so am I, and yet all my family want me to go back to him”.
• Ellen realises the social principles and habits that they would loose if her and Newland were to have an affair. –When she says the noun “mistress”, Newland sees it as crude coming from a woman, and doesn’t want to break social conventions.

Question 20

Men and Women

Answer 20

• It was fine for Mrs Rushworth to have an affair, women aren’t expected to be truthful in the matters of love. Women had to devious because they were powerless.
• Men has to keep a higher standard and were despised if they went after other women if they were married.

Question 21

Time

Answer 21

• Time is symbolic when Newland and Ellen meet amongst objects from former civilisations that are now “time-blurred”. Many of these objects are marked “Use unknown”, and Ellen ironically remarks that these objects once belonged to people who used/valued them =Ellen sees this as cruel
• Newland also used to care about things such as anthropology but time with its relentless power, sweeps away these objects and social disconnections. Making them meaningless= reflects about how all of the melodrama doesn’t matter as much in the 1920s, people are much more reckless
• Shows Wharton’s fascination with society and tribes.

Question 22

Context

Answer 22

• Wharton’s major theme is that the emotions of the individual must be sacrificed for the preservation of those values that keep social order in tact.
• Values that existed in the pre-ww1 New York

Question 23

Enforcing the Code

Answer 23

• May lays her hand on his shoulder “with one of her rare caresses”. Despite May’s pallor (paleness) May’s animated conversion and her “unnatural vividness” = May’s final triumph
• Realises at Ellen’s farewell dinner that “The separation between himself and the partner of his guilt had been achieved”

Question 24

Time

Answer 24

• Chapter 34 reveals the results of the decisions made and the promises kept. Century means that both lifestyles and social values have changed, ww1 will alter the world forever. Wharton looks back on the age of her childhood with mixed feelings but shows how in the new era, May and Newline’s children have more freedom.
• Modern products are changing the lifestyles of Americans, but they’re mass produced making them have no deeper meaning. In many ways Wharton illustrates how twentieth century lifestyles are filled with superficial products and have no greater meaning (Link with Gatsby).

Question 25

Personal Freedoms

Answer 25

• Dallas represents the new generation. His class and age group are more confident and free. His “assured step and delightful smile” allow him to seal contracts with new millionaires. Law is no longer the only option for men.
• Sees Newland and May as prehistoric, he lives in a world were husbands and wives can tell each other things

Question 26

Context

Answer 26

• After ww1 Wharton looks back with mixed emotions, the 1870s didn’t have the social upheaval brought around by ww1.
• However the traditional outlook on life could be seen as a gift, despite the cost to an individual.