The Age of Innocence

Question 1

why do ‘they’ (Newland’s New York Society) like the Academy of Music?

Answer 1

“being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the ‘new people’ whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to”

Question 2

how does Newland feel when he looks at May and what does he have?

Answer 2

‘a thrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculine initiation was mingled with a tender reverence for her abysmal purity’

Question 3

Newland refers to the women his ‘club box’ look at as, what?

Answer 3

‘the circle of ladies who were the product of the system’

Question 4

how does Newland find himself to be different from the rest of the ‘Club box’?

Answer 4

‘in matters intellectual and artistic Newland Archer felt himself distinctly the superior’ to the club box

Question 5

Newland’s description of the ‘club box’ and what they represent

Answer 5

the club box – ‘grouped together they represented ‘New York’, and the habit of masculine solidarity made him accept their doctrine in all the issues called ‘moral’’

Question 6

what feature is valued by New York society, could possibly indicate what women are valued for as well

Answer 6

‘beauty – a gift which, in the eyes of New York, justified every success, and excused a certain number of failings’

Question 7

quote relating to the social code of New York, could be related to Eby’s assertion that New York society is like a ‘police state’

Answer 7

‘it was against all the rules of their code that the mother and son should ever allude to what was uppermost in their thoughts’

Question 8

Newland quote on freedom of women

Answer 8

“Women ought to be free – as free as we are,” he declared, making a discovery of which he was too irritated to measure the terrific consequences.’

Question 9

marriage in Newland’s society

Answer 9

‘most of the other marriages about him were: a dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other.’

Question 10

key quote on Beaufort

Answer 10

‘Julius Beaufort (as became a ‘foreigner’ of doubtful origin) had what was known in New York as ‘another establishment’.’

Question 11

description of Newland’s society, due to their use of symbols?

Answer 11

‘In reality, they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought’

Question 12

example of Ellen breaking customs

Answer 12

‘It was not the custom in New York drawing-rooms for a lady to get up and walk away from one gentleman in order to seek the company of another. Etiquette required that she should wait, immovable as an idol, while the men …’

Question 13

Newland’s thoughts on ‘nice’ women

Answer 13

‘he wondered at what age ‘nice’ women began to speak for themselves.’

Question 14

Description of May

Answer 14

‘her face wore the vacant serenity of a young marble athlete’

Question 15

In Newport what does Mrs Welland need

Answer 15

Mrs Welland has to have servants in Newport ‘partly drawn from the local African supply.’

Question 16

Newland’s previous focus on the customs of his society

Answer 16

‘there was a time … when everything concerning the manners and customs of his little tribe had seemed to him fraught with worldwide significance.’

Question 17

Newland’s thoughts on real people

Answer 17

‘He thought, “real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them …”

Question 18

upon marriage to May Archer had experienced what?

Answer 18

‘Archer had reverted to all his old inherited ideas about marriage. It was less trouble to conform with the tradition … There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free.’

Question 19

May’s opinions on M. Riviere

Answer 19

“The little Frenchman? Wasn’t he terribly common?”

Question 20

What is the family attitude towards Ellen?

Answer 20

‘The Mingotts had not proclaimed their disapproval aloud: their sense of solidarity was too strong. … Elen, in spite of all her opportunities and her privileges, had become simply ‘Bohemian’.’

Question 21

what stance should a wife take when the husband is corrupting business matters

Answer 21

‘the elder ladies agreed, the wife of a man who had done anything disgraceful in business had only one idea: to efface herself, to disappear with him.’

Question 22

quote that links to The Great Gatsby in relation to women and honesty

Answer 22

‘A woman’s standard of truthfulness was tacitly held to be lower: she was the subject creature, and versed in the arts of the enslaved.’

Question 23

demonstration of relationships between women what effect does Madame Olenska’s attitude towards Mrs Beaufort have

Answer 23

‘Madame Olenska’s attitude towards Mrs Beaufort; it made the righteous reprobation of New York seem like a passing by on the other side.’

Question 24

quote that links to Nick going to have “dinner with the Tom Buchanans”

Answer 24

‘The Newland Archers’

Question 25

What components of the New York code is significant before Ellen leaves for Europe

Answer 25

‘in the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe.’

Question 26

description of New York by Newland at the last dinner party

Answer 26

‘It was the old New York way of taking life ‘without effusion of blood’, the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage.’

Question 27

description of New York by Newland at the last dinner party

Answer 27

‘It was the old New York way of taking life ‘without effusion of blood’, the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage.’

Question 28

what does Lawrence Lefferts say at the last dinner party

Answer 28

‘If society chose to open its doors to vulgar women the harm was not great, though the gain was doubtful; but once it got in the way of tolerating men of obscure origin and tainted wealth the end was total disintegration.’

Question 29

how does Dallas describe his parents’ marriage

Answer 29

Dallas –“ you never did ask each other anything, did you? And you never told each other anything. You just sat and watched each other, and guessed at what was going on underneath. A deaf-and-dumb asylum in fact!”

Question 30

Newland’s description of the new generation

Answer 30

‘the new generation which had swept away all the old landmarks, and with them the signposts and the danger signal.’

Question 31

quotes that links to Gatsby’s finding of a ‘Grail’

Answer 31

‘Archer remained motionless, gazing at the upper windows as if the end of their pilgrimage had been attained.’

Question 32

final key quote of the text that significantly links too the Gatsby quote that “no amount of fire or freshness…”

Answer 32

“It’s more real to me than if I went up” …the fear lest that last shadow of reality should lose its edge kept him rooted to his seat … he sat for a long time in the thickening dusk’

Question 33

Indicating Wharton’s hope for the future what does Lefferts say about Beaufort

Answer 33

“if things go at on this rate, our children will be marrying Beaufort’s bastards”

Question 34

what is the key quote in the scene where Newland tells Ellen to not divorce her husband, relating to freedom

Answer 34

“but my freedom- is it nothing?”

Question 35

Newland decides that it is that there’s no point in doing what

Answer 35

there is no point in attempting to ‘emancipate’ who does not have ‘dimmest notion she is not free.’