The Age of Innocence AO5

Question 1

McCrum’s view of women in AOI contrasts with what critic?

Answer 1

Eby

Question 2

what does McCrum view Ellen as?

Answer 2

“the threat… from the appearance in their midst of an exotic and beautiful femme fatale”

Question 3

McCrum asserts that May does what?

Answer 3

“uses all the power of New York to bring him to heel”

Question 4

McCrum argus that the Age of Innocence makes a commentary on what?

Answer 4

“The Age of Innocence makes an ironic commentary on the cruelties and hypocrisies of Manhattan society in the years before, during and after the Great War”

Question 5

McCrum further argues that AOI is an indictment

Answer 5

“fierce indictment of a society estranged from culture and in desperate need of a European sensibility”

Question 6

Eby asserts that AOI examines what?

Answer 6

AOI “provocatively examines the potential for women’s freedom through a male centre of consciousness, encourages a reading of its many silences”

Question 7

Judith Fryer notes that the society of the AOI is based on what type of communication

Answer 7

“spoken language often fails as a means of communication; the common language in this world is that of sign language”

Question 8

what is Eby’s core argument and what does call for modification of

Answer 8

“Wharton depicts silence and silencing as old New York’s means of social control, particularly for maintaining a constricting definition of “the feminine”.” and “Wharton’s treatment of silence calls for a modification in the dominant interpretations of the novel which overstate both her sympathy for Newland and the power of New York women”

Question 9

what is Wolff’s argument and what Eby argues against & why

Answer 9

Wolff’s premise that Wharton depicts the New York of her youth in AOI as “Prelapsarian” as this ‘obscures the novelist’s critique of the politics of silence’

Question 10

Eby describes New York as what?

Answer 10

“the unity of old New York is that of a police state”

Question 11

what is the reason for New York’s reaction of Ellen according to Eby

Answer 11

‘New York reacts so violently against Elle because she says subversive things that challenge its hegemony”

Question 12

what does Eby suggest is the reason why Ellen must be silenced and what event is this indicated in

Answer 12

“her assumption of free speech” and when “Ellen and another man speak improperly at this first dinner party, it is the woman who will pay for it”. Overall Eby suggests that “Ellen’s assumption of free speech breaks a rule, so it is dangerous”

Question 13

R. W. B. Lewis opinion on May

Answer 13

sees May as “thwart[ing] her husband and cousin’s illicit affair”

Question 14

what is Eby’s argument against Lewis

Answer 14

“how actions that predictably, even monotonously, uphold a hegemonic code are ‘free’ is difficult to dee”

Question 15

according to Eby, what is May’s duty

Answer 15

“her duty is to wait until men speak to her”

Question 16

Eby asserts what about ‘nice’ women?

Answer 16

“that the category of the “nice” woman is as much a social construct as the “unpleasant,” Wharton emphasises by enclosing each word in quotation marks”. Eby further argues that the social use of silence ensures that women can be contained ‘within the category of “nice”’

Question 17

what does Eby believe is the real conspiracy of the novel

Answer 17

“The real conspiracy in this novel, not to control men but to declare women’s enslavement a non-issue, reveals the terrible power of silence”

Question 18

Eby argues that the contrast between the two female characters illustrates what?

Answer 18

“The contrast Wharton establishes between her two leading female characters in The Age of Innocence illustrates both the meaning of individual freedom and the price that society will extract for it”

Question 19

Gilbert and Gubar are more sympathetic to Newland, what criticisms does Eby put forward about their criticism of May

Answer 19

Their criticisms of May do not sufficiently consider the extent to which her “feminization” makes her not only a product but a victim of the system

Question 20

why does Wharton describe her self as ‘self-made man’ according to Eby?

Answer 20

suggests her impatience with gendered categories altogether

Question 21

what does Rich remark in ‘Of Woman Born’

Answer 21

“women are beginning to ask certain questions which, as the feminist philosopher Mary Daly observes, patriarchal method has declared nonquestions”

Question 22

how does Kaplan view Wharton’s writings

Answer 22

Kaplan finds such “undermining those boundaries between feminine masculine, private and public, home and business”

Question 23

what does Eby argue about Newland

Answer 23

“Newland adopts the New York strategies of silent surveillance and evasion so completely that he reads Ellen’s innocent silence as an admission of guilt”

Question 24

what does Eby point out in relation to Ellen, May and New York

Answer 24

“Look at the capacity for self-erasure that Ellen and May both exhibit shows old New York’s triumph in silencing the free woman”

Question 25

Eby’s exploration of the sexual double standard of New York society in AOI

Answer 25

“According to the sexual double standard, in other words, only a woman can break the law. this only makes sense if we concede that water is writing about a world in which men wield the power. That Ellen is expelled while Newland is reclaimed into the tribe illustrates the double standard at the heart of patriarchy”

Question 26

according to Eby, it is being suggested that adultery is what

Answer 26

“adultery is a social not a moral issue”

Question 27

overall, what does Wharton do -according to Eby?

Answer 27

‘Wharton exposes old New York’