Upon reading Age of Innocence, I became sidetracked by one of Pierpoint’s probably-offhand comparisons between Wharton’s works and an equally famous book of similar themes: “the second [story] … tells of a married woman who runs away with her lover and discovers what Anna Karenina could not bear to know–that love feeds on duties and distractions of a shared society.” I immediately realized how interesting the comparison between Age of Innocence and Anna Karenina actually is. There are obvious similarities between the books on the surface: a woman estranged from her husband seeks out a new partner who actually makes her happy, attempts at divorce by women lead to shock and near-anger, and the stiflingly complex aristocratic society makes any deviation from established rules uniquely difficult and irritating. One could very easily argue that they even share a theme about society’s hypocrisy regarding women’s relationships. There are further parallels, but many differences.
Wharton makes it clear immediately how unfair the treatment of Ellen Olenska is, whether due to general societal expectations or bias against women specifically, using Archer as a mouthpiece for statements such as “the hypocrisy that would bury alive a woman of her age if her husband prefers to live with harlots”, meaning that there is no where near the outcry over a cheating husband as their is to a scorned wife. Anna Karenina, although there are no direct quotes, has the same message due to Anna’s brother Stefan cheating on his own perfectly kind wife with a governess and receiving absolutely no punishment except his own guilt, while Anna is ostracized to the point of suicidal despair. Wharton delivers the message of unfair societal constraints in a way neater and more directly than Tolstoy, who convolutes his message with intermittent chapters about proper couples and happy domesticity. As a woman herself, Wharton would have had much more intimate knowledge of such restrictions, and thus been more compelled to denounce them. It is true that her characters understand more than Anna, and that is because of their writer’s insight.
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