In Claudia Roth Pierpont’s novel American Rhapsody, she makes some interesting and valid point on her analysis of Edith Wharton and her work The Age of Innocence. Pierpont goes on to describe the early life and childhood of Wharton, and how she grew up as a socialite being forced to follow society’s expectation of the upper rank in 1800s New York City. Wharton was unconventional in many ways, including her views and thinking on marriage. She believed courtship was a waste of time and adultery was something to not be frowned upon, which was very unusual for a woman in her time and class. Having experienced these ideas herself, adultery and corrupt marriage seem to be a recurring theme in her novels as stated by Claudia. In addition, Edith Wharton uses “negative heroes” to be protagonists in her novel, as seen in The Age of Innocence, where the main character goes back and forth between two women in which he struggles to find happiness but commits sins throughout the process.
Claudia Pierpont points out Edith Wharton’s literal writing style, describing it as satirical with dark context and deeper thinking. This appears to be true from my perspective as well, since Wharton writes novels based on her negative experiences growing up in the environment that she did. As someone who was expected to follow certain morales that she did not exactly agree with, she incorporated that into her writing and adds humor, almost as if she was making fun of the standards of society and mocking them. She also disagrees with what in her time was considered to be a modern style of writing, and goes against the conventional way by being more self reflective and asking herself questions not necessarily targeted towards the reader. It feels as if she is analyzing her own thoughts as she writes her work. I believe Claudia Pierpont gave a fairly accurate description of Edith Wharton’s reasoning style of writing for The Age of Innocence.
This post caught my attention because I also agree with the idea that Wharton is analyzing her own thoughts and her experiences as she writes her work. Her work gives her a chance to reflect back on everything that she has been through, and channel her struggles through the different characters going through similar situations in her novels. Wharton’s- The Age of Innocence tells the reader about the social norms on marriage and divorce in New York years ago, which the main character, Newland, ironically betrays. This scene particularly reflects Wharton’s life experiences and ideas on divorce and marriage, which Pierpont explains accurately. Wharton was expected to follow certain standards of society, like the commenter states, however she mocks them and has no belief in them. Pierpont correctly relates moments in Wharton’s life as the reasons for her writing.