The Age of Innocence is a quintessential novel criticizing the practices and society of the Gilded age, while at the same time playing out as a modern book that showcases the more human side of the practices at hand. The book focuses on the story of Newland Archer and his high class fiancee May. Through the plot, Archer develops feelings for his wife’s exotic cousin Ellen, and attempts to create repeated trysts with her. In Claudia Pierpoint’s writing, she also picks up on the critical nature of the Edith Wharton’s piece, and how it displays the hypocrisy of the time period where men must place familial duty above love and women are almost naught but gifts to be sold off to the right families and people. Furthermore, Claudia also creates parallels between the plot of the piece and the events of Edith Wharton’s life at the time. At the time of the writing, Edith was rather disillusioned with the concrete practices of marriage and the rigid social standards set in place after abandonment from suitors and her own divorce. Through Edith’s writing, that disillusionment can be seen from the point where May become irrelevant to Archer as he pursues her cousin Ellen. Perhaps one of the most interesting points Pierpoint made, however, is on that of Edith’s straightforward writing style. Many novelists at the time were experimenting with “experimental prose” in an attempt to make their own writing style unique. As can be seen with the Age of Innocence, Edith prefers a very direct and straightforward method of writing, most likely to bring attention towards her characters, whose nuances drive the plot forward in unexpected ways. It almost seemed hypocritical of Edith to criticize these novelists trying to break the mold, as her novels both crash against the conformist nature of society at the time.
Overall, Pierpoint’s analysis of The age of Innocence juxtaposed against the personal events of Edith Wharton’s life at the time make for an extremely compelling and well supported composition. Between her spot on description of the critical nature of the novel against the Gilded age, an area of society that Edith was well acquainted with, or her dissemination of Edith’s straightforward prose, it can be said with confidence that Pierpoint understood Edith’s writing style, as well as the message she was sending.
