The Age of Innocence: Chapters 19-21
"But none ever can happen now, can it, Newland, as long as we two are together?"
Welcome to another week of our slow read of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.
This week, we kicked off Book 2 of the novel with the event we’ve all been wondering about: Newland and May’s wedding.
Yes, it happened despite all the heart wrenching drama and confessions of deep abiding love between Newland and Ellen — and May’s own hesitations and intense side-eyeing of Newland’s distant behavior.
So, naturally, I’m very curious to know if anyone’s opinions of May or Newland were impacted by the events of these three short, detail-packed chapters in which they marry, honeymoon, and return to New York.
By that I mean to ask: how was your reading of May’s character changed during the opening chapters of Book 2? How was your reading of Newland’s character changed?
A brief summary
Get back into this week’s reading with an audio summary of this week’s chapters.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what happens in the first chapter, with the characters we meet this week in bold.
Chapter 19
Newland and May marry
Newland, uh, dissociates a bunch of times and barely notices he’s in the middle of getting married
As Newland and May prepare to leave for their honeymoon home for the night, they learn the house they’d been lent had a water leak
Newland and May receive the Patroon home, on the van der Luyden property, as their nuptial bed — the same house where Newland spent a magical afternoon with Ellen
Chapter 20
Newland and May honeymoon in Europe
Newland meets Monsieur Rivière, a young journalist, and they discuss art and politics and culture; May thinks he’s “common” and doesn’t want Newland to become friends with him
Archer starts to worry about how much he dislikes many things about May and hopes that, after a rough first six months together, they’ll be okay
“The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.”
Chapter 21
Newland and May attend an archery competition in Newport
May wins the competition and receives a small arrow pin, or brooch, as a prize
Newland and May visit Granny Mingott’s Newport vacation home
Granny sends Newland to fetch Ellen from the boat dock, where she’s watching the water
Newland wanders out to find her, in a kind of daze, and then plays a strange game with himself: he’ll only go get Ellen from the dock if she turns around before one of the sailboats passes from view
Ellen does not turn around, so Newland does not go get her
Newland and May return home
“She had her bow and arrow in her hand, and placing herself on the chalk-mark traced on the turf she lifted the bow to her shoulder and took aim.”
What strikes me this week
May Welland — the (literal) archer. How fun is this literary play on words?
In chapter 21, we get lawn-seats at the Newport archery competition where May Welland Archer shows us a new kind of prowess: she’s an adept archeress, even a toxophilite or lover of archery.
[Below, watch the archery scene from the Scorsese adaptation of the film.]
This feels like one of those character-making traits that really matters. In a previous chapter, we learned that May Welland always gets what she wants — and in this chapter, we see her literally taking aim and being a sure shot. In fact, she’s so good that she wows the crowd, pleases Newland, and wins the contest.
(This line made me laugh so hard: “Archer felt the glow of proprietorship that so often cheated him into momentary well-being.” Doesn’t that just sum up capital-P Patriarchy?)
May is, as Newland and the text observe, a kind of modern goddess Diana — the goddess of the hunt and of fertility and childbirth. May is, in other words, a complex and goddess-like composite of feminine qualities: she is strong, in the right way; she is marriage and mother material (she is, after all, a “nice” girl, as Newland sourly reflects); she is athletic in approved activities and demure in most others.
As May aims on the lawn, Lefferts makes a dumb joke about how “that’s the only kind of target she’ll ever hit,” a barely-veiled insult about May’s apparent level of intelligence. And while Newland chafes at the comment, it’s not because he wants to defend May’s intellect. It’s because he agrees with it: Newland is still swirling with anxieties about May’s supposed “emptiness” in her head. With her athletic body, boyish coolness, and strong form, May Welland embodies a sexless, thoughtless femininity — a kind of idealistic, but untouchable and unreachable womanhood that is both socially acceptable and inaccessible through intimacy.
May Welland Archer: now that’s a perfect name for this complicated, unknowable woman we have yet to gain a truly clear picture of.
The Lefferts comment also reminds me of a scholarly quote I dropped into last week’s guide: “Archer is not a close reader,” and neither, it seems, is Lawrence Lefferts. They are, instead, the kind of surface-level observers who never question the assumptions they make within seemingly neutral observations.
“Archer is not a close reader, and Wharton’s women continually expose him as such. Ellen Olenska and May Welland succeed in collapsing his readings of them and, what is more, they read him more accurately than he reads himself.”
—Emily Orlando, from Edith Wharton and the Visual Arts
The pity seems to be — as many of you have been exploring in your comments the last couple of weeks — that we’re not sure May really is everything Newland, and other men like Lefferts, make her out to be.
What do their observations miss?
In what ways are their observations of May, and other people (especially women), not neutral at all?
And while we see May’s forceful reductions of Newland’s desires and interests this week (as she carefully guides him away from pursuing a friendship with Monsieur Rivière and ignores his defense of Ellen’s decision to separate from her husband), we also never quite understand why May does this, or how she feels about it. We only know Newland’s side of the story — and we’ve come to recognize how skewed that version of the story may be.
How does Newland’s insistent omniscience inform the way you’re able to engage with the plot?
Does reading a narrator like Newland make you think, or rethink, other narrators or narrative perspectives you’d read in other novels?
Placing the self
There was a phrase in this week’s reading that really stood out to me: this idea of “placing” the self in the necessary spot to carry out an action.
In chapter 19, Newland Archer “placed himself” on the marriage altar, following a sign from the officiant.
In chapter 21, we see May Welland Archer “placing herself” on the lawn at an archery tournament.
In this simple phrase, “placing himself/herself,” Wharton invokes all those powerful connotations, from Book 1, about how society stages individuals in particular settings to force certain outcomes to take place.
And yet, in these moments, we see Newland and May placing themselves — an active composition, that suggests their agency (rather than carrying the connotation of being forced into place).
This feels interesting to me in a novel about a man who is quite tortured by questions of fate and freedom — a man who feels “there was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free.”
It’s clear Newland feels trapped, and yet he continues to place himself in the very cage he wishes most to escape. I think Wharton’s deft storytelling invites us to ask why?
(And I think it goes deeper, and a bit further, than the observations we’ve made together so far, that Newland tends to prefer exploring his fantasies in his mind, rather than playing them out in the real world. Again, the story invites us to know that — it plainly tells us Newland dallies and dabbles in the world of ideas. The question is: why?)
A reader’s question
“I’d love to hear if you have any historical background for the sentence ‘Mrs. Archer and Janey found themselves awaited by two affectionate friends who, like themselves, cultivated ferns in Wardian cases, made macrame lace, read the memoirs of the Baroness Bunsen and had views about the occupants of the leading London pulpits.’
Also not really clear on why is “undignified to force one’s self on the notice of one’s acquaintances in foreign countries.”
Absolutely! Let’s dissect this together.
The quoted sentence(s) come from chapter 20, in which May and Newland are honeymooning abroad. I talk about this tension of having friends abroad but not visiting them too often a bit in my audio guide this week and remark how strange and funny it is — one of those inexplicable social customs that tends to hold a lot of power.
Let’s start with this typing of Mrs. Archer’s and Janey’s friends. They are:
affectionate
cultivate ferns
make macrame lace
read exotic memoirs
have opinions about church leaders
They are, in other words, finely trained ladies — women whose tastes, hobbies, and political opinions have all been carefully tailored to their class.
Think of the Bennet girls in Pride and Prejudice, who are viewed as deviant daughters of a mother who fails to keep a governess: the girls fail to live up to the ambitious status of an “accomplished woman,” who excels in a wide array of disciplines. As Catherine Bingley puts it: “She must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages to deserve the word. And something in her air and manner of walking…”
(You can watch the whole scene here, as Elizabeth Bennet brilliantly dissects the concept of a woman being measured for her “accomplishments”)
Mrs. Archer’s and Janey’s friends — like Mrs. Archer and Janey — are “accomplished” women who have cultivated the kinds of hobbies and habits that are not just acceptable in their society, but revered as a marker of high class.
May Welland Archer — with her perfect attire, archery prowess, and other delicate arts — is undoubtedly an accomplished woman.
Does that make sense?
Because the second part of the question — why is it “undignified to force one’s self on the notice of one’s acquaintances in foreign countries?” — ties into this.
An accomplished woman, or a truly high-class member of society, should never be seen as imposing themselves on others, or seeming to need a place to stay or a dinner to attend. An accomplished woman must always be self-sufficient, even if she is hoping to rely on her friends abroad for entertainment and social connection.
In the audio guide this week, I talk about how there’s an episode of Gilmore Girls when Lorelai’s wealthy parents are shocked that their rebellious daughter hasn’t sought out their friends in Paris or Berlin — because they meant for her to make a visit so they wouldn’t be required to on their next trip abroad.
One way to read this would be to say that this is another layer (and a contemporary build) on this same old cultural rule: high-class society members must stay in-network with one another, but never impose or inconvenience one another. It smacks of a kind of “dog eat dog” law residing under a shiny, gilded surface.
I hope this helps to answer your question.
Getting Oedipal
Okay, I have one more layer I want to bring to our close reading this week.
You remember the myth of Oedipus, right? If not, let me refresh your memory.
A king and queen have a much wanted and long awaited little baby boy — but a prophecy foretells tragedy. Their baby boy will grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. So, of course, the king takes his baby son to the mountains and abandons him, expecting him to die.
That’s apparently how to beat a scary prophecy.
But he fails!
Little baby Oedipus does not die, and is instead adopted by another couple who also happen to be a king and queen.
When he learns of the prophecy as he comes of age, he panics and runs away, attempting to flee the possibility of murdering his father and marrying his mother.
However, when he flees, he comes across his biological father — the one who abandoned him in the mountains — and kills him because of a fight about who had the right of way at an intersection. (I love Greek mythology.)
Then, Oedipus meets a Sphinx and solves her impossible riddle. She, shocked at his wisdom, flings herself off a ledge and Oedipus is invited to become king of the kingdom he has just inadvertently saved from the Sphinx. He is also invited to marry the recently deceased king’s widow.
Yep: there’s the second-half of the prophecy.
But neither Oedipus nor his mother know that Oedipus is her long-lost son. So, they have a bunch of kids together (ew!) and live happily ever after until someone finally figures out that Oedipus killed the king, that he’s actually the queen’s son, and all hell breaks loose.
It’s very sad.
The queen hangs herself.
And Oedipus plucks out his eyes with two pins from her dress.
The prophecy — no matter how hard he tried to outrun it — came true.
So here is my question to you, dear readers:
Is The Age of Innocence a kind of Oedipus myth?
Newland tries to outrun his social fate to marry May
No matter what he does, Newland seems to force this fate to come true — even when he’s running from it
Newland, in chapter 19 especially, is increasingly described as having a “blank” stare or “looking blindly” at May — is this a kind of Oedipal result of having fulfilled his social prophecy?!
I discuss this at length in the audio guide this week. I’d love to know what you think!
My favorite quote(s) this week
There could simply be no other. This is perhaps my favorite quote from any book ever:
“The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.”
I love that we get this quote from a poor journalist, in a novel about a wealthy man who feels suffocated by his social situation (and now, his marriage). Newland Archer, who seems to really love the “air of ideas,” so much that he prefers the fantastical to the real, is now realizing the consequences of that worldview.
He is realizing, in other words, that it’s hard to live and breathe in the air of ideas when he has surrounded himself by people who shut the windows and stale the air. Ellen — perhaps more an idea than a person to Newland, at this point — is the fresh air in which he momentarily breathed and is now too afraid to go after any longer.
For you:
A few additional readings:
The idea of an accomplished woman // The scene from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice about an “accomplished woman” // The history of women’s archery and equality // An historical article on Archery Dresses //
Up next:
For next Wednesday, read chapters 22, 23, and 24 (Full schedule here)
Ask your questions about the novel here and I’ll answer them in an upcoming reading guide
Use this Google Docs notes outline to help you take notes each week
‘Til next time, happy reading! 📚
I GASPED when I opened the pages to Book 2 and saw that Newland and May got married after all that drama in chapter 18! I cannot wait to see how the story gets resolved (or doesn't?!).
I am continually fascinated by the concept of agency in this book. I like how you talked about Newland in this week's audio guide, with a bit of sympathy for his chafing against society yet feeling himself unable to make different choices. As you point you, he places himself in the confining situation; he puts himself on the alter to get married. And then later, once they're married, he feels like the edges of himself that he wants to keep are getting worn away. It's an interesting scenario we can sometimes find ourselves in - trying to force yourself to settle into a situation, yet there's just something about it that constantly nettles you and grinds you down.
I’m not sure about the Oedipus connection, although there are Greek myths and characters referenced in *The Age of Innocence* (especially May the “Archer”) - I tend to see it more as a nod to *Faust* (the opera Wharton highlights in the opening and later) and the particular “deal with the devil” Newland makes, although he doesn’t realize what that deal really was until much later.
A question: Is Newland really the narrator of this novel? It is told (mostly) from his POV, but that is far from omniscient. I see the actual narrator as the Author, and what’s wonderful about this Author - Edith Wharton - is she has *opinions*. These are far more on point about NY Society at the time than Newland Archer’s (he who misses so many hints). I apologize if I missed an earlier discussion of this topic, and my own view may be too narrow, but I’m curious about what other readers think.