I love this analysis of the end! I know I’ll be returning to it again to sink deeper into your reading of the last chapters, but on first reading - the idea of Newland’s psychic self-mutilation rings so true and helps me understand the great, amorphous heaviness I feel at the novel’s close. I think of the line in chapter 32 of 33 about people who valued decency over courage - Society’s rules over the courage of living an articulate and authentic life.
I’ve been juggling a few too many projects this summer so I haven’t always been able to sit down and write my reading responses in a form to share here - but I love reading everyone’s commentary and seeing how my thinking evolves in response to so many ideas and reflections. Thanks, Haley - this reading group is such an exquisite pleasure.
I'm glad that I made it through the novel without the ending being spoiled (somehow), because going into that final chapter completely blind was so emotional. I was prepared for a non-fairytale ending, but to never see each other again? To not be able to bring himself to it, when even the opportunity arises and nothing else stands in the way? Heartbreaking.
Really enjoyed your analysis on this chapter. This book has made me think about the relationship between society at large and the individual, and I love how you break down the effect of one on the other, especially with a character we all have dunked on at times.
I also loved this book club experience. I got so much more out of the book by doing it with a group and reading your notes every week. I missed The House of Mirth readalong, but I recently bought a copy of it and will be going back through your archive for the notes. Thank you for all the work you've put into this!
I know: to *never see each other again.* It always breaks my heart all over again. Especially when I think there must've been opportunities (like Granny Mingott's funeral — would they not both have attended? Would Ellen have just stayed away?)
I just want to thank you for your service to this reading community - I would NEVER have gotten so much out of this novel if it wasn't for your guidance and passion, and it has taught me to be a better reader. What a gift!!
Also a moment of silence for Newland Archer... maybe someday someone will write his story ending differently
Humans are social beings and the bounds of societies have generally served us collectively as a species. Some societies have allowed individual freedoms and fostered creativity better than others. Unfortunately the structures of any society will always allow some individuals to flourish more than others. When that power differential becomes crystallized individuals can be crushed, as our Newland, or led to revolt and rebellion. In so many stories, the hero starts on a courageous quest after losing or not being able to attain that held most dear. I think I realized at the end on Chapter 33 that Newland was not going to become a rebellious hero. This "epilogue" is so devastating because it not only shows how completely he gave up on himself, but that he realizes what a shadow of a life he's lived, and especially that he no longer has the will to change his future. His future has indeed buried him.
I love bringing in the question of heroism to how we read Newland's character. You're making some fantastic observations here! It's been so fun to do both of these read-a-longs with you and to see your ideas each week as you encountered these stories. Thank you for being part of it!!
It's been an absolutely fantastic journey. I've lots of tangential things I've queued up to delve into. I've been gravitating more to poetry lately. Would love a close read of a favorite poet of yours someday if and when you're so led.
Thank you so much for making this novel take on a new life with your detailed information. It was a wonderful read along and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
I have so enjoyed your analysis of the book and especially this last chapter. As you say, it's heartbreaking how he loses himself but I can't help but feel that he gives himself up. I'm struck by his passivity - not only in the final chapter but throughout the book too. Even the phrase he uses to tell Ellen how he feels - that she HAPPENS to him - makes him sound powerless. He has a role model, in Ellen, who shows him clearly that a different, less strangled life is possible and yet he still yields to May and to society's expectations. I wonder if, in a way, that was the easier option for him. And of course May is the opposite - she seems passive when in fact she is anything but. It reminded me of your theme of opposites - in this case the opposite types of masculine and feminine power but also the opposite ways in which that power is exercised. I think women wield a lot of power in this novel, even though it's soft power rather than structural power. Even Mr van de Luyden looks to his wife before making a pronouncement, whereas the men have structural power but often fail to exercise it on anything meaningful; think Lefferts' affairs vs, say, Mrs Archer's visits to prompt the van de Luydens into doing what she thinks is right for society. There's a further contrast in the way that masculine power in the novel is wielded more explicitly (say, in the way that Newland and his colleagues at the firm are asked/expected to advise Ellen against pursuing a divorce) while feminine power is often unspoken and expressed through custom, body language, even costume, with May being the ultimate example of this kind of behind-the-scenes use of power not only in all the things that she does without Newland realising but also in the way she uses a pregnancy to force his hand (you might consider that the ultimate female expression of power, in her hands). It's fascinating to think that in earlier drafts Wharton had Newland and Ellen consummate the affair, and about how that would have shifted the power balances and especially Newland's agency. Thanks for making this such a great reading experience!
Oh yes, the question of passivity. It's such a brilliant one — and you're so right that "you happen to me," is such a fantastic piece of evidence in that reading. Newland is so passive, it's as if life happens to him and he goes along with it, wherever a stronger will (like May's) takes him. It's so sad to read, at the end, that he missed so much along the way, and knows he did.
Thank you for joining in the reading! I'm so glad it was a good experience for you!!
Yes, passivity! Thank you for this thoughtful attention to avenues for male vs. female power, too. May definitely lives up to her training in that regard (in pretty much all regards, if we can trust the Newland narrative filter).
Although Newland starts to fight for the chance to run away to or with Ellen in chapters 32 and 33, in the end he does fall back into the space his Society intends for him, once he knows it will not just be May he abandons (he has ceased caring about May in this scenario) but his own child. His POV narration in chapter 34 tells us that he continued to fantasize about escaping to Paris in the early years after they were forcibly parted: but he keeps it in the realm of fantasy.
In his angry daze after maneuvering himself into having to marry May sooner rather than later, he passively (passive-aggressively, in his refusal to read poetry in May's presence) gives up on his dream of sharing poetry and art with his wife. He reflects with a chill that there may be nothing under the veil of May's serenity--but he never appears to try to lift it. In chapter 33 we have the statement "but he had long given up trying to disengage her real self from the shape into which tradition and training had moulded her."
In Book I he has his big moments of panic about what life with May will be like, which continue into the moments in Book II when he shakes himself with some horror (e.g., is Mr. Welland my future? was Mr. Welland me?). But again his coping mechanism is passivity, with an occasional soupçon of snark to faintly reassert his individuality (ch. 22 "I think for a change I'll Just save [my day] for once instead of spending it"; the exchange with May in ch. 30 after he fantasized her death, covering for his ejaculation "Poor May!": "I shall never be able to open a window without worrying you." May: "I shall never worry if you're happy." Newland: "And I shall never be happy unless I can open the windows!").
I could obviously go on and on, and regularly do, but I think I'll stop here!
Thank you Haley - I've so enjoyed reading along with you. (A bit of a sprint to the finish line for me!) Thanks for the excellent atmosphere of engagement and inquiry you created here. And thanks also (from one who knows!) for all your hard work!
Thank you so much!! (Yes: whew. It's hard work isn't it?!) I fell off the Woolf wagon so fast and I'm eager to clamber back on now that I'm done with this read-a-long!
For me the novel was about the coercive forces of society, operating on two levels. First there is personal self-regulation where people self-impose societal norms in conscious or sometimes unconscious conformity with what is expected of them (in this category is Newland's choice of May in the first place). Second, there is direct coercion in the form of members of society imposing societal norms by force (either by closing ranks against the Beauforts or by staging that final farewell dinner party in which Ellen is ceremoniously whisked away from Newland - such a chilling scene!) And the latter has a chilling effect on individual instincts and freedom and so strengthens the former. You're right Haley - Newland has been 'fashioned' by society, and now thirty years later, those societal norms are old and outdated and meaningless. What a tragedy!
Oh, I love this. I think the novel, too, is a quite brilliant book about "systems" and how systems produce certain kinds of behaviors in individuals. Your reading here strikes me that Wharton is so keenly aware of the levels on which this society operates — and that's perhaps why otherwise innocuous scenes, like a boring dinner party, become such chilling emblems of social power to us as her readers. She leverages the power of that system so well by making us aware of its every creak and whistle.
I still feel like this wasn't in any way a love story, I still pity Archer and still think his tragedy was at least partially self-inflicted.
Talking from my and my family's personal experience, an oppressive society can also give you safety, financial security, a sense of belonging. At some point it ought to be a choice: is safety worth getting yourself twisted and maimed for? Inflicting your pain on your loved ones? I don't know if it ever was a choice for Newland because I don't know if he has enough self-awareness to see it. Did his upbringing stunt him so completely? is he selfish, or is he innocent?
Until the end he talks about May like she was blissfully unaware of everything around her, and we know that's simply not true, she just didn't talk about her feelings, like Dallas noted. I find it very hard to imagine that she died so quietly and happily. And I find very hard to imagine that their children have it so easy too, you simply cannot grow up in a loveless family without some scarring. It's just that Newland is so much in his own head that he can only read others based on his own wants and needs. May likes different things so she must be blind and cold and vapid. His children got more freedom so they must be happy. He wants Ellen so she must give up everything for him. His he really that naive? Or is he just content to wallow in his own reality? How can someone know his wife so well and not know her at all? Can we learn anything objective from him?
At the end, he chooses the memory of Ellen rather than going out into the unknown. It could have been so easy, nothing to stop him now. Just climb the stairs. Society has changed. But he'd rather imagine the meeting than live it. "It's more real to me than if I went up," he thinks. Or, from the very first chapter, "because he was at heart a dilettante, and thinking over a pleasure to come often gave him a subtler satisfaction than its realization."
Again, it's my own interpretation based on my own life experiences, and I love how art cannot be lived in a vacuum, how our relationship with it changes as we change. (Haley, I love that quote you posted by Beth Nguyen. I'm already planning to reread and annotate the book even more closely, and who knows, my opinion might entirely change!) The story could really be interpreted in two entirely different ways or anything in between. What is innocence anyway? It the tile tongue-in-cheek, is it about a society that only acts innocent, while scheming deviously?
Take the contradiction that is Granny Mingott. She is brilliant and kind, and she is calculating and selfish. She is strong and independent, and she is an invalid. Her obesity is monstrous, a natural phenomenon, she is unflinching like a volcano, she is a disabled old woman. Why that specific language, why does the text dehumanize rather than empathize? What made Granny Mingott so monstrous, was it society or was it herself?
(On a separate train of thoughts, we really are in a great position to understand that sense of revolutionary change the turn of the century brings. Newland reminds me of older queer people, looking in astonishment, joy and melancholy at new generations that can't even imagine what it was like during the AIDS crisis, don't ask don't tell etc.)
Oh - I like where you're headed with this. There's something interesting about how Newland's love for Ellen becomes a love that "dare not speak its name," and in that sense, becomes a kind of "queer" love, even though it's still, from the outsider's view, very much a heteronormative desire. Very cool connection!
The Beth Nguyen essay is absolutely gorgeous — I highly recommend the collection I linked to if you want to read more essays and perspectives on The Age of Innocence. Especially based on how many different perspectives and takes on the story you presented in your comments each week, I think that collection would be so engaging for you!!
Over the last few weeks, I felt myself becoming less and less sympathetic towards Newland Archer. At some point along the way, I started to view hims through too modern of a lens, and was frustrated by his lack of action and his complacency in the society he so obviously had grown to loathe.
As you pointed out in your insightful and lyrical analysis of the last chapter, the soul-crushing weight of Newland's patriarchal society is impossible to ignore, and I think what made me rediscover my sympathy for Newland was the evidence that his own will and desires had ultimately been worn away. Even worse, the society that promised him prosperity if he would conform had quickly become a thing of the past, sweeping up his individuality and fading away with it in tow. There's a moment when he's sitting outside of Ellen's home in Paris, and after imagining what her life must be like, and in a way inserting himself into it, he thinks, "Now the spectacle was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificant fellow he had dreamed of being..."
I love that you cited Bell Hooks in your analysis, because I think the ways in which she writes about the harm a patriarchal society does to both men and women cannot be understated, especially in the context of this novel. I agree with all your assertions about how the women seem to conform and uphold the very society that withholds their rights, but when I think of the final chapter, all I can hear in my head is Hooks' argument about how the same society that promises men power and security requires their harm, their "self-mutilation" as you put it, in the process.
In "All About Love," Hooks writes, "Individual women and men who do not see themselves as victims of patriarchal power find it difficult to take seriously the need to challenge and change patriarchal thinking," and I think this is so true of Newland. In his upbringing, it would have taken a great force for him to realize that the life of prosperity offered to him would require him to become a version of himself devoid of emotion, desire, and fullness of experience. It's why the final scene, when he walks away from Ellen, is so haunting to me. Hooks believes that reeducation is always possible for those confined within a patriarchal society, but I wonder how possible it is for Newland, who became what society bore him to be, whose sense of identity was swept away with the changing tides, and whose world had faded into a distant memory, stranding him like a man out of time. I find myself very sympathetic towards Newland now, and I hope the next time I revisit the novel, I'll be able to tap into that sympathy and see him a new light.
Thank you for hosting such a wonderful read along. It was such an honor to be a part of it, and I look forward to the next one!
Thanks so much Jordan! It's been so fun to have you along. I find that, with every read, my sympathies and understandings of these people and their situations shift. It's definitely one of those books that becomes more and more fascinating with each re-read, so I love to hear you're open to the idea of having a new take on Newland next time. Maybe he'll "happen to you all over again," in a brand new way!
Thank you for the time and work you've put into this, Haley! As with The House of Mirth, I got so much more out of this story by reading your posts and everyone’s comments each week.
I’m hoping to read Wharton’s Summer before the end of the season, and I’m looking forward to trying to closely read it on my own, although I’ll definitely miss your guidance, insights, and passion. You are a gift to this community!
Thank you so much Juliana!! I get so much out of the weekly guides, too. Creating them and then reading everyone's comments is like being back in the lit classroom. I love it!!
I would love to hear what you think of Summer, when you're done! I've only read it once and I'm due for a re-read. I found it a BIZARRE little book.
I had the strangest experience reading All Fours by Miranda July at the same time while finishing up The Age of Innocence and I thought the two books made such a perfect pairing. Above all, what will remain with me is how maddening it can feel to be a passive participant in one's own life and allow others (people, structures, norms) to make decisions for you, to let life happen to you. Never miss the flower of life.
Next time someone asks me who I would like to invite to a dream dinner party, I am inviting Edith Wharton and seating her next to Miranda July. 😂
Petya, thank you so much!! I LOVE this unexpected parallel and I have a feeling that Miranda July could play an absolutely gobsmackingly good Ellen Olenska in an indie-adaptation of the novel. All sensitive and odd, all angles and wide eyes. I love that you found connections between the two books and now I've got to get back to All Fours.
Thank you for a moving final essay. It reminded me a little of this quotation I read in one of Seamus Heaney's essays, by philosopher Gaston Bachelard, which has stuck with me since: 'What is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak. It was born in the moment when we accumulated silent things within us.' Perhaps with this inexpressiveness, Wharton's characters hold onto a presumption of innocence ('the right to remain silent') that bolsters society but paralyses individuals - you might protect yourself in a limited way but you can't move forward either, which is Newland's quiet tragedy.
I've so enjoyed participating in this read-along of the Age of Innocence, reading everyone's comments, and looking forward to the guides each week. It was a really rewarding experience. Thank you!
Iona, thank you so much! I have read a bit of Bachelard and was so happy to see you quote his work here. That is a gorgeous quote. The connection between silence and suffering is such an interesting one — Foucault always thought of himself as an archeologist of those painful silences, not to fill them with sound, but to witness their pain. I think there's a beautiful triangulation possible here, across Bachelard, Foucault, and Wharton, to be explored.
Thank you for being part of the reading group!! I am so happy to read it was a rewarding experience for you!
I am so very grateful for what this close reading experience has been, with this remarkable book and all of you remarkable people. Haley--Dr. Larsen--you have been the most admirable host and guide. I hope you can rest and refuel after this: you deserve it!
I owe every one of you here for your insights and perspectives. Our little community has been one of my very favorite things. On a personal note, my wife has demonstrated once again why she is The One for Me, as she has shared my fascination with The Age of Innocence, and been a willing sounding board for all my many thoughts and feelings while we closely read together.
Wharton's meticulous crafting of this novel never ceases to amaze me. Her decision to narrate the story largely within Newland's perspective makes all the characters that much more compelling, as we strain to see past Newland's vision and make visions of our own. I have been just as guilty as Newland is of making my personal fantasy versions of May and Ellen, because Wharton makes it so deliciously easy to do so! She invites myriad interpretations of these characters and their actions and emotions by limiting the overt information she gives us but making the background and surfaces so rich with detail. We can keep developing new interpretations as we re-read and continue to think about these people and their world.
The narration in chapter 34 is a particularly exquisite example, as others have touched on so meaningfully in previous comments. As always, how much can we "trust" Newland's summary of his life, and his assessments of May and the younger generation? Can we finally allow Wharton to be "giving it to us straight" to at least some degree as she concludes the story? From what we're given, it does sound as if Newland has made a good life on Society's terms, as a man in his community who has been a respected part of good things that mattered to him in the arts and social reform. Yet he still feels he has missed the flower of life, that he is old-fashioned and gray, able to persuade himself to live in his imagination and no further. We also know (because we are told both by Newland and by Dallas) that he never really connected with May, because both of them stayed loyal to their training in the rites of indirection. The richness of it all lies in how our answers to those questions about the text can change each time we read each sentence of it, and each time we think about it.
I have also been fascinated during this read by how Wharton manages threads of seemingly small details (sometimes single strategic words, like "real/reality" or "malice") to pull through the entire story, usually with a light, deft touch. She doesn't forget the things she seemingly mentioned in passing in Chapter 1, or any other chapter. This mastery on her part is one of the things that makes close reading so rewarding.
Of course I have a bajillion thoughts I'd like to expand on and share, but I want to look at just one of those Wharton threads before I go to bed tonight, because of a detail that struck me in Newland's description of his family life in chapter 34.
When we first meet Newland in chapter 1 at the opera, he fantasizes about his honeymoon with May, and how he will explain poetry to her: "We'll read Faust together...by the Italian lakes..." But that never happens. By the time he marries May, he already feels trapped and perfunctory, and the narrator tells us regarding the Italian Lakes that "Archer had not been able to picture his wife in that particular setting" (another failure of his imagination where May is concerned). So without that particular guidance from Newland, they do what May wants to do: the crucial dress order in Paris (and Newland's wardrobe order in London at the end of the trip), then "mountaineering in July and swimming in August."
Then in chapter 34, we learn that May felt obligated to offer their son Dallas a European tour, together with the whole family, after he graduated from college. And what destinations did that trip include? The Italian Lakes! We don't know if Newland thought about Faust. But oh, this detail: they did *not* go to France. Even though the trip is in Dallas' honor, and what their artistic eldest child most wants to see is the French cathedrals, and even though they have six months together, somehow they do not have time to set foot in the country in which their cousin the Countess Olenska lives. And then Wharton tops herself with *this* detail: "[May] had indeed proposed that her husband"--for some reason just Newland, not Dallas--"should go to Paris for a fortnight, and join them on the Italian lakes after they had 'done' Switzerland". Goodness gracious, did May offer Newland a chance to go see Ellen? Could she have been trying to see if he still wanted that, 21 years later? Could it be a certain form of passive-aggressive sado-masochism, still simmering after two decades? We don't know. But: "Archer had declined. 'We'll stick together,' he said; and May's face had brightened at his setting such a good example to Dallas." Yup. That's why her face brightened. It couldn't be that you passed her test, or that she's relieved that you have expressed a desire to be with her/the family. I know I'm making it up, but the detail just seemed too pointed!
I was about to launch into one more thing--no, two--no, three--maybe four, when I thought better of it for now (ahem). You have all been marvelous, I have learned so much from all of you!
A beautiful closing, Haley, just beautiful. Thanks for a wonderful reading-group experience. I’m coming a few days late to the discussion, but I have, indeed, been mulling over my response to re-reading the novel with you. First, the last chapter is such a brilliant change-up. I certainly felt tearful at those ending lines, as you note, but I also felt teary with phrases like “inarticulate lifetime” and Newland’s own emotion on learning that May knew what he had given up. May’s version as told to Dallas - Newland’s own sense that he was forced - well, it’s complicated. But I’d say the hidden undercurrents of most marriages are.
I like your reading, via bell hooks, of how the Patriarchy conspires to strip men of emotional life. Newland has certainly lost a vital piece of himself by the end - but has he lost everything of who he is? I think the “true self” is something of a fiction, another thing I believe Wharton slyly points to in the last chapter. I also think it’s possible for both these to be true at the same time: Newland never achieved his Big Passion, the “flower of life”; he lived a good life, bringing his children up and out into the world. Here, Haley, you speak to why he didn’t follow up with Ellen:
“Newland was never in a safe enough position to make a clear choice toward what he wanted without those same annihilating consequences for others.”
Those consequences to others matter, too - and I’d say it’s not wrong that they do. The real loss of innocence is indeed Newland’s passion and dreams for himself, and that is a big loss, not one I’d ever want anyone, male or female, to have to endure. But it’s a choice the Patriarchy has long forced on women - again, Wharton’s sly change-up with the gender of her protagonist makes her point more striking - Newland, as a man of that era, at least thought he had the right and privilege to make a choice.
Regardless of gender, though, I’m brought back to the compromises most of us make for security and steady love and children - a Faustian bargain, of sorts, but not always the wrong one. That last chapter is so honest about the experience of growing older, of the zeitgeist passing you by, of your children leaping into vivid lives of their own. We may not all have an Ellen in our past, but we (or at least I) have regrets about what might have been.
David Tomlinson was robbed when the Oscar nominations came around for "Mary Poppins". He deserved at least a nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Agreed!! He's phenomenal!!
I love this analysis of the end! I know I’ll be returning to it again to sink deeper into your reading of the last chapters, but on first reading - the idea of Newland’s psychic self-mutilation rings so true and helps me understand the great, amorphous heaviness I feel at the novel’s close. I think of the line in chapter 32 of 33 about people who valued decency over courage - Society’s rules over the courage of living an articulate and authentic life.
I’ve been juggling a few too many projects this summer so I haven’t always been able to sit down and write my reading responses in a form to share here - but I love reading everyone’s commentary and seeing how my thinking evolves in response to so many ideas and reflections. Thanks, Haley - this reading group is such an exquisite pleasure.
Thank you so much Catherine!!
I'm glad that I made it through the novel without the ending being spoiled (somehow), because going into that final chapter completely blind was so emotional. I was prepared for a non-fairytale ending, but to never see each other again? To not be able to bring himself to it, when even the opportunity arises and nothing else stands in the way? Heartbreaking.
Really enjoyed your analysis on this chapter. This book has made me think about the relationship between society at large and the individual, and I love how you break down the effect of one on the other, especially with a character we all have dunked on at times.
I also loved this book club experience. I got so much more out of the book by doing it with a group and reading your notes every week. I missed The House of Mirth readalong, but I recently bought a copy of it and will be going back through your archive for the notes. Thank you for all the work you've put into this!
I know: to *never see each other again.* It always breaks my heart all over again. Especially when I think there must've been opportunities (like Granny Mingott's funeral — would they not both have attended? Would Ellen have just stayed away?)
I am so glad you joined us for the read-a-long!!
Oh, and also, would love to know your thoughts on Mirth as you make your way through it!! Feel free to comment there, as you go :)
I just want to thank you for your service to this reading community - I would NEVER have gotten so much out of this novel if it wasn't for your guidance and passion, and it has taught me to be a better reader. What a gift!!
Also a moment of silence for Newland Archer... maybe someday someone will write his story ending differently
I love to hear that!!!
And yes to that moment of silence. Every single time I get to chapter 34, I think "maybe it'll be different this time."
Humans are social beings and the bounds of societies have generally served us collectively as a species. Some societies have allowed individual freedoms and fostered creativity better than others. Unfortunately the structures of any society will always allow some individuals to flourish more than others. When that power differential becomes crystallized individuals can be crushed, as our Newland, or led to revolt and rebellion. In so many stories, the hero starts on a courageous quest after losing or not being able to attain that held most dear. I think I realized at the end on Chapter 33 that Newland was not going to become a rebellious hero. This "epilogue" is so devastating because it not only shows how completely he gave up on himself, but that he realizes what a shadow of a life he's lived, and especially that he no longer has the will to change his future. His future has indeed buried him.
I love bringing in the question of heroism to how we read Newland's character. You're making some fantastic observations here! It's been so fun to do both of these read-a-longs with you and to see your ideas each week as you encountered these stories. Thank you for being part of it!!
It's been an absolutely fantastic journey. I've lots of tangential things I've queued up to delve into. I've been gravitating more to poetry lately. Would love a close read of a favorite poet of yours someday if and when you're so led.
Thank you so much for making this novel take on a new life with your detailed information. It was a wonderful read along and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Thank you, Melissa! I am so glad you joined in!
I have so enjoyed your analysis of the book and especially this last chapter. As you say, it's heartbreaking how he loses himself but I can't help but feel that he gives himself up. I'm struck by his passivity - not only in the final chapter but throughout the book too. Even the phrase he uses to tell Ellen how he feels - that she HAPPENS to him - makes him sound powerless. He has a role model, in Ellen, who shows him clearly that a different, less strangled life is possible and yet he still yields to May and to society's expectations. I wonder if, in a way, that was the easier option for him. And of course May is the opposite - she seems passive when in fact she is anything but. It reminded me of your theme of opposites - in this case the opposite types of masculine and feminine power but also the opposite ways in which that power is exercised. I think women wield a lot of power in this novel, even though it's soft power rather than structural power. Even Mr van de Luyden looks to his wife before making a pronouncement, whereas the men have structural power but often fail to exercise it on anything meaningful; think Lefferts' affairs vs, say, Mrs Archer's visits to prompt the van de Luydens into doing what she thinks is right for society. There's a further contrast in the way that masculine power in the novel is wielded more explicitly (say, in the way that Newland and his colleagues at the firm are asked/expected to advise Ellen against pursuing a divorce) while feminine power is often unspoken and expressed through custom, body language, even costume, with May being the ultimate example of this kind of behind-the-scenes use of power not only in all the things that she does without Newland realising but also in the way she uses a pregnancy to force his hand (you might consider that the ultimate female expression of power, in her hands). It's fascinating to think that in earlier drafts Wharton had Newland and Ellen consummate the affair, and about how that would have shifted the power balances and especially Newland's agency. Thanks for making this such a great reading experience!
Oh yes, the question of passivity. It's such a brilliant one — and you're so right that "you happen to me," is such a fantastic piece of evidence in that reading. Newland is so passive, it's as if life happens to him and he goes along with it, wherever a stronger will (like May's) takes him. It's so sad to read, at the end, that he missed so much along the way, and knows he did.
Thank you for joining in the reading! I'm so glad it was a good experience for you!!
Yes, passivity! Thank you for this thoughtful attention to avenues for male vs. female power, too. May definitely lives up to her training in that regard (in pretty much all regards, if we can trust the Newland narrative filter).
Although Newland starts to fight for the chance to run away to or with Ellen in chapters 32 and 33, in the end he does fall back into the space his Society intends for him, once he knows it will not just be May he abandons (he has ceased caring about May in this scenario) but his own child. His POV narration in chapter 34 tells us that he continued to fantasize about escaping to Paris in the early years after they were forcibly parted: but he keeps it in the realm of fantasy.
In his angry daze after maneuvering himself into having to marry May sooner rather than later, he passively (passive-aggressively, in his refusal to read poetry in May's presence) gives up on his dream of sharing poetry and art with his wife. He reflects with a chill that there may be nothing under the veil of May's serenity--but he never appears to try to lift it. In chapter 33 we have the statement "but he had long given up trying to disengage her real self from the shape into which tradition and training had moulded her."
In Book I he has his big moments of panic about what life with May will be like, which continue into the moments in Book II when he shakes himself with some horror (e.g., is Mr. Welland my future? was Mr. Welland me?). But again his coping mechanism is passivity, with an occasional soupçon of snark to faintly reassert his individuality (ch. 22 "I think for a change I'll Just save [my day] for once instead of spending it"; the exchange with May in ch. 30 after he fantasized her death, covering for his ejaculation "Poor May!": "I shall never be able to open a window without worrying you." May: "I shall never worry if you're happy." Newland: "And I shall never be happy unless I can open the windows!").
I could obviously go on and on, and regularly do, but I think I'll stop here!
Thank you Haley - I've so enjoyed reading along with you. (A bit of a sprint to the finish line for me!) Thanks for the excellent atmosphere of engagement and inquiry you created here. And thanks also (from one who knows!) for all your hard work!
Thank you so much!! (Yes: whew. It's hard work isn't it?!) I fell off the Woolf wagon so fast and I'm eager to clamber back on now that I'm done with this read-a-long!
For me the novel was about the coercive forces of society, operating on two levels. First there is personal self-regulation where people self-impose societal norms in conscious or sometimes unconscious conformity with what is expected of them (in this category is Newland's choice of May in the first place). Second, there is direct coercion in the form of members of society imposing societal norms by force (either by closing ranks against the Beauforts or by staging that final farewell dinner party in which Ellen is ceremoniously whisked away from Newland - such a chilling scene!) And the latter has a chilling effect on individual instincts and freedom and so strengthens the former. You're right Haley - Newland has been 'fashioned' by society, and now thirty years later, those societal norms are old and outdated and meaningless. What a tragedy!
Oh, I love this. I think the novel, too, is a quite brilliant book about "systems" and how systems produce certain kinds of behaviors in individuals. Your reading here strikes me that Wharton is so keenly aware of the levels on which this society operates — and that's perhaps why otherwise innocuous scenes, like a boring dinner party, become such chilling emblems of social power to us as her readers. She leverages the power of that system so well by making us aware of its every creak and whistle.
I still feel like this wasn't in any way a love story, I still pity Archer and still think his tragedy was at least partially self-inflicted.
Talking from my and my family's personal experience, an oppressive society can also give you safety, financial security, a sense of belonging. At some point it ought to be a choice: is safety worth getting yourself twisted and maimed for? Inflicting your pain on your loved ones? I don't know if it ever was a choice for Newland because I don't know if he has enough self-awareness to see it. Did his upbringing stunt him so completely? is he selfish, or is he innocent?
Until the end he talks about May like she was blissfully unaware of everything around her, and we know that's simply not true, she just didn't talk about her feelings, like Dallas noted. I find it very hard to imagine that she died so quietly and happily. And I find very hard to imagine that their children have it so easy too, you simply cannot grow up in a loveless family without some scarring. It's just that Newland is so much in his own head that he can only read others based on his own wants and needs. May likes different things so she must be blind and cold and vapid. His children got more freedom so they must be happy. He wants Ellen so she must give up everything for him. His he really that naive? Or is he just content to wallow in his own reality? How can someone know his wife so well and not know her at all? Can we learn anything objective from him?
At the end, he chooses the memory of Ellen rather than going out into the unknown. It could have been so easy, nothing to stop him now. Just climb the stairs. Society has changed. But he'd rather imagine the meeting than live it. "It's more real to me than if I went up," he thinks. Or, from the very first chapter, "because he was at heart a dilettante, and thinking over a pleasure to come often gave him a subtler satisfaction than its realization."
Again, it's my own interpretation based on my own life experiences, and I love how art cannot be lived in a vacuum, how our relationship with it changes as we change. (Haley, I love that quote you posted by Beth Nguyen. I'm already planning to reread and annotate the book even more closely, and who knows, my opinion might entirely change!) The story could really be interpreted in two entirely different ways or anything in between. What is innocence anyway? It the tile tongue-in-cheek, is it about a society that only acts innocent, while scheming deviously?
Take the contradiction that is Granny Mingott. She is brilliant and kind, and she is calculating and selfish. She is strong and independent, and she is an invalid. Her obesity is monstrous, a natural phenomenon, she is unflinching like a volcano, she is a disabled old woman. Why that specific language, why does the text dehumanize rather than empathize? What made Granny Mingott so monstrous, was it society or was it herself?
(On a separate train of thoughts, we really are in a great position to understand that sense of revolutionary change the turn of the century brings. Newland reminds me of older queer people, looking in astonishment, joy and melancholy at new generations that can't even imagine what it was like during the AIDS crisis, don't ask don't tell etc.)
Oh - I like where you're headed with this. There's something interesting about how Newland's love for Ellen becomes a love that "dare not speak its name," and in that sense, becomes a kind of "queer" love, even though it's still, from the outsider's view, very much a heteronormative desire. Very cool connection!
The Beth Nguyen essay is absolutely gorgeous — I highly recommend the collection I linked to if you want to read more essays and perspectives on The Age of Innocence. Especially based on how many different perspectives and takes on the story you presented in your comments each week, I think that collection would be so engaging for you!!
I've already added to my way too long TBR list 😅 Thank you!!
Over the last few weeks, I felt myself becoming less and less sympathetic towards Newland Archer. At some point along the way, I started to view hims through too modern of a lens, and was frustrated by his lack of action and his complacency in the society he so obviously had grown to loathe.
As you pointed out in your insightful and lyrical analysis of the last chapter, the soul-crushing weight of Newland's patriarchal society is impossible to ignore, and I think what made me rediscover my sympathy for Newland was the evidence that his own will and desires had ultimately been worn away. Even worse, the society that promised him prosperity if he would conform had quickly become a thing of the past, sweeping up his individuality and fading away with it in tow. There's a moment when he's sitting outside of Ellen's home in Paris, and after imagining what her life must be like, and in a way inserting himself into it, he thinks, "Now the spectacle was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificant fellow he had dreamed of being..."
I love that you cited Bell Hooks in your analysis, because I think the ways in which she writes about the harm a patriarchal society does to both men and women cannot be understated, especially in the context of this novel. I agree with all your assertions about how the women seem to conform and uphold the very society that withholds their rights, but when I think of the final chapter, all I can hear in my head is Hooks' argument about how the same society that promises men power and security requires their harm, their "self-mutilation" as you put it, in the process.
In "All About Love," Hooks writes, "Individual women and men who do not see themselves as victims of patriarchal power find it difficult to take seriously the need to challenge and change patriarchal thinking," and I think this is so true of Newland. In his upbringing, it would have taken a great force for him to realize that the life of prosperity offered to him would require him to become a version of himself devoid of emotion, desire, and fullness of experience. It's why the final scene, when he walks away from Ellen, is so haunting to me. Hooks believes that reeducation is always possible for those confined within a patriarchal society, but I wonder how possible it is for Newland, who became what society bore him to be, whose sense of identity was swept away with the changing tides, and whose world had faded into a distant memory, stranding him like a man out of time. I find myself very sympathetic towards Newland now, and I hope the next time I revisit the novel, I'll be able to tap into that sympathy and see him a new light.
Thank you for hosting such a wonderful read along. It was such an honor to be a part of it, and I look forward to the next one!
Thanks so much Jordan! It's been so fun to have you along. I find that, with every read, my sympathies and understandings of these people and their situations shift. It's definitely one of those books that becomes more and more fascinating with each re-read, so I love to hear you're open to the idea of having a new take on Newland next time. Maybe he'll "happen to you all over again," in a brand new way!
Thank you for the time and work you've put into this, Haley! As with The House of Mirth, I got so much more out of this story by reading your posts and everyone’s comments each week.
I’m hoping to read Wharton’s Summer before the end of the season, and I’m looking forward to trying to closely read it on my own, although I’ll definitely miss your guidance, insights, and passion. You are a gift to this community!
Thank you so much Juliana!! I get so much out of the weekly guides, too. Creating them and then reading everyone's comments is like being back in the lit classroom. I love it!!
I would love to hear what you think of Summer, when you're done! I've only read it once and I'm due for a re-read. I found it a BIZARRE little book.
I had the strangest experience reading All Fours by Miranda July at the same time while finishing up The Age of Innocence and I thought the two books made such a perfect pairing. Above all, what will remain with me is how maddening it can feel to be a passive participant in one's own life and allow others (people, structures, norms) to make decisions for you, to let life happen to you. Never miss the flower of life.
Next time someone asks me who I would like to invite to a dream dinner party, I am inviting Edith Wharton and seating her next to Miranda July. 😂
Thank you for being THE BEST host!
Petya, thank you so much!! I LOVE this unexpected parallel and I have a feeling that Miranda July could play an absolutely gobsmackingly good Ellen Olenska in an indie-adaptation of the novel. All sensitive and odd, all angles and wide eyes. I love that you found connections between the two books and now I've got to get back to All Fours.
Sign me up for that dinner party!!!!!!
Thank you for a moving final essay. It reminded me a little of this quotation I read in one of Seamus Heaney's essays, by philosopher Gaston Bachelard, which has stuck with me since: 'What is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak. It was born in the moment when we accumulated silent things within us.' Perhaps with this inexpressiveness, Wharton's characters hold onto a presumption of innocence ('the right to remain silent') that bolsters society but paralyses individuals - you might protect yourself in a limited way but you can't move forward either, which is Newland's quiet tragedy.
I've so enjoyed participating in this read-along of the Age of Innocence, reading everyone's comments, and looking forward to the guides each week. It was a really rewarding experience. Thank you!
Iona, thank you so much! I have read a bit of Bachelard and was so happy to see you quote his work here. That is a gorgeous quote. The connection between silence and suffering is such an interesting one — Foucault always thought of himself as an archeologist of those painful silences, not to fill them with sound, but to witness their pain. I think there's a beautiful triangulation possible here, across Bachelard, Foucault, and Wharton, to be explored.
Thank you for being part of the reading group!! I am so happy to read it was a rewarding experience for you!
I am so very grateful for what this close reading experience has been, with this remarkable book and all of you remarkable people. Haley--Dr. Larsen--you have been the most admirable host and guide. I hope you can rest and refuel after this: you deserve it!
I owe every one of you here for your insights and perspectives. Our little community has been one of my very favorite things. On a personal note, my wife has demonstrated once again why she is The One for Me, as she has shared my fascination with The Age of Innocence, and been a willing sounding board for all my many thoughts and feelings while we closely read together.
Wharton's meticulous crafting of this novel never ceases to amaze me. Her decision to narrate the story largely within Newland's perspective makes all the characters that much more compelling, as we strain to see past Newland's vision and make visions of our own. I have been just as guilty as Newland is of making my personal fantasy versions of May and Ellen, because Wharton makes it so deliciously easy to do so! She invites myriad interpretations of these characters and their actions and emotions by limiting the overt information she gives us but making the background and surfaces so rich with detail. We can keep developing new interpretations as we re-read and continue to think about these people and their world.
The narration in chapter 34 is a particularly exquisite example, as others have touched on so meaningfully in previous comments. As always, how much can we "trust" Newland's summary of his life, and his assessments of May and the younger generation? Can we finally allow Wharton to be "giving it to us straight" to at least some degree as she concludes the story? From what we're given, it does sound as if Newland has made a good life on Society's terms, as a man in his community who has been a respected part of good things that mattered to him in the arts and social reform. Yet he still feels he has missed the flower of life, that he is old-fashioned and gray, able to persuade himself to live in his imagination and no further. We also know (because we are told both by Newland and by Dallas) that he never really connected with May, because both of them stayed loyal to their training in the rites of indirection. The richness of it all lies in how our answers to those questions about the text can change each time we read each sentence of it, and each time we think about it.
I have also been fascinated during this read by how Wharton manages threads of seemingly small details (sometimes single strategic words, like "real/reality" or "malice") to pull through the entire story, usually with a light, deft touch. She doesn't forget the things she seemingly mentioned in passing in Chapter 1, or any other chapter. This mastery on her part is one of the things that makes close reading so rewarding.
Of course I have a bajillion thoughts I'd like to expand on and share, but I want to look at just one of those Wharton threads before I go to bed tonight, because of a detail that struck me in Newland's description of his family life in chapter 34.
When we first meet Newland in chapter 1 at the opera, he fantasizes about his honeymoon with May, and how he will explain poetry to her: "We'll read Faust together...by the Italian lakes..." But that never happens. By the time he marries May, he already feels trapped and perfunctory, and the narrator tells us regarding the Italian Lakes that "Archer had not been able to picture his wife in that particular setting" (another failure of his imagination where May is concerned). So without that particular guidance from Newland, they do what May wants to do: the crucial dress order in Paris (and Newland's wardrobe order in London at the end of the trip), then "mountaineering in July and swimming in August."
Then in chapter 34, we learn that May felt obligated to offer their son Dallas a European tour, together with the whole family, after he graduated from college. And what destinations did that trip include? The Italian Lakes! We don't know if Newland thought about Faust. But oh, this detail: they did *not* go to France. Even though the trip is in Dallas' honor, and what their artistic eldest child most wants to see is the French cathedrals, and even though they have six months together, somehow they do not have time to set foot in the country in which their cousin the Countess Olenska lives. And then Wharton tops herself with *this* detail: "[May] had indeed proposed that her husband"--for some reason just Newland, not Dallas--"should go to Paris for a fortnight, and join them on the Italian lakes after they had 'done' Switzerland". Goodness gracious, did May offer Newland a chance to go see Ellen? Could she have been trying to see if he still wanted that, 21 years later? Could it be a certain form of passive-aggressive sado-masochism, still simmering after two decades? We don't know. But: "Archer had declined. 'We'll stick together,' he said; and May's face had brightened at his setting such a good example to Dallas." Yup. That's why her face brightened. It couldn't be that you passed her test, or that she's relieved that you have expressed a desire to be with her/the family. I know I'm making it up, but the detail just seemed too pointed!
I was about to launch into one more thing--no, two--no, three--maybe four, when I thought better of it for now (ahem). You have all been marvelous, I have learned so much from all of you!
A beautiful closing, Haley, just beautiful. Thanks for a wonderful reading-group experience. I’m coming a few days late to the discussion, but I have, indeed, been mulling over my response to re-reading the novel with you. First, the last chapter is such a brilliant change-up. I certainly felt tearful at those ending lines, as you note, but I also felt teary with phrases like “inarticulate lifetime” and Newland’s own emotion on learning that May knew what he had given up. May’s version as told to Dallas - Newland’s own sense that he was forced - well, it’s complicated. But I’d say the hidden undercurrents of most marriages are.
I like your reading, via bell hooks, of how the Patriarchy conspires to strip men of emotional life. Newland has certainly lost a vital piece of himself by the end - but has he lost everything of who he is? I think the “true self” is something of a fiction, another thing I believe Wharton slyly points to in the last chapter. I also think it’s possible for both these to be true at the same time: Newland never achieved his Big Passion, the “flower of life”; he lived a good life, bringing his children up and out into the world. Here, Haley, you speak to why he didn’t follow up with Ellen:
“Newland was never in a safe enough position to make a clear choice toward what he wanted without those same annihilating consequences for others.”
Those consequences to others matter, too - and I’d say it’s not wrong that they do. The real loss of innocence is indeed Newland’s passion and dreams for himself, and that is a big loss, not one I’d ever want anyone, male or female, to have to endure. But it’s a choice the Patriarchy has long forced on women - again, Wharton’s sly change-up with the gender of her protagonist makes her point more striking - Newland, as a man of that era, at least thought he had the right and privilege to make a choice.
Regardless of gender, though, I’m brought back to the compromises most of us make for security and steady love and children - a Faustian bargain, of sorts, but not always the wrong one. That last chapter is so honest about the experience of growing older, of the zeitgeist passing you by, of your children leaping into vivid lives of their own. We may not all have an Ellen in our past, but we (or at least I) have regrets about what might have been.