"The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt as if he were being buried alive under his future." It makes me wonder that anyone could write that without having felt it in some way and I am looking forward to reading Wharton's biography and learning more about her.
In these chapters, Newland is acting rashly. He leaves the country in a fit of jealousy when Beaufort appears. He then rouses himself from his funk and heads for May in St Augustine. There he is in turn soothed, surprised, and ultimately disappointed by her. May seems to have grasped that something is off with Newland, but seems to think (or at least indicates that she thinks) it is related to his past affair. It seems to me that she is really hinting at Ellen and giving him an out, but maybe I'm projecting. When Newland assures her "there is no pledge there", she is relieved, but he is disappointed "It was evident that the effort of speaking had been much greater than her studied composure betrayed, and that at his first word of reassurance she had dropped back into the usual." Does Newland underestimate May? His descriptions of her: "youthful limpidity", "vacant serenity". - Is that really May? At that meeting with Ellen on his return to NY, Newland admits that May thinks he wants"to marry her at once to get away from "someone that I care for more". May stays a mystery only revealed through Newland's ideas about her.
That scene in chapter 18 does reveal the real Ellen. She is resolved to the fate that has been contrived for her, whereas Newland seems so naive - "We've no right to lie to other people or to ourselves...do you see me marrying May after this?" Ellen now has the read on NY society and sees that any chance they had has passed, a knowledge sealed by the arrival of the telegram announcing permission to marry May immediately. What might have been different if Beaufort had not shown up to break up that meeting at the Patroon's old house?
The scene with "Granny" Mingott is chilling, the puppet master herself taunting Newland, "why in the world didn't you marry my little Ellen?"
I absolutely gasped throughout chapter 18. Just one long gasp.
I'm struck by Wharton's decision to have May, seemingly out of nowhere, give Newland a way out by asking if he loves someone else. She admits she's noticed he's been acting differently, but it's as if she willing to let him go (I think this is what he tells Ellen), even after all the public steps they've taken in this process. It's fascinating in terms of May's character (is she being kind or somehow "dutiful" or is she not serious?) but also for the position in which it puts Newland. Suddenly he's given a pathway to follow his desire, but he blames Ellen's marriage for continuing to block the way (a block he so earnestly recommended). He seems to go back and forth between wanting Ellen and making sure he cannot have her, like he'd rather live with the frustrated desire than to destroy the Society life he thinks he hates but to which he continues to show loyalty. I think Newland WANTS to think he'd have the courage to break with Society's expectations, but is relieved that he "cannot." So this passionate outburst allows him to be honest in some ways, but he's safe in knowing it can only go up to a point. He's trapped (by design). He's the guy in the hotdog suit saying "we're all trying to find the guy who did this!"
And to answer your question, I think Ellen loves Newland because he is the only person who has shown any real attention or capacity for listening to her, besides Beaufort (who I'm guessing doesn't "get" her at all). Newland sees her in a way a doofus like Beaufort can't. AND there's a safety in it because he's engaged to her cousin, it's out of reach. Whereas with Beaufort, even if he treats her well, she's only just another mistress, a position drastically lower than what she (ostensibly) means to Newland. Wharton is using Beaufort as a foil to make Newland seem kinder, wiser, more respectful, more "real" re: his perception of her.
One more thing...the "red meteor against the snow" shows Wharton dipping into some the imagery she used so effectively in Ethan Frome.
Isn't chapter 18 just so...gutting? It's so heart-wrenching and infuriating and exhausting, and then when it's over...you kinda just want to read it all over again.
I'm struck by what you've said: "He's trapped (by design)," and how that observation informs your reading of chapter 19!
YES. Thank you, Christian, for articulating these points so effectively. Yes, almost every choice that Newland has made since he first laid eyes on Ellen has locked him into marrying May.
Newland wants to *want* what he thinks Ellen represents ("freedom" and a life in the arts), but does he want to *have* that at the price of his place in the society that raised him? He also wants what he thinks May represents, which is all that he considers fine and honorable in their world. Does May know him best when she protests against the vulgarity of an elopement, saying irritably that he would hate that transgression, too?
Key to this is one of the first things the narrator told us about Newland: not only is he a dilettante, a dabbler; but he prefers thinking about and imagining a pleasure to actually, you know, experiencing it. Dun-dunnnnn!
I’ve kept a close eye this week on the ambivalent language Newland uses to describe both his love interests, as he swings like a mad pendulum, going between extremes.
He says about May: “It occurred to him that it would have been more "feminine" if she had instantly read in his eyes why he had come.” May isn’t able to read his mind after all, some things he will need to communicate out loud. He’s been raving about Ellen being opinionated, but May expressing a clear thought, THAT’S too much work to deal with. Next Newland describes her as a “young marble athlete” and having a “cool boyish composure”. She’s perfect in a cold, sexless way, not passionate like Ellen.
He doesn’t want May to be innocent but he wants her to be uncomplicated. He wishes she weren't like a child, but when she clearly shows him she’s not? As he puts it, “she seemed to grow in womanly stature and dignity”, and having a “quite lucidity”. He tells himself she’s fragile behind her self-assurance, calls her “my dear child,” with such condescension. She’s a child, and she’s also “superhuman,” “recklessly unorthodox.” All his words! “In another moment she seemed to have descended from her womanly eminence to helpless and timorous girlhood”. Oxymoron after oxymoron. He loves her, he can’t stand her. He wants her to be all and nothing, she’s right and she’s wrong, he puzzles at her but will not put in any work to actually understand her. The very simple concept that May is a complicated being eludes him.
The same and opposite happens with Ellen, she and May are mirror images. Ellen who is not “simple” as Mrs. Archer puts it, she’s not like dear May (after her last conversation with Newland we can only laugh at that.) Newland desires her and despises her. He wants to keep Ellen and keep his social position too. He’s appalled to see her talking about self-sacrifice (like May!) instead of giving herself fully to him. But if she did, part of him would call her a harlot.
Frankly? It's not that Newland likes Ellen for being opinionated, he likes that her opinions are aligned with his own, with his perceived superiority and scorn toward the society he also wants so desperately to please. She only fuels his vanity, because ultimately, it’s all about him. It’s never about what Ellen wants or what May wants, but since Newland wants everything and the opposite of it, he’ll never be satisfied with either woman. The moment Ellen says something he doesn’t agree with, he’s flabbergasted that she isn’t catering to his whims, like his own mother and sister do. He doesn't want a partner, he wants a pliable peace of meat fawning over him.
As of Ellen liking him… some women really have bad taste. All I can say, he’s the one in New York who went above and beyond to make her feel at home, and sure he did it for the most selfish reasons, but she’s so miserable she’ll take that. This week I proposition that Ellen is the most innocent one.
I could go on and on and on, but I've already talked so much! I confess I’ve been reading and annotating this book on Kobo, but when we’re done I’m absolutely buying a physical copy and annotate every inch of it. Wharton is a revelation. I had never heard of her before, I’m Italian and as you can imagine she wasn’t in my school curriculum or anything. So, so glad I stumbled here, she ought to be so much more well-known internationally.
Yes yes yes - "The very simple concept that May is a complicated being eludes him." For Archer, there is a surprising amount at stake in the idea of May having a complex inner life! he has staked so much on her dullness and innocence, as an encapsulation of what bores him, as justification to pursue things with Ellen. if she is a whole person and not just a symbol for society... then I think it implicates Newland in why, exactly, this society is boring and stultifying. It's not just people like May being boring; it's people like Newland who expect people like May to be one-dimensional.
I've noticed Ellen's language often evokes childhood -'I see everyone in knickerbockers and pantalettes' (back in chapter 2) and 'I'm like a child going at night into a room where there's always a light' - which gives an interesting dimension to her depiction as a woman of experience and sophistication. Her 'I can't love you unless I give you up.' is quite ambiguous. It could be seen as evidence of maturity, that Ellen knows her own emotions very well, or quite an idealistic statement of self-sacrifice.
These lines also stood out to me between Newland and Ellen:
'I don't understand you!'
'Yet you understand May!'
I'm not certain whether Ellen is sarcastically pointing out that Newland's understanding of May is lacking or something else but it made me curious about the cousins' relationship. I think there may be some complex and rich and tense relationships between women going on that Newland isn't privy to or just not interested in. I hope we get a bit more of this later.
Since the beginning of the book, I’ve been underlining every variation of the words ‘light’ and ‘dark’ without exactly knowing why - and finally in this sections, its importance is revealed!
At face value, the meaning is clear: Ellen implies that Ned is a light for her in a dark place, and conversely, Ellen’s arrival has shed a light on the darkness of Ned’s world and perspectives. But I don’t actually think that’s the whole story: Ellen’s arrival has thrown Ned’s world into confusion, making everything more muddy. And Ned has hardly been a great guiding light for Ellen - he discouraged her from getting a divorce, which I’m still not sure was a great decision.
In fact, May is the only character at this point with any kind of clarity about anything. To attempt to answer your questions, I think May knows Newland the best of the three of them. Newland has no idea who he is, or what he wants. As to Ellen.. it’s still unclear. So far it just seems that she is indebted to him for his ‘kindness’ towards her (which we know was selfishly motivated). I don’t know if she really knows him at all.
Also — what is it with Newland’s name?? Are we meant to take it literally, like new + land (new vs old New York, America vs. Europe)? Or is it a legitimate name that I have just never heard of outside of this book?
This is not my observation - I forget where I read it - but not only is his name New + land, his last name is Archer - suggesting that his fate is to try and reach a "new land" but not reach it.
I think in the book, though, there's mention of a family with the last name Newland. So it's a family name repurposed as a first name?
There are many families that repurpose family names into last names and vice versa, mostly (I think) as an effort to keep well-known names circulating.
But to answer your question Shruti: I think Newland's name is a brilliant pun, begging the question of the differences between Old New York and New New York.
And, as we see in chapter 21 this week, "Archer" is a bit of a pun as well...
"And to be clear: I don’t believe the grey is Ellen, but rather [Newland's] own reckoning with the fact that real life doesn’t fit into easy narratives or categories."
This, along with the observation you included about Newland's shortcomings in being a "close reader" perfectly sum up how it feels to read this story from his perspective. The moment when May sees right through him and asks him why he wants to move their marriage up is so striking, because to Newland it feels like the first time she's ever shown that much directive, but since the beginning of the novel, I've felt the sense that May's own intelligence is consistently buried under Newland's insistence that he understands himself, others, and the roles into which everyone fits. It brings me back to chapter one, when Wharton tells us that Newland is "at heart a dilettante." This description is so clear and harsh, but it's washed away quickly, because once Newland is introduced to us, he takes control of the narrative, guiding how we perceive him and the other characters (for a short while). These last few chapters of book one really show the cracks in his perspective, because it's now abundantly clear that May and Ellen are not at all who they seemed to be through Newland's eyes, and Newland himself is not who he tells us he is. Now that Newland is caught up with us, the readers, on how far off his interpretations were, and plunged into "the grey" as you put it, I'm curious to see how this loss of control wears away at him, if it does at all (which I suspect it must).
Despite the curiosity he has for the unconventional life he pictures with Ellen, I'm not convinced he would really go for it if he had the real chance. Newland really strikes me as the animal raised in captivity who never learned to hunt (wish I had a better metaphor for this!) Am I the only one feeling that?
I'm not convinced so far that a woman like Ellen would fall for Newland. For me, it's not in the text.
And, I think Newland is weak compared to Lily Bart. Yes, Lily fails to seize her chances and we feel sorry for her. But we root for her. I can't root for Newland. On the other hand I can root for Ethan Frome and be sorry where he winds up.
It's hard to create literary magic with a weak protagonist.
We haven't really heard much about Ellen directly from Ellen, but it seems she's been used by men in her previous relationships not loved by them. It would be alluring to have someone like Newland so smitten by her, but she seems to me too cynical to actually love him. She is however very protective of May and I'd really like to know their history together
I think Ellen views New York society as a heaven . And what could be safer and more boring than heaven? Newland seems to fit into that as does his relationship with May.
I love this reading of Newland as heaven: boring and totally safe -- which may be what draws Ellen to Newland.
I'm with you that it's hard to see why someone as lovely and cultured and articulate and experienced as Ellen would be interested in someone as guarded and obviously dishonest (with himself, especially). But your reading of Newland as a kind of safe haven makes so much sense to me!
You know, for all the times I've read and listened to this book, and watched the film, I'm still never sure about Ellen. Does she love Newland? Or is she just managing him and his attentions as she tries to get to some version of freedom? He is interesting and has been a friend, different from the other men pursuing her (it's not just Beaufort!) and impressed with her (e.g. Henry van der Luyden). But what he wants from her, and his jealousy, make him more and more of a threat to her hopes for a safe place. Plus she also has strong ethics toward her cousin May, and has conversations and correspondence with May that Newland (and therefore the reader) only knows about peripherally.
This will be a better discussion for Book II, and I'll keep asking this question!
I like drawing our attention to the possibility that Newland is jealous of Ellen. Not just jealous of these tight relationships she has with other men, like Beaufort and Henry. But perhaps jealous of her: she has done the impossible thing of leaving New York, marrying, separating, and coming home. She's had all this experience he hasn't had; she's had access to all kinds of people (like "people who write" and other artistic types) he longs to be part of. Does he love Ellen, or does he just want to have what he perceives her to have had?
Something in this week’s audio guide got me thinking about the idea of potential and whether this society believes people have the potential to be more than what they are. (After all, part of what draws Archer to Ellen is that she creates a sense of potential in him — that there are other ways of living and doing, that Archer himself is capable of different ways of living and being, and Archer is intrigued by what those might become.) I think it was when you mentioned, Haley, how May Welland in ch. 16, is trying to figure out if Archer is a safe person for her, and how in doing that, she reveals herself as a person with great interiority and inner richness. But Archer has never believed her to be a person with potential for interiority independent of what he adds to it, and he fails to do so here.
Wharton writes, “If other problems had not pressed on him he would have been lost in wonder at the prodigy of the Wellands’ daughter urging him to marry his former mistress. But he was still dizzy with the glimpse of the precipice they had skirted, and full of a new awe at the mystery of young girlhood.”
If he had not been trying to disguise his feelings for Ellen, which are in part predicated on the binary he has drawn between Ellen and May, he might have been able to see May’s situation more clearly…? Might have been able to engage with May on these terms? to see her as a person who is, perhaps, more than a creature of society—more than what she appears to be?
But he can’t and of course May retreats into “helpless and timorous girlhood”—the version of herself she believes Archer will accept, just as she receives a version of the truth that Archer believes will satisfy her. They end this scene unable to conceive of different ways of being and engaging with one another. Their relationship bores Archer because there seems to be no potential for growth or excitement within it, yet he has played his part in closing off those avenues. To your point from the audio guide, he discusses creating a space for May to learn from him and be taught by him; has he created for her a space where she can fully express the inner life that she shows in this scene?
(this comment’s a bit of a mess, still thinking through what I mean here! thank YOU for creating a space for us to think through this all together!)
In this week's new audio guide (coming out tomorrow!), I'm thinking through the implications of the Oedipus myth in the story and how that's tying people to very specific "fates." And now I'm curious about how your question about potential might fit into the Greek mythos that Wharton invokes throughout the story so far.
Are these people really fated to their social destinies? *Is* any other life possible for them or is it just an illusion, that can be teased by fantasy, but never fully assumed?
Absolutely not a mess, Catherine. I love your points here about May's inner life, and how Newland has closed off real communication between them. You put it better than I'm about to, but yes: his inability (or lack of desire?) to see past his assumptions about these two women makes it impossible for him to be truly *with* either of them.
my English degree finally coming in handy!! (just kidding, its always handy).
When reading I find myself automatically searching for the modern day comparison, like how would this play out today sort of thing. When Newland spends a Saturday at Highbank while Ellen is at Skuytercliff and May is in St. Augustine without him, the description of the days activities sounded like any young person today trying to impress their crush on social media - a "look at me I'm having so much unbothered fun without you" vibe. Wharton is so masterful that you can somehow just feel Newland's heart isnt in it and all he can think about is Ellen and then later May. When she wrote "[Newland] saw in the small hours by joining in a pillow-fight that ranged from the nurseries to the basement" that sent me!! lol Who does he think he's fooling
I really agree with you that Wharton is so adept with her language, and so skilled, in the way she does the classic "show don't tell" moves with her characters. We can feel the pain and angst and loneliness Archer is experiencing — and it's so real to him, and so sad for him (and increasingly, for May too). And it's never quite RIGHT THERE on the page; it's in the texture of the language and in the flow and rhythm of the sentences, and how Wharton builds the story. It's so, so good. I'm glad you're loving it!
One last "close reading" observation from Ch. 18, as we move on to Book II: May's telegrams. It struck me how personal and articulate her message to Ellen is, and how short & business-like her message to Newland. She chooses to spend her telegram budget on her cousin, not her fiance. She also appears to have messaged Ellen first, saying "Am telegraphing Newland now."
With Ellen, she uses familiar terms like "Granny", "Papa" and "Mamma", and the less formal word "agree". Newland just gets "Parents consent wedding". To Ellen, she concludes, "Am too happy for words and love you dearly. Your grateful May." What is she grateful to Ellen for? Shared confidences? Acceptance of May's prior claim (implicitly, "back off, he's mine")?
Newland just gets his marching orders for all the arrangements that can only be made in New York, with the two words "so happy" shoe-horned in after bridesmaids & the rector with no punctuation. Does Newland even register the contrast? Readers would never have known about May's glowing warmth to Ellen or her gratitude to her cousin if Newland hadn't still been in front of The Countess Olenska's fireplace when May's telegram was delivered (shortly after her tears, their kisses, and the devastation of her withdrawal).
I highlighted one of the same quotes you did:
"The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt as if he were being buried alive under his future." It makes me wonder that anyone could write that without having felt it in some way and I am looking forward to reading Wharton's biography and learning more about her.
In these chapters, Newland is acting rashly. He leaves the country in a fit of jealousy when Beaufort appears. He then rouses himself from his funk and heads for May in St Augustine. There he is in turn soothed, surprised, and ultimately disappointed by her. May seems to have grasped that something is off with Newland, but seems to think (or at least indicates that she thinks) it is related to his past affair. It seems to me that she is really hinting at Ellen and giving him an out, but maybe I'm projecting. When Newland assures her "there is no pledge there", she is relieved, but he is disappointed "It was evident that the effort of speaking had been much greater than her studied composure betrayed, and that at his first word of reassurance she had dropped back into the usual." Does Newland underestimate May? His descriptions of her: "youthful limpidity", "vacant serenity". - Is that really May? At that meeting with Ellen on his return to NY, Newland admits that May thinks he wants"to marry her at once to get away from "someone that I care for more". May stays a mystery only revealed through Newland's ideas about her.
That scene in chapter 18 does reveal the real Ellen. She is resolved to the fate that has been contrived for her, whereas Newland seems so naive - "We've no right to lie to other people or to ourselves...do you see me marrying May after this?" Ellen now has the read on NY society and sees that any chance they had has passed, a knowledge sealed by the arrival of the telegram announcing permission to marry May immediately. What might have been different if Beaufort had not shown up to break up that meeting at the Patroon's old house?
The scene with "Granny" Mingott is chilling, the puppet master herself taunting Newland, "why in the world didn't you marry my little Ellen?"
I absolutely gasped throughout chapter 18. Just one long gasp.
I'm struck by Wharton's decision to have May, seemingly out of nowhere, give Newland a way out by asking if he loves someone else. She admits she's noticed he's been acting differently, but it's as if she willing to let him go (I think this is what he tells Ellen), even after all the public steps they've taken in this process. It's fascinating in terms of May's character (is she being kind or somehow "dutiful" or is she not serious?) but also for the position in which it puts Newland. Suddenly he's given a pathway to follow his desire, but he blames Ellen's marriage for continuing to block the way (a block he so earnestly recommended). He seems to go back and forth between wanting Ellen and making sure he cannot have her, like he'd rather live with the frustrated desire than to destroy the Society life he thinks he hates but to which he continues to show loyalty. I think Newland WANTS to think he'd have the courage to break with Society's expectations, but is relieved that he "cannot." So this passionate outburst allows him to be honest in some ways, but he's safe in knowing it can only go up to a point. He's trapped (by design). He's the guy in the hotdog suit saying "we're all trying to find the guy who did this!"
And to answer your question, I think Ellen loves Newland because he is the only person who has shown any real attention or capacity for listening to her, besides Beaufort (who I'm guessing doesn't "get" her at all). Newland sees her in a way a doofus like Beaufort can't. AND there's a safety in it because he's engaged to her cousin, it's out of reach. Whereas with Beaufort, even if he treats her well, she's only just another mistress, a position drastically lower than what she (ostensibly) means to Newland. Wharton is using Beaufort as a foil to make Newland seem kinder, wiser, more respectful, more "real" re: his perception of her.
One more thing...the "red meteor against the snow" shows Wharton dipping into some the imagery she used so effectively in Ethan Frome.
Excellent tie to Ethan Frome -- yes!!
Isn't chapter 18 just so...gutting? It's so heart-wrenching and infuriating and exhausting, and then when it's over...you kinda just want to read it all over again.
I'm struck by what you've said: "He's trapped (by design)," and how that observation informs your reading of chapter 19!
YES. Thank you, Christian, for articulating these points so effectively. Yes, almost every choice that Newland has made since he first laid eyes on Ellen has locked him into marrying May.
Newland wants to *want* what he thinks Ellen represents ("freedom" and a life in the arts), but does he want to *have* that at the price of his place in the society that raised him? He also wants what he thinks May represents, which is all that he considers fine and honorable in their world. Does May know him best when she protests against the vulgarity of an elopement, saying irritably that he would hate that transgression, too?
Key to this is one of the first things the narrator told us about Newland: not only is he a dilettante, a dabbler; but he prefers thinking about and imagining a pleasure to actually, you know, experiencing it. Dun-dunnnnn!
I’ve kept a close eye this week on the ambivalent language Newland uses to describe both his love interests, as he swings like a mad pendulum, going between extremes.
He says about May: “It occurred to him that it would have been more "feminine" if she had instantly read in his eyes why he had come.” May isn’t able to read his mind after all, some things he will need to communicate out loud. He’s been raving about Ellen being opinionated, but May expressing a clear thought, THAT’S too much work to deal with. Next Newland describes her as a “young marble athlete” and having a “cool boyish composure”. She’s perfect in a cold, sexless way, not passionate like Ellen.
He doesn’t want May to be innocent but he wants her to be uncomplicated. He wishes she weren't like a child, but when she clearly shows him she’s not? As he puts it, “she seemed to grow in womanly stature and dignity”, and having a “quite lucidity”. He tells himself she’s fragile behind her self-assurance, calls her “my dear child,” with such condescension. She’s a child, and she’s also “superhuman,” “recklessly unorthodox.” All his words! “In another moment she seemed to have descended from her womanly eminence to helpless and timorous girlhood”. Oxymoron after oxymoron. He loves her, he can’t stand her. He wants her to be all and nothing, she’s right and she’s wrong, he puzzles at her but will not put in any work to actually understand her. The very simple concept that May is a complicated being eludes him.
The same and opposite happens with Ellen, she and May are mirror images. Ellen who is not “simple” as Mrs. Archer puts it, she’s not like dear May (after her last conversation with Newland we can only laugh at that.) Newland desires her and despises her. He wants to keep Ellen and keep his social position too. He’s appalled to see her talking about self-sacrifice (like May!) instead of giving herself fully to him. But if she did, part of him would call her a harlot.
Frankly? It's not that Newland likes Ellen for being opinionated, he likes that her opinions are aligned with his own, with his perceived superiority and scorn toward the society he also wants so desperately to please. She only fuels his vanity, because ultimately, it’s all about him. It’s never about what Ellen wants or what May wants, but since Newland wants everything and the opposite of it, he’ll never be satisfied with either woman. The moment Ellen says something he doesn’t agree with, he’s flabbergasted that she isn’t catering to his whims, like his own mother and sister do. He doesn't want a partner, he wants a pliable peace of meat fawning over him.
As of Ellen liking him… some women really have bad taste. All I can say, he’s the one in New York who went above and beyond to make her feel at home, and sure he did it for the most selfish reasons, but she’s so miserable she’ll take that. This week I proposition that Ellen is the most innocent one.
I could go on and on and on, but I've already talked so much! I confess I’ve been reading and annotating this book on Kobo, but when we’re done I’m absolutely buying a physical copy and annotate every inch of it. Wharton is a revelation. I had never heard of her before, I’m Italian and as you can imagine she wasn’t in my school curriculum or anything. So, so glad I stumbled here, she ought to be so much more well-known internationally.
Ellie: I'm so glad you've met Wharton this way!! You might be thrilled to learn she has a whole book on Italian villas and gardening -- her passions for architecture and travel led to her doing quite a bit of fascinating nonfiction work. https://edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/works/summaries-and-discussion-questions/italian-villas-and-their-gardens/
https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/italian-villas-and-their-gardens/author/wharton/first-edition/
All of this! "Ultimately, it's all about him" and "since Newland wants everything and the opposite of it, he'll never be satisfied."
Yes yes yes - "The very simple concept that May is a complicated being eludes him." For Archer, there is a surprising amount at stake in the idea of May having a complex inner life! he has staked so much on her dullness and innocence, as an encapsulation of what bores him, as justification to pursue things with Ellen. if she is a whole person and not just a symbol for society... then I think it implicates Newland in why, exactly, this society is boring and stultifying. It's not just people like May being boring; it's people like Newland who expect people like May to be one-dimensional.
Beautifully put. Thank you!
Lovely to read everyone's insights.
I've noticed Ellen's language often evokes childhood -'I see everyone in knickerbockers and pantalettes' (back in chapter 2) and 'I'm like a child going at night into a room where there's always a light' - which gives an interesting dimension to her depiction as a woman of experience and sophistication. Her 'I can't love you unless I give you up.' is quite ambiguous. It could be seen as evidence of maturity, that Ellen knows her own emotions very well, or quite an idealistic statement of self-sacrifice.
These lines also stood out to me between Newland and Ellen:
'I don't understand you!'
'Yet you understand May!'
I'm not certain whether Ellen is sarcastically pointing out that Newland's understanding of May is lacking or something else but it made me curious about the cousins' relationship. I think there may be some complex and rich and tense relationships between women going on that Newland isn't privy to or just not interested in. I hope we get a bit more of this later.
I love this theme you're noticing about childhood and the language of childhood — especially given how often Newland infantilizes May!
Since the beginning of the book, I’ve been underlining every variation of the words ‘light’ and ‘dark’ without exactly knowing why - and finally in this sections, its importance is revealed!
At face value, the meaning is clear: Ellen implies that Ned is a light for her in a dark place, and conversely, Ellen’s arrival has shed a light on the darkness of Ned’s world and perspectives. But I don’t actually think that’s the whole story: Ellen’s arrival has thrown Ned’s world into confusion, making everything more muddy. And Ned has hardly been a great guiding light for Ellen - he discouraged her from getting a divorce, which I’m still not sure was a great decision.
In fact, May is the only character at this point with any kind of clarity about anything. To attempt to answer your questions, I think May knows Newland the best of the three of them. Newland has no idea who he is, or what he wants. As to Ellen.. it’s still unclear. So far it just seems that she is indebted to him for his ‘kindness’ towards her (which we know was selfishly motivated). I don’t know if she really knows him at all.
Also — what is it with Newland’s name?? Are we meant to take it literally, like new + land (new vs old New York, America vs. Europe)? Or is it a legitimate name that I have just never heard of outside of this book?
This is not my observation - I forget where I read it - but not only is his name New + land, his last name is Archer - suggesting that his fate is to try and reach a "new land" but not reach it.
I think in the book, though, there's mention of a family with the last name Newland. So it's a family name repurposed as a first name?
Beautiful readings here!
There are many families that repurpose family names into last names and vice versa, mostly (I think) as an effort to keep well-known names circulating.
But to answer your question Shruti: I think Newland's name is a brilliant pun, begging the question of the differences between Old New York and New New York.
And, as we see in chapter 21 this week, "Archer" is a bit of a pun as well...
"And to be clear: I don’t believe the grey is Ellen, but rather [Newland's] own reckoning with the fact that real life doesn’t fit into easy narratives or categories."
This, along with the observation you included about Newland's shortcomings in being a "close reader" perfectly sum up how it feels to read this story from his perspective. The moment when May sees right through him and asks him why he wants to move their marriage up is so striking, because to Newland it feels like the first time she's ever shown that much directive, but since the beginning of the novel, I've felt the sense that May's own intelligence is consistently buried under Newland's insistence that he understands himself, others, and the roles into which everyone fits. It brings me back to chapter one, when Wharton tells us that Newland is "at heart a dilettante." This description is so clear and harsh, but it's washed away quickly, because once Newland is introduced to us, he takes control of the narrative, guiding how we perceive him and the other characters (for a short while). These last few chapters of book one really show the cracks in his perspective, because it's now abundantly clear that May and Ellen are not at all who they seemed to be through Newland's eyes, and Newland himself is not who he tells us he is. Now that Newland is caught up with us, the readers, on how far off his interpretations were, and plunged into "the grey" as you put it, I'm curious to see how this loss of control wears away at him, if it does at all (which I suspect it must).
I love how you're describing these "cracks in his perspective," and wonder how you'll continue to track the fractures of Book 2...!
Despite the curiosity he has for the unconventional life he pictures with Ellen, I'm not convinced he would really go for it if he had the real chance. Newland really strikes me as the animal raised in captivity who never learned to hunt (wish I had a better metaphor for this!) Am I the only one feeling that?
Yes. He seems only to flirt with flouting convention when there is no possibility for follow through.
I'm not convinced so far that a woman like Ellen would fall for Newland. For me, it's not in the text.
And, I think Newland is weak compared to Lily Bart. Yes, Lily fails to seize her chances and we feel sorry for her. But we root for her. I can't root for Newland. On the other hand I can root for Ethan Frome and be sorry where he winds up.
It's hard to create literary magic with a weak protagonist.
We haven't really heard much about Ellen directly from Ellen, but it seems she's been used by men in her previous relationships not loved by them. It would be alluring to have someone like Newland so smitten by her, but she seems to me too cynical to actually love him. She is however very protective of May and I'd really like to know their history together
I think Ellen views New York society as a heaven . And what could be safer and more boring than heaven? Newland seems to fit into that as does his relationship with May.
I love this reading of Newland as heaven: boring and totally safe -- which may be what draws Ellen to Newland.
I'm with you that it's hard to see why someone as lovely and cultured and articulate and experienced as Ellen would be interested in someone as guarded and obviously dishonest (with himself, especially). But your reading of Newland as a kind of safe haven makes so much sense to me!
You know, for all the times I've read and listened to this book, and watched the film, I'm still never sure about Ellen. Does she love Newland? Or is she just managing him and his attentions as she tries to get to some version of freedom? He is interesting and has been a friend, different from the other men pursuing her (it's not just Beaufort!) and impressed with her (e.g. Henry van der Luyden). But what he wants from her, and his jealousy, make him more and more of a threat to her hopes for a safe place. Plus she also has strong ethics toward her cousin May, and has conversations and correspondence with May that Newland (and therefore the reader) only knows about peripherally.
This will be a better discussion for Book II, and I'll keep asking this question!
I like drawing our attention to the possibility that Newland is jealous of Ellen. Not just jealous of these tight relationships she has with other men, like Beaufort and Henry. But perhaps jealous of her: she has done the impossible thing of leaving New York, marrying, separating, and coming home. She's had all this experience he hasn't had; she's had access to all kinds of people (like "people who write" and other artistic types) he longs to be part of. Does he love Ellen, or does he just want to have what he perceives her to have had?
Something in this week’s audio guide got me thinking about the idea of potential and whether this society believes people have the potential to be more than what they are. (After all, part of what draws Archer to Ellen is that she creates a sense of potential in him — that there are other ways of living and doing, that Archer himself is capable of different ways of living and being, and Archer is intrigued by what those might become.) I think it was when you mentioned, Haley, how May Welland in ch. 16, is trying to figure out if Archer is a safe person for her, and how in doing that, she reveals herself as a person with great interiority and inner richness. But Archer has never believed her to be a person with potential for interiority independent of what he adds to it, and he fails to do so here.
Wharton writes, “If other problems had not pressed on him he would have been lost in wonder at the prodigy of the Wellands’ daughter urging him to marry his former mistress. But he was still dizzy with the glimpse of the precipice they had skirted, and full of a new awe at the mystery of young girlhood.”
If he had not been trying to disguise his feelings for Ellen, which are in part predicated on the binary he has drawn between Ellen and May, he might have been able to see May’s situation more clearly…? Might have been able to engage with May on these terms? to see her as a person who is, perhaps, more than a creature of society—more than what she appears to be?
But he can’t and of course May retreats into “helpless and timorous girlhood”—the version of herself she believes Archer will accept, just as she receives a version of the truth that Archer believes will satisfy her. They end this scene unable to conceive of different ways of being and engaging with one another. Their relationship bores Archer because there seems to be no potential for growth or excitement within it, yet he has played his part in closing off those avenues. To your point from the audio guide, he discusses creating a space for May to learn from him and be taught by him; has he created for her a space where she can fully express the inner life that she shows in this scene?
(this comment’s a bit of a mess, still thinking through what I mean here! thank YOU for creating a space for us to think through this all together!)
Oooooh Catherine. I LOVE this question.
In this week's new audio guide (coming out tomorrow!), I'm thinking through the implications of the Oedipus myth in the story and how that's tying people to very specific "fates." And now I'm curious about how your question about potential might fit into the Greek mythos that Wharton invokes throughout the story so far.
Are these people really fated to their social destinies? *Is* any other life possible for them or is it just an illusion, that can be teased by fantasy, but never fully assumed?
Gooooooooooood questions.
Absolutely not a mess, Catherine. I love your points here about May's inner life, and how Newland has closed off real communication between them. You put it better than I'm about to, but yes: his inability (or lack of desire?) to see past his assumptions about these two women makes it impossible for him to be truly *with* either of them.
my English degree finally coming in handy!! (just kidding, its always handy).
When reading I find myself automatically searching for the modern day comparison, like how would this play out today sort of thing. When Newland spends a Saturday at Highbank while Ellen is at Skuytercliff and May is in St. Augustine without him, the description of the days activities sounded like any young person today trying to impress their crush on social media - a "look at me I'm having so much unbothered fun without you" vibe. Wharton is so masterful that you can somehow just feel Newland's heart isnt in it and all he can think about is Ellen and then later May. When she wrote "[Newland] saw in the small hours by joining in a pillow-fight that ranged from the nurseries to the basement" that sent me!! lol Who does he think he's fooling
I love this so much!! You might like Jia Tolentino's New Yorker essay about how Wharton's novel, The Custom of the Country, is like a fortune-teller's read on Instagram culture. Here's a link: https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/what-edith-wharton-knew-a-century-ago-about-women-and-fame-in-america
I really agree with you that Wharton is so adept with her language, and so skilled, in the way she does the classic "show don't tell" moves with her characters. We can feel the pain and angst and loneliness Archer is experiencing — and it's so real to him, and so sad for him (and increasingly, for May too). And it's never quite RIGHT THERE on the page; it's in the texture of the language and in the flow and rhythm of the sentences, and how Wharton builds the story. It's so, so good. I'm glad you're loving it!
thank you for this article this is brilliant!!
One last "close reading" observation from Ch. 18, as we move on to Book II: May's telegrams. It struck me how personal and articulate her message to Ellen is, and how short & business-like her message to Newland. She chooses to spend her telegram budget on her cousin, not her fiance. She also appears to have messaged Ellen first, saying "Am telegraphing Newland now."
With Ellen, she uses familiar terms like "Granny", "Papa" and "Mamma", and the less formal word "agree". Newland just gets "Parents consent wedding". To Ellen, she concludes, "Am too happy for words and love you dearly. Your grateful May." What is she grateful to Ellen for? Shared confidences? Acceptance of May's prior claim (implicitly, "back off, he's mine")?
Newland just gets his marching orders for all the arrangements that can only be made in New York, with the two words "so happy" shoe-horned in after bridesmaids & the rector with no punctuation. Does Newland even register the contrast? Readers would never have known about May's glowing warmth to Ellen or her gratitude to her cousin if Newland hadn't still been in front of The Countess Olenska's fireplace when May's telegram was delivered (shortly after her tears, their kisses, and the devastation of her withdrawal).