70 pages • 2 hours read
Edith WhartonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Lawrence Selden is surprised to see Miss Lily Bart, conspicuous in her elegant dress and her striking beauty, amidst the crowd at Grand Central Station in New York City in early September. After the close of the Newport, Rhode Island season, upper-class young ladies, such as Miss Bart, typically attend country house parties north of the city to escape the hot temperature. Puzzled that Lily does not appear to be catching a train, Selden watches her with amused curiosity, because “her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions” (3). Selden usually encounters Lily in a ballroom, after her debut in society 11 years earlier. He wonders if she really is 29 years old now. Selden strolls past her, knowing that she will contrive to avoid him if she does not wish to be seen.
Lily tells Selden that she missed her train to attend a country house party at the Gus Trenors at Bellomont. She must wait two hours until the next train and thanks him for coming to her rescue. When Selden invites her to a restaurant, Lily does not want to be seen in public with him because of possible gossip and asks if there is a less frequented place. Seeking a shaded area, Lily inadvertently turns onto the street where Selden’s apartment building is located. She spontaneously accepts Selden’s invitation to take tea in his library since the young man “could never be a factor in her calculations” (6). Envying Selden’s independence, Lily complains about her limitations as a female, wishing that she could have an apartment to herself. When Selden mentions that his cousin Gerty Farish lives alone in a flat, Lily states that the unmarriageable Gerty enjoys being good. In contrast, Lily admits she enjoys being happy and could not live in Gerty’s horrible little place.
Lily asks Selden why he never visits her at her aunt’s home since they get along so well when they meet. Selden ventures to say that the fact Lily does not want to marry him is the reason. Lily does not take his comment seriously and tells him that she needs a friend who will not be afraid to tell her the truth. Although she was born into the upper class, Lily is poor and informs Selden that she needs to marry a very wealthy man. When the employed Selden answers that he would not marry to become rich, Lily explains that a woman must marry, but a man may choose. Suddenly, Lily questions Selden about book-collecting, Americana, and the expensive Jefferson Gryce collection.
When Lily exits Selden’s apartment, she carefully looks around to avoid being observed. However, a char-woman scrubbing the stairway watches the embarrassed Lily. On the sidewalk, Lily encounters Mr. Rosedale, a blond Jewish businessman. Flustered at seeing this acquaintance, Lily invents a story about visiting her dressmaker. Rosedale owns the all-male apartment building named the Benedick, meaning “bachelor.” Rosedale knows no dressmaker works there and assumes Lily is concealing something improper, which gives him a sense of power over her. Lily turns down his offer to accompany her to the station and flees in a hansom.
Lily regrets having yielded to the luxury of an impulse by visiting Selden’s apartment, realizing that it was “going to cost her rather more than she could afford” (16). She perceives that Rosedale has not forgotten that she snubbed him when he tried to advance into her social circle. Her spendthrift cousin Jack Stepney obtained an invitation for Rosedale to a society event at the Van Osburghs in return for a loan of money from the businessman, but Rosedale was ignored. Now Lily assumes that Rosedale will vengefully circulate the story of her visiting the Benedick among his acquaintances.
On the train, Lily happily notices Percy Bryce, another guest invited to the Trenors’ country house party. Lily knows that the shy, young blond man with a reddish beard recently inherited the vast fortune of his uncle, Jefferson Bryce. Many mothers of marriageable daughters in New York City focused on the wealthy Percy’s move to the metropolis; Lily needs to be on the alert herself, since her mother’s death. Pretending to read on the train, Lily begins “tranquilly studying her prey through downcast lashes while she organized a method of attack” (18). Lily walks past Percy, staging an encounter that results in his move to the seat next to hers. She orders tea for them, fascinating Percy with her ease and refinement. When their conversation flags due to Percy’s lack of imagination, Lily feigns an interest in Americana. She feels “the pride of a skilful operator” (20), as Percy enthusiastically talks on this topic, glorying in his uncle’s book collection as if he himself had accumulated it. Lily feels in such command of the situation that she starts to imagine her future with the rich young man, despite knowing about the suspicious, rigid nature of Percy’s mother. Lily’s fear of the possible consequences of Rosedale’s gossip vanishes from her thoughts when she envisions financial security.
A new member of the Trenors’ party suddenly boards the train: Mrs. George Dorset, a small, pretty woman, accompanied by a maid, a dog, and a footman staggering under the load of luggage. Bertha Dorset seats herself next to her friends, Lily and Percy. When Bertha requests a cigarette from her female friend, Lily pretends that she never smokes, having caught the disapproving look in Percy’s eyes. Bertha smilingly recognizes the motive for Lily’s denial.
At the Trenors’ country estate, Bellomont, Lily loses $300 playing bridge one evening, when she needs every penny to pay her bills. Her society hostesses expect Lily to participate at the card table in exchange for their hospitality. Despite the dangerous example of young Ned Silverton, an aspiring poet who became indebted by acquiring a taste for bridge as well as for Mrs. Fisher, an attractive divorcée in their social circle, Lily developed a passion for gambling. Lily risks higher stakes each time in a desperate effort to replenish her purse. She spent all afternoon being bored by Percy “on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her for life” (27), in her attempt to obtain a wealthy husband. Lily views herself as having no choice since she was not created for poverty. As Lily brushes her hair before bedtime, she fearfully notices two lines near her mouth.
Mrs. Hudson Bart, Lily’s fashionable mother, raised her in an opulent environment, spending as though they were much richer than their bank account indicated. Lily rarely saw her father who worked downtown trying to finance his wife’s lavish expenditures. At the age of 19, Lily learned the shocking facts about the value of money. Proud of her mother’s refusal to live in dinginess, without the proper standard of splendor, Lily requested fresh flowers one day at lunchtime instead of using the centerpiece from the previous night. Lily’s father surprisingly returned home from work early on that day. After he laughed at the naivete of Lily’s request, her father announced that he was financially ruined. Soon after this news, Lily’s exhausted father died, resented by his now-impoverished wife. Lily and her mother moved from place to place, staying with relatives or in cheap places abroad. Angry at her fate, Lily’s mother vengefully insisted that Lily would restore the family fortune with her facial beauty by marrying well.
After Lily’s mother died, Mrs. Peniston, a widowed aunt, reluctantly offered Lily a place in her home. Lily enjoys the material advantages of expensive clothing, food, and accommodations, but her passive aunt does not feel obliged to help her advance in any way. Instead of providing a fixed allowance, Mrs. Peniston gives occasional presents to Lily designed to remind her of her dependence.
In the first chapters of this “novel of manners,” a literary genre in the customs and mores of a particular society are recreated, the rituals and norms of turn-of-the-century New York high society are established. Selden is surprised to see Lily Bart in New York City in the September heat because upper-class women spend the summer season at the fashionable Newport resort, then travel north to house parties in the autumn. In addition to this unchanging order of the social calendar, the upper-class rituals of debutantes and society balls are mentioned when the history of Selden’s acquaintance with Lily is portrayed along with the relatively advanced age of single Lily. The rigid conventions to which a young woman must adhere if she wishes to preserve her reputation and marriageability are sharply indicated by Lily’s fear of being seen exiting Selden’s apartment. Even though Lily innocently drank tea during the wait for her train, the gossip that follows her rare spontaneous decision and her flustered attempt at concealment makes her vulnerable to misrepresentation.
The materialism of New York high society is illustrated by using the language of economics to characterize social interaction. Selden speaks of Lily’s attempt to find a rich man to marry by assuring her that there must be capital searching for the investment of a partnership with her. Selden knows that his lack of wealth keeps him off Lily’s list of marital prospects. The commodification of people in an American upper class based on wealth, rather than on inherited aristocratic titles, is further emphasized by characterizing Lily as a product that cost a lot to manufacture. In her pursuit of a marriage partner, Lily must effectively sell herself to the highest bidder since she needs a vast sum of money to remain in the upper-class society of her upbringing. Metaphors of enslavement, such as describing the links of her expensive bracelet as manacles chaining her, are used to demonstrate the restrictiveness of Lily’s role. For Mr. Rosedale, a social-climbing Jewish businessman, the status of escorting the elegant Lily in public would be equivalent in value to money in his pocket.
The theme of gender role limitations is raised by Lily’s envy of Selden’s capacity to live alone as a man and to choose whether to marry since he always has the alternative to work for his money. Selden and Lily enjoy epigrammatic banter that veils their true emotions and satirizes what Lily calls her business: marrying to acquire wealth.
The third-person narrator style allows for shifts between the experiences of several different characters, instead of inhabiting the perspective of only one character using first-person narration. Not possessing the required level of affluence for marriage to Lily, Selden inhabits a spectator role analyzing the reasons for her behavior and observes her calculating methods to attain her goal with amusement. Lily’s thoughts are also revealed, enabling an opportunity to empathize with her dilemmas. The motif of an artist describes Lily’s gift for creating effects and the motif of a hunter indicates Lily’s quest to capture a wealthy mate.
Chapter 3 reveals Lily’s gambling addiction and her debt, and provides the context of Lily’s initial family environment. The novel shows the influence of the literary movement of naturalism, which stresses the importance of environmental and heredity factors in human development. Lily’s early training by her mother to live luxuriously beyond her means and assess the value of a man in terms of the money he provides is crucial for understanding Lily’s decisions.
The novel’s key characters are introduced in these opening chapters, including the protagonist Lily, her potential romantic interest Selden, Selden’s cousin Gerty Farish with whom Lily contrasts herself, Lily’s future antagonist Bertha Dorset, and the two witnesses of Lily’s exit from Selden’s apartment: the char-woman cleaning the stairs and Mr. Rosedale.
By Edith Wharton
American Literature
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Challenging Authority
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Class
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Equality
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Friendship
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Marriage
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Naturalism
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Nature Versus Nurture
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Power
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Pride & Shame
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Satire
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