The House of Mirth

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1905

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 1, Chapters 1-3

Book 1, Chapters 4-7

Book 1, Chapters 8-11

Book 1, Chapters 12-15

Book 2, Chapters 1-3

Book 2, Chapters 4-7

Book 2, Chapters 8-11

Book 2, Chapters 12-14

Character Analysis

Themes

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Themes

The Economics of Social Interaction

In The House of Mirth, the language of economics is used to explore the commodification of people in an American upper class based on wealth, rather than on inherited aristocratic titles. Lily treats herself, and is viewed by others, as a product to be sold to the highest bidder by marriage to a rich man. Selden realizes that the immaculately groomed Lily “must have cost a great deal to make, that a great many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious way, have been sacrificed to produce her” (5). Lily characterizes herself as “horribly poor” and, therefore, “very expensive” (10) for a man to marry since she needs a vast sum of money to remain in the upper-class society of her upbringing.

Women participate in the commodification of men as well. Lily rejects the fascinating Selden as a marital possibility because he lacks the requisite wealth, and she pursues the unappealing Percy Gryce because of his millions of dollars. Lily’s mother maintained a luxurious lifestyle based on her husband’s earnings, but when he is financially ruined, “to his wife he no longer counted: he had become extinct when he ceased to fulfill his purpose” (34). Judy Trenor does not care about her husband’s dalliances with other women as long as his finances are not jeopardized, “if she was careless of his affections she was plainly jealous of his pocket” (239). Bertha Dorset engages in adulterous affairs but fights to maintain her marriage because of needing her husband’s fortune.

In this society, wealth is power. Bertha’s “influence, in its last analysis, was simply the power of money: Bertha Dorset’s social credit was based on an impregnable bank-account” (274). Judy Trenor succeeds as a hostess because her “social talents, backed by Mr. Trenor’s bank account, almost always assured her ultimate triumph in such competitions” (42). The men who control the market on Wall Street wield power in Fifth Avenue society. Gus Trenor speculates and gives Lily money, but he expects intimacy with her to complete their transaction. Rosedale’s Wall Street achievements allow him to overcome the upper-class society’s bias against his Jewish background. Conversely, the lack of riches leads to an expulsion from this upper-class society. When Lily is disinherited by her aunt, she notices the society women’s behavior, thinking, “They were afraid to snub me while they thought I was going to get the money—afterward they scurried off as if I had the plague” (235).

Determinism Versus Moral Agency

Set in the naturalist literary movement, The House of Mirth exhibits the influence of a deterministic view of existence. The novel examines the degree to which Lily Bart’s life is determined by genetic and environmental factors or created by her own choices. As Lily becomes financially indebted after failing to marry a wealthy man when she was a society debutante, she asks herself: “Was it her own fault or that of destiny?” (30). She reviews her turbulent, yet lavish, upbringing that her mother perpetually needed more money to maintain. Following the financial ruin of her father, Lily was instructed by her mother to use her beauty to marry for wealth, not love. When Lily’s expensive tastes lead to financial struggles, her friend Gerty tells Selden: “You know how dependent she has always been on ease and luxury—how she has hated what was shabby and ugly and uncomfortable. She can’t help it—she was brought up with those ideas” (284). Lily reflects on her choices as she thinks, “But perhaps it’s rather that I never had any choice. There was no one, I mean to tell me about the republic of the spirit” (71), an alternative approach described by Selden. Lily lacks other values to cling to because of her parents’ rootlessness: “there was no centre of early pieties, of grave endearing traditions, to which her heart could revert and from which it could draw strength” (336).

Lily is shaped by her social environment, but heredity plays a role in Lily’s destiny. When Lily discovers that she does not have the aptitude to become a worker, the narrator notes: “Inherited tendencies had combined with early training to make her the highly specialized product she was” (316). Lily is ineffective out of her narrow range of high society because she was not raised to operate outside its structures. The narrator asks if it is Lily’s fault “that the purely decorative mission is less easily […] fulfilled among social beings than in the world of nature” (316-317) because that mission is more likely to be complicated by economic necessities or moral principles.

Lily also has moral agency, despite her genetics and training. Lily could have married successfully a few times, but she sabotages these opportunities. Mrs. Fisher comments about Lily, “I think it’s because, at heart, she despises the things she’s trying for” (197). Lily herself reveals that she has changed and chosen differently because of a conversation with Selden at Bellomont. Lily tells Selden that his comments “kept me from mistakes; kept me from really becoming what many people have thought me” (323). At key moments in the novel, Lily makes moral decisions that thwart her desire for luxury and wealth: she refuses to give information that would lead to the Dorsets’ divorce and a possible marriage to George Dorset; she refuses to use Bertha’s letters to blackmail her way back to a social position and a possible marriage to Rosedale; and she uses her legacy to settle her debt to Gus Trenor even in the face of poverty.

The Role of Gender in Society

Through the character of Lily Bart, gender inequities in a society founded on riches generated by a male-controlled Wall Street are illustrated. Envious of Selden’s ability to live independently in an apartment arranged as he pleases, Lily declares, “How delicious to have a place like this all to one’s self! What a miserable thing it is to be a woman” (7). Although Selden points out that he knows of a single woman with her own apartment, Lily distinguishes herself from Selden’s cousin, Gerty, by being marriageable and unwilling to live in a self-denying way. Lily informs Selden that he can choose whether to marry for wealth or not. As a man, Selden possesses the alternative of achieving financial security through his work. In upper-class society, Selden is not primarily valued for his appearance. Lily is expected to be lovely and immaculately dressed, as she explains, “If I were shabby no one would have me: a woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself” (12). She must “go into partnership” (12) by marrying a rich husband to keep up her appearance.

The limitations on Lily’s capacity to earn money keep her in a state of dependence. She knows that “at all costs she must keep Mrs. Peniston’s favour” (39) until she can acquire a type of financial independence through marriage. As a less affluent guest, Lily is under obligation to her society hostesses for their hospitality. Judy Trenor assumes that Lily will assist her when her secretary is absent, but for Lily the assumption stings as she is reminded of her station and lack of affluence. As an unmarried, relatively poor woman in an upper-class society, Lily “had been long enough in bondage to other people’s pleasure” (29) to cause her to be empathetic with her maid. Images of freedom versus enslavement are used to describe Lily’s financial struggles. When Lily contemplates marriage with wealthy, but boring, Percy Gryce, she imagines liberation because “she would be able to arrange her life as she pleased” (51).

When Lily’s marriage scheme fails to solve her problem of indebtedness, Lily thinks of the financial knowledge and skills from which she is excluded by her gender. Lily becomes involved with sordid Gus Trenor because “she had often heard of women making money in this way through their friends: she had no more notion than most of her sex of the exact nature of the transaction” (85). Lily’s ignorance of the financial world makes her easy prey for Gus. As a single, young woman, Lily cannot afford any hint of scandal that would damage her reputation. Gus’s flirtations as a powerful, wealthy, married man are overlooked by the upper-class society, and Lily takes the fall for his attentions. The assumption is that Lily, a woman, is to blame for Gus’s inappropriate behaviors. She is left virtually ruined by rumor and scandal, while Gus, an influential man in high society, is left untouched by any consequences of his illicit activities.