LITERATURE PAPER ONE LECTURE SEVEN dilettante’s A DILEMMA THE AGE OF INNOCENCE CHAPTERS 14 - 18
Issues from MYE IRRELEVANT NARRATION - “Let me tell you about what happens in Ch 1!” LACK OF ANALYSIS - “Let me tell you what happens in the passage!” - HIGHLIGHT the METHODS in your notes. SUPERFICIAL RESPONSE - “OMG, Newland is so egoistic!” - Do not just discuss character traits. - Look out for CONCERNS (e.g. maturity, imprisonment by social code).
MYE Follow-up OWING TO LACK OF LESSON TIME... A sample answer from your tutors will be uploaded on the COLAC forum. So will good essays by your friends. We will also pick out sample paragraphs from the not-so- good scripts and show you how to improve them (to include more analysis and discussion of concerns )
T O D A Y ’ S P I C T U R E S C A N B E R E C R E A T E D A T madmenyourself.com C O N C U R R E N T G A M E : I W I L L R E F E R T O T H R E E D I S N E Y T H E M E S O N G S .
Bildungsroman “TRUE COMING GROWTH OF AGE & MATURITY STORY!” ACCEPTANCE INTO SOCIETY CONFLICT & DEVELOPMENT WILHELM MEISTER. GREAT EXPECTATIONS. JANE EYRE. CATCHER IN THE RYE. THE LION KING? HARRY POTTER?
Thesis The Age of Innocence is at a heart a Bildungsroman , a novel of education in which its protagonist finally achieves the wisdom and accepts the ‘reality’ of his narrow world. To an extent, Book One does present a Newland Archer who by persisting in his romantic fantasies , ‘learns nothing’.
Thesis Yet, one must acknowledge that it is his temptation - his entrancement by Ellen Olenska and all that she represents - in Book One that will lead him to the maturity to be ‘at peace with himself’.
New Y ork, New Y ork
The most appalling possibility presented by the novel is that Newland might never grow beyond his smug, limited understanding of his duties in the world and his relationships within it, that he might become a kind of carbon copy of Larry Lefferts and his friends. The opening chapter hints clearly at such a possibility (Introduction, xxv).
RAG E AG AIN S T T HE POWERFUL ENGINE OF O L D N EW YO RK
BURIED ALIVE ‘ G RE E N M OUL D OF T HE PERFUN CTO RY’
may WELL A N D terrifying product dolls of the social system cut out of the same paper patterns stencilled on a wall MECHANICAL IMAGERY
THE flame
It’s delightful! How intimate, ‘ foreign ’ and subtly... romantic ! Wharton uses sensory images to portray Archer’s ‘encounters’ Des quartiers excentrique
Wharton’s cold, ironic narrator interjects and undermines Newland’s operatic ‘fantasy’
Ch 6-13 T H E D E V E L O P M E N T O F A R C H E R ’ S D I L E M M A - C R E A T I N G R O M A N T I C V I S I O N S Ch 14-18 T H E U N R A V E L L I N G O F T H I S D I L E M M A - A T T E M P T S T O ‘ A W A K E N ’ A R C H E R
CHARACTER FOIL to Newland Archer - circumstance ned - ironic name Both an ideal and a W I N S E T T failure Reminds Archer of his privilege And suggests that he accepts (and exploits) his role
warning S I G N S
Wharton employs Mrs Archer’s dialogue to directly compare Ellen and May, insinuating that ‘poor’ Ellen is not an ‘ideal’ and that Archer’s romantic visions are reckless, impractical. Archer’s response shows that he is aware of the information (‘they’re not alike’) but not Mrs. Archer’s intent - to forewarn him of his decision. M R S A R C H E R ‘Dear May is my ideal’
The satirical figure of Mrs Mingott seems to be aware of the romantic developments and teases Archer, drawing the reader’s attention to their ‘compatibility’. This playfulness is however overturned by caution; she serves to warn Archer that ‘it’s too late’ for him to pursue her now. M R S M A N S O N M I N G O T T ‘Why didn’t you marry Ellen?’
The use of absolute (‘all’, ‘always’) and superlative (‘priceless’, ‘greatest’) terms reflect the wealth and luxury of a life incomparable to one that might be spent with Archer. It is a life, as Medora Manson suggests, not worth ‘freedom’. The use of the truism, ‘marriage is marriage’ underlines the individual’s duty to society and the rules that bind it together. M E D O R A M A N S O N ‘She had it all... the greatest’
AKRASIA ACTING AGAINST YOUR OWN WISDOM YOU ARE WRONG AND YOU KNOW IT OR OVER heart head
literature feeling passion visions N EWL A N D ’S AND FANTASIES art
experience A N A G E F O R
child-like? the ‘pale’, ‘extinguished’ heroine in need of a hero? ellen O L E N S K A anagnorisis moment of discovery and realisation in Ch 18
Wharton makes use of the past tense (‘ was’, ‘gone’) in Ellen’s direct discourse to highlight the ‘learning’ she has undergone. Far from the ‘pale’, ‘lonely’ and ‘afraid’ victim, she is now presented with the resoluteness (‘shan’t’) to carry on with her life without Newland Archer. E L L E N O L E N S K A ‘I shan’t be lonely. I was ..’
The use of ‘must’, ‘mustn’t’ and ‘had to be’ (high-modality verbs) reflects the individual’s duty to society and how Ellen Olenska accedes to her obligation to only ‘go where [she is] invited’. E L L E N O L E N S K A ‘I must go..’, ‘it mustn’t’
ellen O L E N S K A “We’ll look, not at visions, but at REALITIES ”
old new york ALWAYS TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER THE INDIVIDUAL
“The individual, in such cases, is nearly always sacrificed to what is supposed to be the collective interest: people cling to any convention that keeps the family together.”
Easter THE MARRIAGE Rebirth? Renewal? Coming of age?
...this piece of fiction is an urgent, encouraging appeal for its readers to abandon unrealizable fantasies for the actual, deep pleasures that “real life” can afford. Newland Archer is Wharton’s quintessentially American hero... [who] can learn about himself and his native land only an encounter with the perversions of ancient European civilizations - Ellen - can.
Conclusion Wharton does develop the ‘innocent’ Newland of Book One into an introspective adult in Chapter 34 - ‘ victorious ’ in his final acceptance of his place (away from Ellen Olenska and far-off, ‘perverse’ lands). ‘Poor Newland’, however tragic or pathetic he may be, does finally abandon his visions for mundane reality . The novel is a Bildungsroman , one with a lesson that is at best bittersweet.
may WELL A N D
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