dilettantes A DILEMMA THE AGE OF INNOCENCE CHAPTERS 14 - 18 - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
LITERATURE PAPER ONE LECTURE SEVEN dilettantes 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
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LITERATURE PAPER ONELECTURE SEVEN
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE CHAPTERS 14 - 18DILEMMA
IRRELEVANT NARRATION
LACK OF ANALYSIS
SUPERFICIAL RESPONSE
Issues from MYE
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)
MYE Follow-up
madmenyourself.com
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 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 . “TRUE COMING OF AGE STORY!”
ACCEPTANCE INTO SOCIETY CONFLICT & DEVELOPMENTGROWTH & MATURITY
WILHELM MEISTER. GREAT EXPECTATIONS. JANE EYRE. CATCHER IN THE RYE. THE LION KING? HARRY POTTER? 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’.
Thesis
New Y
The most appalling possibility presented by the novel is that Newland might never grow beyond his smug, limited understanding
relationships within it, that he might become a kind of carbon copy of Larry Lefferts and his friends. The
a possibility (Introduction, xxv).
dolls product
terrifyingpatterns
stencilled on a wall MECHANICAL IMAGERY THEflame
It’s delightful! Wharton uses sensory images to portray Archer’s ‘encounters’
Wharton’s cold, ironic narrator interjects and undermines Newland’s
FOIL
ideal
privilege
Reminds Archer of his CHARACTER to Newland Archerfailure
Both an and a S I G N S
‘Dear May is my ideal’
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.
‘Why didn’t you marry Ellen?’
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.
‘She had it all... the greatest’
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.
ACTING AGAINST YOUR OWN WISDOM YOU ARE WRONG AND YOU KNOW IT
head heart
OR
OVER art
literaturepassion feeling
A N A G E F O R
anagnorisis
child-like?
the ‘pale’, ‘extinguished’ heroine in need of a hero? in Ch 18 ‘I shan’t be lonely. I was..’
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.
‘I must go..’, ‘it mustn’t’
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’.
“We’ll look, not at visions, but at
”
new
“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.”
THE MARRIAGE Rebirth?
Coming of age?
Renewal?
...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
perversions of ancient European civilizations - Ellen - can.
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.
Conclusion