Wharton was born Edith Jones in 1862, into an upper class New York City family. ... Jones finally married Edward Wharton in 1885, though and though her marriage soon went to ruins, she remained married to Wharton for over twenty years. ... Wharton found other outlets as well, having numerous affairs. ... Wharton had overcome a great hurdle in literature. ... Wharton, like many other novelists, produced several short stories and novels, but found true success in The House of Mirth in 1905. ...

• Word Count: 483
• Approx Pages: 2

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH In the 1900's, women were faced with many obstacles to overcome. ... The greatest aspect of Terence Davies' "The House of Mirth" is that it's such a downer. ... The Washington Post states, "Like a corkscrew slowly, inexorably penetrating a bottle of spoiled wine, filmmaker Terence Davies's brilliant, astringent version of Edith Wharton's "The House of Mirth" painstakingly worms its way downward into turn-of-the-century New York society, only to reveal the sour liquor that flows through the hearts of his monied, well-dressed subjects....

• Word Count: 1006
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Set at the turn of the twentieth century, the novel The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton offers a complete and insightful view to the varying degrees of classes that made up the women's society at the time. ... Overall, if the novel The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton was the only source of information on society at the turn of the century, it could be concluded that the pressures, standards, and expectations of society greatly shaped the personalities of the women of the time. ...

• Word Count: 1424
• Approx Pages: 6

In Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, elements of naturalism are used to show how the protagonist Lily Bart's life is controlled by her struggle between love and money. According to Encarta's electronic encyclopedia, "naturalistic writers regard human behavior as controlled by instinct, emotion, o...

• Word Count: 622
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

The novels we have read thus far, "The House of Mirth as well as Bread Givers" illustrates these ideas. The "House of Mirth" written by Edith Wharton illustrates how clothing as well as fashion is a big part of society and how it ties the individual to a certain dress code to be accepted. ...

• Word Count: 275
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

In Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, the main character, Lily Bart, starts off with two goals: to marry well and acquire wealth. ... Lily hated to be "poor, to look forward to a shabby, anxious middle age, leading by dreary degrees of economy and self-denial to gradual absorption in the dingy communal existence of the boarding-house. ... She hates living in the boarding house, but compared to the feeling of loneliness she has it does not matter. ...

• Word Count: 1273
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

In Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, loneliness is caused by poverty and depression. ... Loneliness is a dominant theme in The House of Mirth. ... Lily is also aging quickly, but not as much as Wharton makes it seem. ...

• Word Count: 836
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Ethan Frome was considered by many to be Edith Wharton's finest novel. ... Her reputation and place in history as a novelist was established beyond a doubt with the publication of The House of Mirth in 1905. ... Wharton was a writer of the twentieth century. ... Wharton constantly used objects and colors to represent feelings and hopes. ... Also, Wharton was fond of matching colors with personalities. ...

• Word Count: 1615
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

Lily Bart's Loneliness: A Self-Realization Loneliness is a prevalent theme throughout Edith Wharton's novel, The House of Mirth. The following passage relates to the theme of loneliness and dramatizes Lily Bart's dilemma of poverty: All she looked on was the same and yet changed. There was a great g...

• Word Count: 986
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

In The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and The Awakening by Kate Chopin, I was hoping to find those strong women role models because they were written by women. ... In The House of Mirth, we are introduced to Lily Bart who is considered the "heroine" of this particular tale. ... In describing her, Lawrence Seldon sees Lily as "at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong and fine" (Mirth 7). Lily has all of the markings of what we would now see as a successful woman because she not only beautiful, she is also described as "practical" (Mirth 39), "intelligen...

• Word Count: 1146
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

As in other works of this genre (for example, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth), Daisy Miller focuses on the behavior of its characters in social situations. ...

• Word Count: 1470
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School