No Laughing Matter: The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
by Marilyn Green Faulkner

The title for Wharton’s great novel of manners comes from Ecclesiastes 7:2-4:

“It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”

Set in New York at the turn of the century, The House of Mirth traces the decline of Lily Bart, a beautiful product of the new leisure class that rose in America on the economic boom that followed the Civil War. Wealthy, idle, and envied by the working classes, these fashionable New Yorkers drifted from one social engagement to another, producing nothing and consuming everything in sight. Lily Bart, raised to this luxury but orphaned and impoverished, must “marry well” to secure her financial and social future.

As the novel opens Lily is already twenty-nine years old, and has somehow passed up several excellent opportunities. For even though an advantageous marriage is all that Lily professes to be seeking, her independence of spirit is in conflict with the necessity of subjugating herself to an inferior man with a superior fortune. Lily’s attempts to secure a husband form the plot of the novel. Her eventual destruction by a society built on false principles forms its heart.

The novel is beautifully constructed. The first few paragraphs sketch the two main characters, Lily Bart and her soul mate, Lawrence Seldon, and foreshadow the course of the action. Even the first words, “Lawrence Seldon paused…” are a perfect definition of his character. Lawrence will continue to pause, and pontificate, and deliberate, and miss the point, right until the final scene. By the same token, Lily’s “air of irresolution,” which so intrigues him as he meets her in a train station, will define her actions and eventually undo her. She will make many crucial choices by simply refusing to decide what to do.

Though she never does anything truly dishonest or immoral, Lily gets herself into one mess after another, and ends with a tarnished reputation she does not deserve. Or does she? Lily is a brilliant study in self-deception. In order to live a lie (that she is marrying for love rather than selling herself to the highest bidder) Lily must keep her true motives secret, even from herself. This, after long practice, she has learned to do by channeling her thoughts away from honest introspection.

“She was always scrupulous about keeping up appearances to herself. Her personal fastidiousness had a moral equivalent, and when she made a tour of inspection in her own mind there were certain closed doors she did not open.” (131)

Edith Wharton, born Edith Newbold Jones, was herself a product of the society she attacks in The House of Mirth. Born in 1862, the only daughter of parents descended from the old New York aristocracy, Wharton was raised in a home where no one worked. Time was divided between residences in New York, Newport, and Europe. Rather than attend public school she had private tutors, and made a social debut at seventeen, after which she attended the rounds of balls and parties that made up her world until she married Edward Wharton in 1885. She seemed destined for a conventional life as a hostess, wife and mother, but her life took a different course.

The Whartons had no children, and in her thirties, Edith suffered bouts of severe depression. She began to write in response to this, first short stories and articles, and even a landmark book on home decorating, the first of its kind. Then, around 1900 she conceived of the idea of writing a novel about her own peer group, with its hidden immoralities and hypocrisies. She knew that she must find a way to write about her world that would hold the interest of others, for whom that world was only a dream. The answer was to create a character that bridged both worlds, and the result was The House of Mirth, published in 1905. The novel was an instant success, and was the best selling book in the nation for much of that year, establishing Wharton as a serious novelist and launching a career that eventually earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. Wharton eventually divorced her husband in 1913 and spent the rest of her life in France. She died in 1937.

Lily Bart, coming as she does from the fringes of the great society, is a character that captures the imagination whether one is rich or poor, beautiful or ugly. Her exterior poise and grace hides a terrible confusion, and her morality, somewhat lax, is the product of a world that rewards conformity and punishes independent thought, especially in women. She is expected, above all things, to be decorative, and for this she must have plenty of money, but she must not appear to be seeking it. Wharton was a shrewd businesswoman and understood firsthand what it took to create the beautiful creatures that rode in carriages up and down Fifth Avenue. As Seldon admires Lily’s beauty, he actually visualizes her as a commodity, a product of much labor:

“Everything about her was at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong and fine. He had a confused sense that she 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.” (7)

Through Lily Bart, Wharton challenged the thinking of her generation about women’s role. If the only option available to a young woman was marriage, marriage became a business proposition rather than a relationship of mutual love and respect. The alliances formed through marriage secured the continuity of the leisure class, but they did little to make the world a better place. Lily’s continual frustration lies in the fact that all her intelligence and ability must be directed toward appearing in a certain way rather than becoming anything of value. The suffrage movement and the entry of women into the workforce during the two World Wars lie just ahead of this biting, satirical novel. Wharton saw that something needed changing in her world, and through her novels was able to help others see it as well. Lily’s grace and beauty symbolize what society ought to be, and isn’t. Her inevitable destruction shows us what happens when life is built on leisure, appearance and glamour, rather than on duty, industry and morality.

The House of Mirth is the March selection for the Best Books Club. To discuss this and other works of classic literature, log on to our new website at www.thebestbooksclub.com. Join the conversation!