The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

by Sara Jane Berman
(East Williston New York)

I adore Lily Bart, the tragic heroine of Edith Wharton's magnificent American novel The House of Mirth. She is beautiful. When glimpsed by Selden in Grand Central Station, she makes the other passengers "seem dull and pale by comparison." We identify with her restlessness as a young woman in high society in turn of the century New York. We admire her acceptance of the rules and restrictions of her set.
Wharton's smooth and lyrical descriptions of an Autumn day in upstate New York are memorable. She, like Ella Fitzgerald, is incapable of hitting a wrong note.
Lily is ever making the wrong choices. When she appeals to her wealthy Aunt with whom she lives, for money to repay her gambling debts, she is rejected. She turns to her friend's wealthy husband, who cheats her in a financial investment. (He must have been the great-great Grandfather of Bernie Madeoff!)
When forced to take a job as a milliner, she fails miserably, and then becomes a Social Secretary to a nouveau riche socialite.
She spurns the smarmy offers of Mr. Rosedale. In a foolish effort to find relief from her paucity of choices, she takes laudunum to sleep. Alas, she sleeps forever. Was it suicide or an unintentional overdose?