"The glow of the stone warmed Lily's veins like wine. More completely than any other expression of wealth they symbolized the life she longed to lead..." (Wharton, 73)
While reading chapters 7 and 8 of Edith Wharton’s
The House of Mirth,in which Lily retrieves Gus Trenor from the station at Bellomont and attends Jack Stepney and Maria Van Osburgh’s wedding, I experienced a lot of confusion and frustration concerning Lily’s choices, motives, and major troubles. Lily’s character seems to evolve a great deal within these two chapters, and Wharton reveals many more of Lily’s qualities and attributes which frustrated me a great deal. To begin with, I was a little disappointed in Lily for the manipulative manner in which she sought Gus Trenor’s financial help, for, by taking advantage of him, I feel that she made herself no better than Mrs. Fisher or any of her other superficial friends. Also, I have become very frustrated with the fact that Lily has developed such an air of superiority and self-confidence. She has little right to feel so triumphant when the only reason she is not wallowing in debt is because of the efforts of Mr. Trenor, yet she parades around the wedding as though any man would be flattered to be seen with her and individuals such as sweet and kind-hearted Gerty Farish are utterly pathetic in comparison to her radiance. The most disturbing issue, however, is the way that Lily has handled the crisis surrounding Selden and Mr. Gryce. While Miss Bart admitted to Mr. Trenor that she simply could never marry someone as dull as Mr. Gryce, she still attempts to destroy his recent relationship with Evie Van Osburgh in order to marry him, which I find to be pathetic and selfish. Furthermore, when Lily first notices Selden at the wedding, Wharton reveals, “She did not wish to see him again… because his presence always had the effect of cheapening her aspirations… he was a living reminder of the worst mistake in her career” (Wharton, 71). Personally, I think Lily is being downright stupid, and I couldn’t disagree with her more. Selden has been the only person in her life who has been bold enough to challenge her superficial aspirations and prove to her that she is settling for a fate that will make her miserable in the future. Rather than cheapening her aspirations, he is enriching them and being the kind of friend that Lily told him in chapter 1 she so desired: someone who wouldn’t be afraid to tell her disagreeable things when she needed to hear them. Selden is the best thing that has ever happened to Miss Bart, and for her to call him her worst mistake is nothing short of ludicrous.
In addition to being frustrated, I also experienced a great deal of confusion while reading this portion of The
House of Mirth. First of all, after the group at Bellomont discovered that Lily had spent the entire Sunday afternoon alone with Selden, Judy Trenor rebuked Lily for hours about this choice, saying that she was an idiot to have stolen Selden from Bertha Dorset. Because of the incident, Bertha became so angry that she single-handedly ruined any hope of Lily marrying Mr. Gryce by telling him horrible things about Lily which drove him away. Honestly, though, I don’t understand why Bertha has any justifiable reason to be angry with Lily. While I understand that Mrs. Dorset developed an obsession with Selden, she is a married woman, so there was no chance of her marrying him herself anyway. Why, then, does she have the right to be so upset with Lily? I was also confused as to what aspect of Lily’s conversation with Mr. Rosedale at the wedding she was so desperate to keep from Selden’s knowledge. Hopefully, as the novel progresses, I will be able gain more clarity on these two issues that have confused me.
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