The House of Mirth Chapters 13 and 14

I feel that the most interesting and heartbreaking aspect of chapters 13 and 14 of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth

was the inner turmoil that Gerty Farish faced as she dealt with some very complicated emotions and comforted Lily after the incident with Trenor; in fact, this insight into Gerty’s feelings caused me to compare and contrast Lily Bart and Gerty Farish as I was reading. Wharton reveals in this chapter that, despite the fact that Gerty and Selden are cousins, she has developed a genuine and ardent love for him; however, the fact that Selden loves Lily with the same capacity that Gerty loves him dawns on her within this chapter, and she is absolutely crushed, channeling all her hurt feelings and jealousy into an utter hatred of Lily. Despite this, when Lily comes to Gerty for comfort and consolation after her terrifying evening with Mr. Trenor, Gerty sets aside all her jealousy and hatred and slips into her instinctual need to care for others. I realized while reading this that just about the only two things that Lily and Gerty have in common are that they are women, and they love Selden; beyond that, they are about as different and they could possibly be. Gerty is a simple woman who has always sufficed with living vicariously through the happiness and success of others; she has always been perfectly content to bask in the light of others’ radiance. Although she admits that, “She wanted happiness—wanted it as

fiercely and unscrupulously as Lily did, but without Lily’s power of obtaining it” (Wharton, 132), she has always placed her own wants and desires last, and dedicated her entire life to the service of those in need. Lily, on the other hand, has lived a spoiled, wealthy, and unbelievably selfish life. Although her upbringing certainly contributed to this, and she may never have been taught to live any differently, the fact remains that she has always expected to get everything she wants, with complete disregard for the feelings or needs of anyone but herself. The contrast between Gerty’s selflessness with Lily’s self-obsession is best manifested in the manner in which both women love Selden. Gerty loves Selden simply for the fact that he takes interest in her; she loves to talk with him, dine with him, and simply be in his company. Her love for him appears to be genuine and selfless. On the other hand, Lily seems to love Selden mainly because of what he is so willing to offer her. All her life she has been concerned with how other people will benefit herself, rather than how she could help others, and her relationship with Selden is no different. He has offered her a life greater than the pitfalls of high society, and he has adored her just the way she loves to be admired. She even admitted in a previous chapter that what she loved most about Selden was her power over him. Power does not factor into an equation of true love, proving that Gerty’s love stems from true emotion, while Lily’s seems to have developed from a sense of personal gain. Lastly, Gerty’s genuine goodness shines through when she assures Lily that Selden will comfort her; essentially, Gerty could have asserted the idea that Selden would forsake Lily and possibly ended their relationship altogether, but because of Gerty’s inherent goodness, she decides to surrender her own happiness for the sake of her friend. Lily, on the other hand, was so absorbed in her own self-pity and self-centeredness to even notice that Gerty had been crying or was clearly pained. “…Lily, in the blaze of her own misery, was blinded to everything outside of it” (Wharton, 133). When reading chapter 14, I realized that the comparison between Gerty and Lily was the perfect tool for Wharton to use in revealing the heroism of Miss Gerty Farish and the appalling imperfections of the seemingly flawless Miss Lily Bart.