possibilities that she represents for Archer. For example, the name May Welland indicates a bright summer day in well land. How does he seeand presentthe central characters? He longed to question her, to hear more about the life of which her careless words had given him so illuminating a glimpse; but he feared to touch on distressing memories (61). Ellen is assumed to be having an affair with Archer, when she is not. The first is at the end of Book One (Chapter 18 when he is at Ellen's house and tells her that, since he is still free and she can be if she divorces, they can be together. He Newland wastrying to picture the society in which the Countess Olenska had lived and suffered, and alsoperhapstasted mysterious joys. Any character analysis of Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton will reveal, just as an examination of any of the major themes or characters also will, a set of complex dualities. There is a large part of him that is contented with the sort of life he has with May; if this were not so, he would long ago have become an outsider, like Ned Winsett. Both are novels about marriage; both feature an Archer (Jamess main character is Isabel Archer).
Questioning the concepts of true freedom and liberty, the overall theme presented throughout. In the novel The Age of Innocence, the aristocratic. That Archer sees her in this light is confirmed by the fact that he sends her a new bunch of these flowers each day. Edith Wharton, Alice Walker, and Female Culture.
If the age itself isn t innocent, were there certain people within New York society who were innocent? The Age of Innocence is a novel set primarily in New York s elite classes in t he 1870s. (What are the advantages and disadvantages of avoiding unpleasant topics?).
What are his strengths? Although the society in The Age of Innocence" is highly organized and nuanced, it is merely that way so that indiscretions and actions that are anything but innocent can be hidden under the veneer of high society. The descriptions are not there for their own sake; they are a code which tells us about the people associated with them. Rochelle Ann Maloney College, the Age of Innocence, edith Whartons. Society has played its part in keeping them apart, but Wharton shows us that society is constructed out of the minds of individuals like Archer, May and their families. Generally Scorsese stays very close to the novel, but the film is nevertheless (as it must be) an interpretation of the novel. Through these two characters, the traditional May and the progressive Ellen, Wharton shows that women are slowly becoming freer. How does he change over the course of the novel? Everyone must adhere to a complex code of taste and morals to be accepted.