The House of Mirth

In class last Wednesday, we discussed Lily's Bart's ability to transcend the male gaze because the novel is primarily from her point of view. Because readers can hear Lily's rationale and skills for manipulating the men around her, they assume she actually has control over them. However, I contend that although Lily plays into the gaze, she is ultimately controlled by it because she lives in such a patriarchal society. Rather than giving her power, Lily’s hyper awareness of how she appears to others controls her entire characterization.

Readers are first introduced to Lily’s “carefully-elaborated plan” in Grand Central Station (27). She seems to radiate beauty and prestige, providing a stark contrast to the “dinginess, the crudity of this average section” (27). However, Lawrence Selden observes that “she must have cost a great deal to make, that a great many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious war, have been sacrificed to produce her” (27). Readers trust Selden because he is not confused or blinded by wealth and money. Although he is clearly tempted by Lily’s beauty, he understands that they could not marry. Furthermore, Selden is the only character Lily trusts to be honest with her. Because Selden is not wealthy, Lily does not need to impress him or perform for him the way she does for the more aristocratic characters. The vast discrepancy between the way Lily behaves with Selden and how she performs with other characters highlight her inferiority to them, rather than her control.

As the novel progresses, Lily’s ability to manipulate the men around her diminishes. This is suggested by her interaction with Gus Trenor when she is locked in his house. Here Lily is implicitly stuck under Gus’ gaze and has no hope of manipulating it. The narrator vividly describes, “Over and over her the sea of humiliation broke – wave crashing on wave so close that the moral shame was one with physical dread” (149). Wharton’s use of drowning to represent Lily’s demise acutely highlights the loss of any agency she previously had. No longer is her beauty a commodity, but rather a curse. Wharton suggests that Lily cannot manipulate the male gaze because she has not yet been purchased into the system. Instead, she is in debt to those who have allowed her to exist in their society. Although Gus Trenor obviously is too aggressive with her, the pseudo-rape is a sadistic representation of Lily’s refusal to play by the rules of aristocratic society.

At the close of the novel, readers must ask themselves if her suicide (depending on how you read it) was avoidable. I believe that Lily’s demise occurred when she met with Gus Trenor. In this sense, metaphorically Trenor and the conventions of society actually killed Lily. I think Book II is merely insight into the loss of innocence that drowned Lily.