Saturday, July 7, 2012

The House Book 2: 13 and 14

Nearing the end of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth in chapter 13, we see something very interesting happen to Lily that fully manifests itself many times.  It had been a long time coming and was truthfully no surprise, but we see that Lily has realized that her once grand vision of life was not the right one.  "And as she looked back she saw there had never been a time when whe had any real relation to life.  Her parents too had been rootless, blown hither and thither on every wind of fashion without any personal existence..."(Wharton,259). To me, she’s reached the final ending point on her spiral downward.  Shes realized that on her pursuit of what she assumed was greatness, she had passed up all real opportunities available to live a content and good life.  She looked at some of the poor working ladies and realized they had something that she never really had.  They had the grounded and secure life that Lily never head.  
And finally, as we see that Lily has passed away.  We see the true result of a life that was never finished searching.  Lily never rested it seemed, to slow down and see the man right in front of her.  I really do not know if Lily committed suicide but we saw a totally different side of Lily towards the end and especially the night before she died.  We saw that Lily was done with the money and wanted to make it even between the people regardless of it leaving her as poor as the people she once looked down upon.

1 comment: