The parallel tragedies of Lily Bart and Tess Durbeyfield: An examination of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth
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published 16/10/2008
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Summary
Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth and Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles are powerful examples of the American and British realist novel. Both depict the harsh Victorian society in which women were held to unattainable standards of perfection, and both are social commentaries about the economic situations in their respective countries in that time period. While their main characters, Lily Bart and Tess Durbeyfield, are very different characters, they experience similar circumstances which lead to similar tragic endings. Both Lily and Tess undergo a dramatic fall caused by the actions of someone with power over them, and their socially-inflicted inability to save themselves. For both women, this fall begins the downward spiral of a continually degenerating existence; they become ostracized and find themselves deserted by all those they’d been close to before.
Table of Contents
- Introduction.
- Lily Bart and Tess Durbeyfield - very different characters.
- 19th century England and America - very few rights for women.
- Lily Bart's death and its relation to events occurring with Bertha Dorset.
- Bertha's use of Lily to her advantage.
- The relationships between men and women in The House of Mirth.
- The relationships between the female protagonists and the men.
- Lily Bart - a victim of the harshness of Victorian society.
- Thomas Hardy's Tess Durbeyfield.
- Tess's and Lily's downfall - the result of the culture.
- Conclusion - objectification of women of the Victorian society.
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