Essay On Lily Bart In House Of Mirth

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Women want to be empowered yet in the time of Lily Bart in House of Mirth they are far from the modern ideas of woman empowerment. In the lifestyles of the upper classes of society, Lily Bart is clearly confused and torn in two directions between the woman she wants to be and the woman that society is telling her to be. By being raised wealthy and also feeling the hardships of being tight on funds, Lily is stuck between two life styles that only provide dissatisfaction to the woman she desires to be.
Lily’s mom raised her with poise that her appearance and wealth would get her far in life. Growing up she barely even had a concept of money or the fact that money could run out. Once Lily’s father goes bankrupt and dies Lily’s mom tells her that her beauty will make her rich again. “Only one thought consoled her, and that was the contemplation of lily’s beauty (pg26).” Her mother used her beauty as a token to be bargained with, as if Lily’s beauty was the answer to her problems after her father died. “She watched it with jealously, as though it were her own property and lily its mere …show more content…
Think of woman today, it seems as though woman are their own worst enemy. The idea that being a woman is difficult and that in order to survive they must be the best, for the characters in House of Mirth however, it seems as though they all have some type of secret that they are hiding. Woman today face the same challenges. Women are more so judged by other woman, than they are by men. When woman fight for equal rights, they claim that it is the men that are keeping them down, however it seems as described in House of mirth that woman are just as guilty for holding themselves back as men. In Lily’s mind she was dressing to impress a man, yet in reality she was dressing extravagantly in order to be accepted by the woman of her social class. Lilly never has an issue fitting in with the men; it is the other females that threaten her credibility and
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The House of Mirth, written by Edith Wharton, was published in 1905 and tells the story of Lily Bart, a woman belonging to the New York’s high society. In Wharton’s novel Lily is raised to marry a man who is well-off both economically and socially. Lily begins to socially decline slowly because she is unable to allow herself to accept what society is to decline because she cannot allow herself to accept what society deems satisfactory. The purpose of this essay is to decide if Wharton’s novel is…

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