Lily Allusions

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In Edith Wharton’s, The House of Mirth, she uses the name Lily as a literary allusion for specific events in the book. There are three main allusions that stand out in the book. The gilded age setting of the story, the concept of the Lily as a symbol for purity, and Luke 12:27. These will help us to better understand the book.

The first literary allusion is the gilded age setting of the story. The gilded age was described as “a satirized era of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding”. (Wikipedia) There are many examples of this in the book. One good example is when Bertha Dorset invites Lily to the cruise just for the purpose of distracting her husband, George, so she can have an affair with Ned Silverton. Another example is …show more content…
In chapter 9, of book 1, Mrs. Haffen comes to see Lily. Mrs. Haffen tells her that she used to work some of the men’s rooms at the Benedict. She explains how the men were careless about getting rid of their letters, except Lawrence Seldon. He would burn or tear his into tiny pieces but, recently, he had been lazy in disposing of them correctly because he had been getting so many. Then Mrs. Haffen tells her that she has taken some of Seldon’s letters and wants to know if she would be interested in purchasing them. She lays one on the table and Lily notices that these letters are from Bertha Dorset and they appear to be love letters. At first, Lily steps back and doesn’t want anything to do with them. But, then, she realizes that if someone else gets them, they could use them to hurt Seldon. “If she weighed all these things it was unconsciously: she was aware only of feeling that Selden would wish the letters rescued, and that therefore she must obtain possession of them.” (The House of Mirth, 9) She bargains with Mrs. Haffen and buys the letters. Her first intent is to destroy them but when she thinks of Bertha Dorset, because of how she was mistreated by her, no longer wanting to destroy them, she seals them up and puts them in her desk, hoping to maybe use them against her in the future. Later, in book 2 chapter 7, Lily decides not to use the letters against Bertha because it is wrong. Here, she shows
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