House of Mirth - The Nature of Nature Essay -- House Mirth Essays

House of Mirth - The Nature of Nature Nature, whether in the form of the arctic tundra of the North Pole or the busy street-life of Manhattan, was viewed by Naturalist writers as a phenomena which unavoidably challenged individual survival a phenomena, moreover, which operated on Darwins maxim of the survival of the fittest. This contrasted sharply with the Romantic view, which idolise Nature for its beauty, beneficence and self-liberating powers. In Edith Whartons The House of Mirth, Lily Bart attempts to survive within the urbane drawing-room society she inhabits. Although Selden uses Romantic nature imagery to describe Lily, throughout the raw such Romantic imagery and its accompanying meanings are continually subverted. By simply invoking different understandings and views of Nature, Wharton demonstrates that not only is Lilys ability to adapt to various environments isnt necessarily salutary, but also that flower imagery, used in an ironic fashion, captures perf ectly Lilys need for climates of luxury. It is Whartons image of a hot-house, however, which ultimately captures the ambiguous nature of what, to Wharton, truly is Nature. Lily, although a city-dweller, is described by Selden as one who is intimately connected with a benevolent, life-giving Nature. He exclaims, The attitude revealed the long slope of her slender sides, which gave a diverseness of wild-wood grace to her outline- as though she were a captured dryad subdued to the conventions of the drawing-room (13). Seldens notion of Lilys sylvan freedom and her interconnectedness to all things natural is echoed later in the novel, when Lily is every described as, or compared to, a rose, (167) an ... ...entury Literature 44.4 (1998) 409-27. Howard, Maureen. On The House of Mirth. Raritan 15 (1996) 23 pp. 28 Oct. 2002 <http//proxy.govst.edu2069/WebZ/FTFETCH>. Howe, Irving. Edith Wharton, a Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962. Lindberg, Gary H. Edith Wharton and the Novel of Manners. Charlottesville University Press of Virginia, 1975. Lyde, Marilyn Jones. Edith Wharton, design and Morality in the Work of a Novelist. Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1959. Miller, Mandy. Edith Wharton Page. 19 Nov. 2002 <http//www.Kutztown.edu/faculty/Reagan.Wharton.html>. Pizer, Donald. The Naturalism of Edith Whartons The House of Mirth. Twentieth Century Literature 41.2 (1995) 241-8. Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. (1905) bleak York Signet,. 1998.