| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 外國語文學系 === 89 === Innocence and Individuality
in The Age of Innocence
Abstract
As the first American woman writer to win the Pulitzer Prize, for The Age of Innocence in 1921, Edith Wharton is also regarded as one of the pioneer American female writers who reacted against women’s unfair treatment in the society. By interweaving historical truth with her own painful suffering from the social constraints on her self-realization as a female writer, The Age of Innocence became her most potent indictment of the oppression of women’s individuality inflicted by the male ideal of womanhood. On the surface, this novel presents a triangular love story, in which the hero, Newland Archer, vacillates between two distinct women─May Welland, his innocent American fiancee, and Ellen Olenska, the sophisticated American with a European upbringing. However, the underlying ideology that Wharton explores is her condemnation of the national celebration of female innocence as an obstacle to women’s individual development, and her promotion of her own female ideal projected on Ellen.
This thesis aims to illustrate how Ellen’s individualistic characteristics challenge the cultural concept of female innocence, and how the community sustains its patriarchal order by oppressing Ellen’s individuality and encouraging May’s and Archer’s conformity to the notion of female innocence. Chapter II presents a detailed analysis of the repressive rites, decorum, and social structure represented in the novel in order to illuminate the constrictions of individuals, women in particular, by the puritanical and patriarchal mores of the New York society. Chapter III focuses on how Ellen’s individualistic qualities, in contrast to May’s innocence, provoke Archer’s reevaluation of his inherited notions of womanhood, and the social conventions that repress individuality. Chapter IV demonstrates the tribal oppression of Ellen’s individuality, the communal support for May’s conformity, and the result of May’s along with Archer’s conformity to their sexual roles.
To sum up, through the contrast between Ellen’s individuality, and May’s and Archer’s conformity, Edith Wharton exposes the oppression of both men’s and women’s individuality by the notion of female innocence. She encourages individuals, especially women, to step out of the circumscribed sexual roles for the gender, and to bravely realize their individual selfhood, their own unique identity.
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