Frustrated sensibilities in the context of the conventions of the New York elite of Wharton's fiction

Abstract

Tato prace se zabyva vyberem "spolecenske pr6zy" E. Wharton a zkouma vliv spolecenskych zvyklostf na osobnostnf vyvoj jejich zenskych postav. Vychozfm bodem teto reflexe je skutecnost, ze hrdinky jsou pfedstavovany jako produkty kolektivnfho prostfedf, ve kterem se pohybujf a soucasne nikdy nedosahnou zivotnfho uspokojenf. Vliv spolecnosti se tedy jevf jako frustrujfcf. Popisovane prostfedf se omezuje na elitnf spolecnost mesta New York druhe poloviny 19. stoletf. Takzvana newyorska aristokracie, jejfz vliv saha zhruba do roku 1880, se vyznacuje puritanskym pffstupem k zenske vychove a konvencnf moralkou. Na pffkladech Lizzie Hazeldean z povfdky New Year 's Day [Novy rok] a EIIen Olenske v Age of Innocence [Vek nevinnosti] jsme ukazali, ze vlastnf moralnf integrita hrdinek se dostava do rozporu s povrchnfm soudem spolecnosti, na jehoz zaklade jsou obe kolektivne vyvrzeny a odsouzeny k zivotu v izolaci. 0 negativnfm vlivu puritanskych norem na vyvoj zenske identity svedcf pffklad Charlotte a Delie z povfdky The Old Maid [Stara panna]. Obe jsou obetmi nasiIne potlacovanych emocf a sexuality vlivem diktatu spolecenskeho pozadavku pocestnosti. Ackoli tento spolecensky imperativ zasadne a negativne postihuje zenskou populaci, je jf paradoxne take udrzovan. Tento paradox dokladame na prfpadech chovanf hrdinek....

The following essay examines Wharton's fiction within the context of a set of societal conventions in which her writing is framed and the ways in which these conventions work to frustrate the natural development of the individual life-narrative. The frustrations depicted in the following works here looked at result from the specific societal conditions in which her characters find themselves. The old New York aristocracy to which Wharton's parents belonged, with its conventional morality and inflexible standards of "scrupulous probity in business and private affairs", 1 is represented by Wharton as having a numbing effect on the moral and sexual development of her female protagonists. The foregoing will form the focus of my analysis in the sections dealing with frustrated moral integrity and frustrated femininity. Also to be found in this chapter is an examination of the specific manners on the basis of which this society operated, and the way in which these manners, as the physical manifestations of strict conventions, compound these individual frustrations. The social elite of New York changed with the impact of a newly emerging industrial society in the 1880s. Wharton focuses on the transitional stage between the merging of these two societies and exposes the damaging consequences of the materialism that...