Five-minute digest
The Age of Innocence
Summary
The Age of Innocence, published in 1920, won Edith Wharton the Pulitzer Prize in 1921, the first awarded to a woman for fiction. It looks back fifty years to the New York society of the 1870s, a world governed by unspoken rules and family alliances. Newland Archer, a young lawyer of good family, is engaged to May Welland, beautiful, conventional and seemingly innocent. At the opera he meets May's cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned from Europe after leaving her husband, a dissolute Polish count. Ellen's unconventional manners and her wish for a divorce scandalize the family, and Archer, asked by his law firm to dissuade her, finds himself falling in love with her. Ellen opens his eyes to the narrowness of his world; old New York, Wharton writes, lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world where the real thing was never said. To escape temptation Archer hastens his marriage to May. Married life proves dull, and his feelings for Ellen grow; they meet secretly and plan to become lovers. But May, far shrewder than Archer supposed, tells Ellen that she is pregnant before she is certain of it, and Ellen returns to Europe. The family closes ranks around May with a farewell dinner for Ellen, and Archer realizes that everyone has believed him and Ellen to be lovers and has quietly managed the situation. He stays with May, and they live a decent, dutiful life. Many years later, after May's death, Archer, now fifty-seven, goes to Paris with his son Dallas, who reveals that May knew of his sacrifice. Archer sits outside Ellen's apartment but decides not to go up, preferring the memory to the reality. The novel is a subtle, ironic and finally tender study of duty, desire and social convention, and of how much the world had changed by 1920.
Top Lessons
Rules unspoken
Old New York governs itself by signs rather than words. Students can find examples of what is meant but never said.
Duty and desire
Archer gives up Ellen for May. Wharton presents his choice with both regret and respect.
Innocence
The title is ironic. Students can decide who in the novel is truly innocent.
Verified Quotes
“In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs”
“Each time you happen to me all over again.”