FREEDOM!!!

Over the Thanksgiving break, I’ve had the struggle of balancing my time between both reading The Age of Innocence, and spending time with my family, however, today I realized that I did not need to keep these two ideas completely separate from each other. As me and all my cousins gathered together to watch Braveheart, I knew exactly what my next blog would be on: the parallels between Mel Gibson’s epic film and Edith Wharton’s dynamic criticism of 1870s New York upper class social hierarchy and the gender standards of the time. While watching the movie, two major plot points stood out to me as being pertinent to the events of The Age of Innocence, the first being the struggle for freedom against the oppressive nature of established order, and the usurpation of pre-established gender normality. In Braveheart, the idea of freedom is very well established as being the pinnacle focus of Sir William Wallace, the Scotsman who urges his brethren on to fight against the tyranny of English King Longshanks and his incompetent son Prince Edward. Wallace tells his men how, “It’s all for nothing if you don’t have freedom”, as motivation to fight against the dreaded Englishmen who rule their Scottish lands. Wallace is willing to sacrifice everything, even his own life, for the sake of having a free Scotland, and is able to both inspire the hearts of his fellow Scotsmen and drive a burning stake of fear into every Englishman who dares dwell on the pastures of the liberated country. It is rather fitting that Wallace rallies his men to fight against the English with the call, “they may take our lives, but they may never take our freedom!” While this is only one side of the parallel, Wharton’s world of 1870s upper class exuberance is not all that different from the 13^th century world of Sir William Wallace. The best point of evidence for this is from Countess Ellen Olenska, a woman with a tainted and scrutinized past who comes to New York and forces the creation of a complicated love triangle between male protagonist Newland Archer and his fiancée May Welland. But aside from the realm of her love life, both the mesmerizing Countess and the fierce medieval Scottish warrior have one aspiration in common: freedom. While the Countess doesn’t explicitly state it, Newland Archer speaks her thoughts as he declares, “Women ought to be free-as free as we are” (Wharton. 35). With the progression of the novel, Ellen fights for her freedom (in a much less literal way than William Wallace) as she battles to free herself from the oppressive bonds of both other men and society itself. But she learns the struggle is much more difficult than she presumed, and as she vies with Archer to plead for her divorce from the Count, she entails the lawman, “But my freedom-is that nothing?” (Wharton 93). Like Wallace, Ellen learns that freedom does not come without a heavy price, and most certainly not without affecting those who she cares for most. The key element to Countess Olenska’s fight for freedom deals especially with the second aspect of the parallel, which is going against the gender standards of the time. In Braveheart, Princess Isabella embodied this idea, as King Longshanks appointed her as being a more competent ruler than his weak son Prince Edward to negotiate with William Wallace. Moreover, she knows that most effective path toward good leadership is not brutality like the ailed King or through weak passiveness like his son, but through mercy to allow the people to trust their leader and give them hope. Going back to New York, the concept of going against gender standards is clearly a quality of Ellen Olenska, but it is best seen by contrasting her to May Welland. Ellen is noted as a woman of strength and character, something that May, the ideal woman, does not embody at all. Archer notes how May, “seemed to have descended…to helpless and timorous girlhood…as a too-adventurous child takes refuge in its mother’s arms” (Wharton 126). May revels in the world of childhood simplicity and is perfectly content to eternally submit herself to the will of a wonderful husband and remain in her separate sphere of influence. For Ellen, she sees herself as beyond all the normal gender conventions of the time, and feels compelled to wear, say, and do whatever she feels like doing. Just like William Wallace, Ellen knows that she must do whatever is in her power to achieve the ultimate goal: FREEDOM!!!