The Age of Innocence: A Final Insight

After having just finished reading Edith Wharton’s, The Age of Innocence, I felt it only appropriate to wrote a blog regarding my final insight toward the novel, which I can safely say I appreciate a lot more from the time that I wrote my first blog about it. I was stunned by how much more the book had to offer than I initially thought it would, going beyond the simple gender and social criticisms I have come to expect in novels read in AP Lit, but that it really had something to say about the struggle of finding meaning and purpose in life alongside the quest to determine and understand the reality all around us. I want to focus on the final chapter of the book and two interesting ideas found within it, the first being how the attitudes of Newland Archer toward the younger generation seem to mirror those that Edith Wharton herself could have possibly had, and also on the idea of the narrative ellipse between chapters 33 and 34 and the implications that this literary device has on the interpretation of the story. First off, the ‘epilogue-esqe’ final chapter was what I thought to personally be a stunning conclusion that I did not expect at all. I found it fascinating to see how Archer, now 57 years old, looks at the world so much differently because the world has changed so much. He notes just how lucky his eldest son Dallas is, saying “The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they’re going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn’t” (Wharton 294). Here Archer is making reference to his son’s natural assumption that he will say yes to his marriage to Fanny Beaufort. In the time long past when Archer was young, doing this would have led to the indiscreet scorn and hatred of all the other members of the upper class since Mr. Beaufort had suffered from severe financial fallout and he and wife were essentially exiled from society as a result. Archer looks at this moment with bitter remembrance as he also sees how his love for Ellen Olenska was in fact no different from his son Dallas and Fanny Beaufort, as his son so blatantly pointed out for him. In his older age, Archer feels, “shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless fellow he had dreamed of being” (Wharton 294). Archer remains the product of an age long gone, with most of its members dead, and from which society has clearly moved on from. It can be argued that both Wharton and Archer suffer from the same problem, which is seeing how much the world has changed and not being able to fit in with it anymore. Wharton wrote her novel in 1920, two years after the end of the Great War and a time in which disillusionment plagued the nation, as people aimlessly wondered what point and purpose to life there was after witnessing so much wanton violence. Wharton seems to be reflecting on the great tragedy of her time through Newland, who struggles to find meaning amidst a world so different from the world that he gradually fell away from. Finally, I want to discuss the meaning of the narrative ellipse between chapters 33 and 34, in which 26 years have gone by and Archer is the father of three children and May ends up dead from pneumonia. While some details are given, there are not nearly enough to encompass a quarter century of time that is left to be a mystery to the reader who can essentially believe whatever they want when it comes to what happened. The reason for the blatant narrative gap is found on the final page of the novel, where Newland is about to go see Ellen, but sits at the bottom of the stairs and imagining the situation instead, saying, “It’s more real for me here than if I went up” (Wharton 300). Like Archer, who will never actually know what Ellen looks like being older or how she would react, the reader is forced to think of something to fill the void in the story. No one will ever know if it is true, and no one will ever be able to prove or disprove it, but it is something that gives the reader a sense of personal satisfaction. The reason that the reader is drawn to fill in the gap with what could have happened is the same exact reason Archer fills in his own gaps with his views of Ellen, to satisfy his mind without ever knowing the truth. And for that both the reader and Newland Archer will forever remain in a moment of ignorance, an age of innocence.