Charity Case: The Devolvement of Power in Sexualized Women
Written a century ago, Edith Wharton’s novella Summer depicts the life of Charity Royall, who is essentially an orphan. Lawyer Royall—a prominent figure in the town of North Dormer, where the story is set—retrieved Charity as a small child from an indifferent mother from the Mountain as a favor to her father, a man he recently helped convict of manslaughter. Lawyer Royall makes his first sexual advance toward Charity when she is seventeen, pleading, “Charity, let me in. I don’t want the key. I’m a lonesome man” (Wharton 11). In spite of this plea, Charity rebuffs him and goes on to later meet Lucius Harney, a young man she becomes enamored with. However, Charity’s sexual awakening and …show more content…
As Dianne L. Chambers comments, Charity as the narrator “suggests more confidence in her control over the narrative and a greater sense of authority” (99). A female character having the agency to narrate her own story is powerful because it is not filtered through a masculine lens, creating a perspective separate from the dominating patriarchal culture. In the opening pages of the novella, Charity’s inner musings reveal she “ruled in Lawyer Royall’s house. She had never put it to herself in those terms; but she knew her power, knew what it was made of, and hated it” (Wharton 8). Here, she foreshadows the retelling of Royall’s sexual advances on her, his underage ward. Royall’s transgression shifts the power in their relationship to Charity because he is attempting to atone for overstepping his boundaries and attempting to subject her to his sexual desires, rather than fulfilling the role of the father that he belongs to. Charity, in turn, internalizes this power shift and utilizes it to her favor throughout the …show more content…
Edith Wharton is widely cited as referring to Summer as the “Hot Ethan” in a letter to a friend, referencing her earlier novel, Ethan Frome. This nickname is granted because the content of the novel centers on Charity and Harney’s relationship, which is based on physical attraction. From their first encounter, Harney’s apparent interest in her appearance flatters Charity. Upon his entrance, after initially not seeing her well, “The fact that, in discovering her, he lost the thread of his remark, did not escape her attention, and she looked down and smiled” (Wharton 4). To Charity, a young man who does not come from North Dormer showing her physical attention is a fresh and enthralling experience. Despite this, Harney does not make sexual advances toward Charity until she reveals Royall has previously attempted to seduce her, “as if to suggest that the patriarch’s acknowledgement of Charity as an object of someone else’s sexual desire sanctions his own” (Bauer 40). Observing the timing of Harney’s advancement, it becomes clear that he reconciles another man’s sexual interest in Charity as removing the illusion of innocence from her and, therefore, clearing the way for a warranted advance. Harney sees her value as a place to put his sexual attractions and nothing
Written a century ago, Edith Wharton’s novella Summer depicts the life of Charity Royall, who is essentially an orphan. Lawyer Royall—a prominent figure in the town of North Dormer, where the story is set—retrieved Charity as a small child from an indifferent mother from the Mountain as a favor to her father, a man he recently helped convict of manslaughter. Lawyer Royall makes his first sexual advance toward Charity when she is seventeen, pleading, “Charity, let me in. I don’t want the key. I’m a lonesome man” (Wharton 11). In spite of this plea, Charity rebuffs him and goes on to later meet Lucius Harney, a young man she becomes enamored with. However, Charity’s sexual awakening and …show more content…
As Dianne L. Chambers comments, Charity as the narrator “suggests more confidence in her control over the narrative and a greater sense of authority” (99). A female character having the agency to narrate her own story is powerful because it is not filtered through a masculine lens, creating a perspective separate from the dominating patriarchal culture. In the opening pages of the novella, Charity’s inner musings reveal she “ruled in Lawyer Royall’s house. She had never put it to herself in those terms; but she knew her power, knew what it was made of, and hated it” (Wharton 8). Here, she foreshadows the retelling of Royall’s sexual advances on her, his underage ward. Royall’s transgression shifts the power in their relationship to Charity because he is attempting to atone for overstepping his boundaries and attempting to subject her to his sexual desires, rather than fulfilling the role of the father that he belongs to. Charity, in turn, internalizes this power shift and utilizes it to her favor throughout the …show more content…
Edith Wharton is widely cited as referring to Summer as the “Hot Ethan” in a letter to a friend, referencing her earlier novel, Ethan Frome. This nickname is granted because the content of the novel centers on Charity and Harney’s relationship, which is based on physical attraction. From their first encounter, Harney’s apparent interest in her appearance flatters Charity. Upon his entrance, after initially not seeing her well, “The fact that, in discovering her, he lost the thread of his remark, did not escape her attention, and she looked down and smiled” (Wharton 4). To Charity, a young man who does not come from North Dormer showing her physical attention is a fresh and enthralling experience. Despite this, Harney does not make sexual advances toward Charity until she reveals Royall has previously attempted to seduce her, “as if to suggest that the patriarch’s acknowledgement of Charity as an object of someone else’s sexual desire sanctions his own” (Bauer 40). Observing the timing of Harney’s advancement, it becomes clear that he reconciles another man’s sexual interest in Charity as removing the illusion of innocence from her and, therefore, clearing the way for a warranted advance. Harney sees her value as a place to put his sexual attractions and nothing