Social Class In Edith Wharton's House Of Mirth

In the early chapters of Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth, the author shows the role of money in defining the economic class of New Yorkers in the late Victorian Era. However, when I first started reading the middle Chapters 8-15, I particularly thought about how money in that environment also defined her characters’ social class, and the calculated risks some characters took to boost their social rank. In writing this period piece, Edith Wharton focuses on those who aspired to be at the top of the social and financial food chain, and the necessity of vast wealth to achieve this goal. The novel follows the life of a woman named Lily Bart raised solely to marry a rich husband, choosing from among the eligible bachelors of New York’s high society. Women like Lily sought …show more content…
However, for those at the pinnacle of the city’s social hierarchy, money was spent with reckless abandon. In fact, to be accepted among the city’s upper crust one had to both possess, as well as to spend, exorbitant amounts of money on lavish, extravagant items and activities. For example, Edith Wharton exemplifies the link between social climbing and excessive spending in a comment by a minor character. Van Alstyne [and Selden} take a walk down fashionable Fifth Avenue, admiring the expensive architecture. “That Greiner house, now-a typical rung in the social ladder!” (Wharton,159) . Thus, the extent of possessing and spending one’s extraordinary wealth, in this case on tony home , determined a person’s social rank within this elite club. Money was the measure by which all were judged as worthy or unworthy. Those who were judged to be unworthy, particularly a woman, had limited prospects without securing a rich husband who could reposition her as worthy. Accordingly, for women in New York’s high society at this time, money not only determined social rank, but also