Social Norms In Edith Wharton's Age Of Innocence

After its debut in 1920, Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence challenged many social and political norms of its time through a combination of historic fiction and heavy-handed sarcasm. Wharton became the first woman to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize when the novel was given the award in 1921 (Wikipedia, “Age of Innocence”).). Throughout the 20th century, the novel was adapted and re-adapted on both film and stage (Wikipedia, “Age of Innocence”). However, with the rise of the 21st century, Age of Innocence fell out of the spotlight as discussion and adaptation dwindled. Any young person reading the novel now will find that despite Wharton’s popularity in the 1900s, Age of Innocence now has no material that could be considered relevant to young readers …show more content…
Archer's upper-class dilemmas make him both two-dimensional and extremely hard to relate to – they entrap him in a world of his own, one class system and ninety years separated from today’s society. One of the earliest signs that Newland will be unrelatable due to cultural differences is his stance on women in chapter 6; he declares that “women ought to be free – as free as we are” (Wharton 34). This quote is part of the expanding revelation that Archer is a relic of earlier times, times before women’s suffrage. The next sign (and largest aspect of irrelevance) occurs when the relationship between Archer and Oleska begins to form. While adultery is not uncommon in today’s culture, the novel beats the reader over the head with it in a way uncommon with today’s books for young adults. This overt repetition is most obvious during the pier scene in chapter 21. Archer’s waffling over greeting the Countess (Wharton 177-178) betrays how simple his character is – he is simply concerned with the Countess, May, and himself. The repetition of ‘shall I, shan’t I’ that goes on during the pier scene is a small slice of the larger repeated dilemma being beaten over the reader’s