House of Mirth
In the novel The House of Mirth, the protagonist, Lily Bart is trapped in a world filled with materialism, shallowness and hatred. In the high society of New York, the only way to be accepted is to have money, and lots of it. In Lily's case, she needs money in order to buy the life in which she was raised. However, the means to attain that money are limited. Unfortunately, Lily has not been trained to obtain that money in many ways. She believes that only by marrying a rich man will she be able to live the life of luxury that she is so accustomed to. In this day and age, women were seen as inferior to men. Therefore, women's aspirations, dreams, and goals were not even considered if they had anything other to do than getting married, raising a family, or shopping. Money is a key theme in this novel, and it plays an important role in Lily's life. In fact, it rules her life in many ways. In the past, present and even future of Lily's life, the desire to obtain money has always been a major part of her life. Beginning with Mrs. Bart's training early on in Lily's life, to the "what could have been" future if she did not kill herself. In this essay, we will see how Lily Bart, the protagonist is a slave to money, and how she
She realizes the superficiality in the high class world, but is trapped in it because she believes the only way for her to survive is to marry a rich man like Percy Gryce. He shows her that she doesn't have to be trapped in a life of frivolous and superficiality: He had preserved a certain social detachment, a happy air of viewing the show objectively, of having points of contact outside the cage appeared to Lily as she heard its door clang on her! In reality, as she knew, the door never changed; it stood always open; but most of the captives were like flies in a bottle, and having once flown in, could never regain their freedom. If only Lily had listened to what Selden told her about what life is all about, maybe she could have seen that life isn't just about being rich. from money, from poverty, from ease and anxiety,! from all the material accident. Of course, marrying a rich man is not the only way the women she encounters come into money. Now that Lily has decided that wealth is more important than love, she can now decide which rich man she wants to marry. Perhaps her conscious kicks in whenever she is about to decide. This illustrates that Lily has been trained and grown accustomed to a life of fancy dresses and personal maids. However, she keeps spending money, and playing cards because if she doesn't people will start to suspect she is in need of money. Lily thought she was winning at this societal game of money and power, when what was really happening was she was becoming more and more a slave to it. struggles to make choices between money and love. In this situation, Lily's struggle to choose between love and money are being influenced by her fears that she will not be a member of the rich society if she marries a poor man. However, Lily is incapable of attaining money these ways, so the only other ways is to get married. Although Lily was a slave to money, she was not the only one in the novel fixated on it.
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