House of Mirth
Lily Bart's Loneliness: A Self-Realization Loneliness is a prevalent theme throughout Edith Wharton's novel, The House of Mirth. The following passage relates to the theme of loneliness and dramatizes Lily Bart's dilemma of poverty: "All she looked on was the same and yet changed. There was a great gulf fixed between today and yesterday. Everything in the past seemed simple, natural, full of daylight-and she was alone in a place of darkness and pollution.-Alone! It was the loneliness that frightened her." (p.142) The passage shows the abrupt loneliness Lily feels since she loses her friends, and it also dramatizes her poverty by enabling her to reach a startling realization about herself. Lily realizes that the loneliness she feels is not due to not having friends or money, but the fact that she had been living a life so poor in purpose or reason. Lily begins to feel lonely after she quickly loses the company of her friends. In the past, she enjoyed a simple life of playing bridge and attending fancy dinners with the wealthy women of high society. But now, her reputation is shattered and she realizes the women in her society are cruel and would not hesitate to talk about her behind her back, "She knew, moreover, that if the ladies
290) Lily's feelings of loneliness are heightened when she discovers that she did not inherit her aunt Julia's estate. 217) But without the money and luxuries that her old friends had, Lily finds she has even fewer friends to count on that she thought, making it very difficult to regain her position in high society. The painful fact that she owes Gus Trenor nine thousand dollars is a hard blow on Lily. The novel ends dramatically when Lily dies still feeling Nettie's child beside her, with all her debts paid, and all the loneliness vanished; yet Lily Bart is still "something rootless and ephemeral, mere spindrift of the whirling surface of existence. A large sum of money could easily alleviate most of her worries and loneliness. While other women married and lived rich lives, or worked for charitable causes like Gerty Farish, "she saw that there had never been a time when she had had any real relation to life. Her carefree days are over and her shallow friends gone. Lily knows she is alone in a terrible position, and feels trapped: "She seemed a stranger to herself, or rather there were two selves in her, the one she had always known, and a new abhorrent being to which it found itself chained. But after the reading of the will, "Lily stood apart from the general movement, feeling herself for the first time utterly alone. She knows that if she had money she could pay off all of her debts and maybe go on to win back her friends.
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