The Pilgrimage In Old New York-Analysis On The Two Types Of Women In The Age Of Innocence

An American modern woman writer, Edith Wharton (1862-1937) occupies an important position in realism of the late 19^th and early 20^th century, which is best known for her stories and ironic novels about upper class people. As a woman writer, Edith Wharton is aware of the status and role of women at that time. She demonstrates in her works not only the experiences and fates of women but also the perplexity of men, hence she ranks top in the classic women writers in America as well as the whole world. As a woman writer, Edith Wharton is aware of the status and role of women at that time. The Pulitzer-Winning The Age of Innocence is a novel which concentrates on women's fates in the strictly restrain of the Old New York society.This thesis is mainly an attempt at textual analysis of The Age of Innocence from the feminist perspective. The most important consulting source comes from Simone De Beauvoir—The Second Sex. The general view goes like this: our society is a male-dominated world and women suffer from male-dominance in both domestic life and social life. Hence the term patriarchy, feminists hold that gender politics is the customary rule and also a historical problem in the world which consists of men and women. Women may be biologically weak, but it does not mean they are psychologically or culturally fragile. Women are subordinate, an object to satisfy men's needs; as objective as natural things, they are the "Other" to men. Beauvoir believes that woman is the product of society and she is not born to be subordinate. Besides that, she thinks that woman is always defined as the Other by men, and that there is always a conflict between her true self and the role of the Other she is expected to play. Thus this paper intends to explore the women's fates and status at that time meanwhile investigates the personal and social reasons which lie behind the phenomena, aiming at arousing the concern for women in the male chauvinist society. The whole paper intends to make a survey on Edith Wharton's concern for women's status and fates in Old New York in the end of 19th century and the social backgrounds of the story, together with Mrs. Wharton's own dilemmas in depicting and telling stories, showing that woman's plight and oppression of being relegated to a subordinate by the patriarchal society and the male chauvinist society as the origin of their oppression at the age are deeply exposed.The thesis is composed of five parts:Chapter One states the purpose of this paper and Edith Whartons's life and its influence upon her writing. Chapter two is a summary of reviews about feminism and some theoretic related to my thesis, in addition, this chapter states the current condition of feminist criticism on The Age of Innocence. Chapter three discusses the two women heroines different while both thwarted pilgrimages toward love and freedom. In a patriarchal world, the pure Diana and wild Aphrodite are both the Other, who are awakened to live as a loving subordinate but not as an independent human being with her own entity. Chapter four discusses the two heroine's experiences reflect women's awakening and struggles against "Old New York". They still have limitations and disadvantages inevitably because they are restricted by the historical conditions where they live. Since there is still a broad space for improvement in this feminism exploration of Wharton's creation, at the end of this thesis, I offer some suggestions concerning the possibilities of further study.