On Identity Writing Of Edith Wharton's Novels

Edith Wharton was one of the most influential writers at the turn of the 20th century in America. She gained her initial fame in American literature by The House of Mirth. The Ehtan Frome was "the greatest tragic story" for her. And she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Innocence. She was best-known as "Psychological Novelist" for good description of characters in her novels in psychological activities.On the base of identity writing, this study analyzes her three novels mentioned above. This study elaborates on the confusions and struggles of the leading roles towards their identity positioning, confirmation and identity crisis. Then the study goes further to explore the leading roles'mentality and psychological world in the most critical moments of their life. Lily of The House of Mirth and Ellen of The Age of Innocence have been going against the powerful patriarchal society. In order to gain an ideal identity, they have given various efforts, yet they can not escape the fate of being discriminated and exiled at last. In Ehtan Frome, the hero and heroin make strongly protest to the intolerant conservative society by the form of dying for love, but only to be faced with the embarrassment of identity dislocation brought about by the unsuccessful suicide. Selden of The House of Mirth and Archer in The Age of Innocence, as females possessing a certain social status, meet much smaller resistance than the characters stated above in the process of identity proving, but they are still suffered from the frustration. And after struggle for a while, they have to compromise with the social environment. Their grief is mostly due to their own weakness. The three different types of identity writing reveals Edith Wharton's exploitation and pondering about the questions of the combination and separation of personal and social orientation, personal identity appeal and the irregulation of social responses.Based on a textual analysis and combing with the writer's life experience, this study makes further probing into the connotations in her identity writing. Her novels show that identity crisis is a universal issue which everyone would confront sooner or later regardless of class, gender, age, religion as well as cultural background. On the other hand, just because of these interpersonal differences, different identity appeals and values must be appearing, as well as different personalities and characteristics in identity confirmation. To put it simply, individual awareness is ultimately under the sway of social awareness. From this point, when we understand the characteristics of individual behaviors and personalities, we may get a glimpse of the spirit of the time and social currents at the same time. Thus, from the description of identity identification in the works, we can dig out the deep connotation covered in the text:class consciousness affects character's judgment and orientation in the process of identity identification; culture collision and changing are the key factors that lead to the characters' anxiety; body, as a sign of culture, is also one of the important part in self-construction, and it also has a certain influence on the happening and prognosis of identity crisis.