The Imprisoned Souls

After the industrialized North defeated the agrarian South, the United States headed toward capitalism. People came to understand that what had been expected to be a"Golden Age"turned out to be a"Gilded"one after the war. Then there happened the First World War which made the American people's life dislocated and fragmented in the first years of the twentieth century, and the disastrous effect also brought them tremendous mental injuries which made them realize how cruel the war was. People felt disappointed, and their excitement and enthusiasm came to disillusionment in the end. The war also exerted great influence on America literature.To Edith Wharton, the notable female writer in American literary history, the period from 1914 to 1918 was full of tremendous devastation and complete destruction, which meant the death of the whole generation. She had complicated love-hate feelings to the old New York society. Edith's familiar civilization was destroyed thoroughly, and the brand-new free breath invaded the old-fashioned castle of the old New York. In 1920, Edith Wharton finished her masterpiece The Age of Innocence, which soon gained great fame. Edith Wharton is a writer who brings glory on the name America, and this is her best book, which is a triumph of her artistic freedom. Edith Wharton was much-discussed in American literary history, in which many critics made negative comments on her. Till 1975, R. W. B. Lewis wrote a book named Edith Wharton: A Biography, which is regarded as the most comprehensive and authoritative biography on Edith Wharton. Wharton ever wrote:"I did so want'The Age'to betaken not as a'costume piece'but as a'simple and grave story'of two people trying to live up to something that was still'felt in the blood'at that time."(Lewis, 1988) This novel consolidates Wharton's position in American literary history, and the writing resources come from personal memories of her relatives, friends in the old New York and historical researches which are authentic. This novel is obsessed with rituals of purity and the necessity of sacrifice, but the plot is simple, which tells of a failed triangle love story, and the imprisoned souls in the old New York struggle to fight for their love but end in failure. Wharton goes back to the past she had ever spurned, and tries to get some kind of reconciliation. Wharton ever said that the purpose of writing The Age of Innocence was to go back to childish memories of a long vanished America with her fine and smooth language in a woman's specially penetrating insight. Most comments on The Age of Innocence center on feminism and naturalism, so I choose a new perspective of the Jungian analysis to interpret this novel and try to help people understand the prolific woman writer better.The whole thesis can be divided into five parts.The introduction part introduces Edith Wharton and her The Age of Innocence briefly, makes a general literature review and explains the writing perspective and significance of the study.Chapter one provides the theoretical framework, which can be divided into two subsections: the first subsection tells of the relationship between Jung and Freud, and Jung was ever Freud's favorite disciple, and the latter's thought influenced him tremendously; the second subsection is about some concepts, definitions and contents that Jung proposed, trying to find a supportive foundation for the novel, and Jung is notable for the collective unconscious and psychological archetype that he proposed in the psychological field. These concepts are used as the theory support to interpret The Age of Innocence.Chapter two is the main body of this thesis, which focuses on the analysis of the fates of the characters in The Age of Innocence. It can be subdivided into three subsections. The first subsection tells of the social background of the old New York and the multiple personas people used in the last decades of the 19th century. Wharton regarded the seventies as"the age of innocence", representing the lost niceness, but the whole society was under the hypercritical and suppressed atmosphere, and people there tried to use their pleasant personas to establish good relations with others and hid the true selves. The second subsection explains the self-integration process of the characters in this novel. Newland Archer's anima projection is Ellen Olenska while Ellen Olenska's animus projection is Newland Archer, and they fall in love with each other, but the would-be lovers break up because of psychological factors. Controlled by the over-developed anima temperament, the protagonist Newland Archer, who fails to get rid of his cowardice or his shadow, loses his"life flower"; his wife May Welland, who fails to conquer her dark side in deep heart, plays tricks to expel her cousin Ellen, and a woman driven by jealousy is capable of anything, although she seems to be ignorant of worldly affairs; Ellen Olenska, who is raised in an unrepressed atmosphere, has a harmonized animus temperament, and there is no dark side in her heart, and she appreciates freedom and lives frankly. The third subsection gives the conclusion that the couple are still the imprisoned souls in the old New York, and they just live a failed life in their loveless marriage; Ellen Olenska succeeds in pursuing her dream and escaping the imprisoned world to become a free soul.Chapter three points out some sparkling objects which can imply that the sadly beautiful love is destined to be impossible seen from the beginning of the novel. Wharton uses these image projections with high proficiency to show the psychological process of the characters. These image projections, which play important roles in the novel, can express the subtle and contradictory psychology of the characters. The age of innocence, sending out beauty and fragrance like buds, is filled with slight melancholy and sentiment.The fifth part is the conclusion of this thesis. Through the above analyses, it can be concluded that the psychological factors of the characters change their fates and result in the tragedy. Disappointed by the present, Wharton tries to find a balanced point for a momentary escape by writing The Age of Innocence. It can be said that Wharton's writing has a deeper and wider scope than we thought besides the rituals and etiquette of the old world.