A Marxist Feminist Interpretation Of The Age Of Innocence

Edith Wharton was one of the most famous American women writers in the20th century. The Age of Innocence helped her won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in1921. In the novel, Wharton depicts the frustrated love of three protagonists, Ellen Olenska, May Welland and Newland Archer in the late19th and the early20th centuries. As a woman writer, Wharton portrays vivid female characters, who, as tragic victims of cruel social conventions, are trapped in complicated relationships and confining circumstances. The thesis attempts to analyze the conflict between social and individual fulfillment in terms of Marxist feminism. In The Age of Innocence, on one hand, women are oppressed by men in pursuit of their own happiness and freedom as they are obliged to submit to patriarchal social norms. On the other hand, women suffer the persecution by patriarchal ideology and capitalism to become the victim of such a rigid system so that they totally lose their power of discourse.The thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one is the brief introduction to Edith Wharton and her literary achievement, and current research on The Age of Innocence both abroad and at home as well as the significance of the research. Chapter two explains Marxist feminism and Spivak's feminist theory. Chapter three analyzes Ellen Olenska and May Welland's loss of female subjectivity in patriarchal society and causes for women's oppression. Chapter four explores Newland Archer's hypocritical feminism and his male chauvinism. Chapter five presents Wharton's narrative techniques. She regards Newland as narrative center of consciousness so that the reader can observe women's oppression in capitalist patriarchal society. Through the imitation of male discourse, Wharton attempts to reveal women's voice of revolt behind male discourse. Chapter six concludes that women depend solely on men both mentally and economically and succumb to patriarchal consciousness because they are oppressed and fettered by patriarchal ideology and capitalist norms.