On The Feminine Consciousness In The Escape Tendency Of Lily And Edith Wharton’s Lives

Edith Wharton, a prolific and intellectual female writer in American, took anirreplaceable position in the history of American literature at the turn of the twentiethcentury. Distinguished from other female writers, she was born in an upper-class familyin the Old New York society and had deep insight into it. Her novel, The House of Mirth,had regarded the upper class of New York as background, tried to reveal women’ssituations in “Old New York”. The protagonist’s story analyzed the women questions.Lily Bart as the protagonist shows an escaping tendency when she is in a dilemma tosettle her conflicting feelings. The escape tendency is opposite to her conventionalcriterion of life. Finally, Lily becomes an isolated person in the “house of mirth” andrefuses to make a compromise with the patriarchal society. She has a higher moral spiritthan the others in the society.Edith Wharton, as a typical escapist, escape tendency runs through all her life time,yet it is not negative at all. Through her escape, she discarded the restraints of her oldidentity, as an upper-class woman, and found her self-worth. She escaped from thefemale imprisonment that limited most women at that time. Her escape experienceoffered a real model to the other women who were living in the situation withoutfreedom and rights. Moreover, the thesis seeks to prove Edith Wharton’s feminineconsciousness through the instance quoted from her biography and life experiences,especially the arduous and painful experience as a female writer made her gettingthrough the conventional restrictions, realizing self-identity and creating a room of herown.This thesis tries to make an exploration into the feminine consciousness in TheHouse of Mirth through a detailed escape thematic analysis. The heroine in The Houseof Mirth is related with Edith Wharton, because they have similar education backgroundand live in the same society. In The House of Mirth, Wharton seems to summarize herfeelings about the frivolous society. They are striving for casting off the restrictionsforced on them by the male-manipulated society. They pursue independence andfreedom, which show the awakened feminine consciousness in Edith and Lily’s lives. They represent the women who have been awakened and adopted escape as a weapon torevolt against patriarchal society and to explore freedom of spirit. Therefore the targetof this paper is to analyze the escaping tendency of Wharton and Lily to reveal theawakened Feminine Consciousness.The introduction part briefly introduces the author and her work, The House ofMirth, literature review, the escape motif in American Literature and the meaning ofescape for women. The first chapter is the theory foundation. First it introduces thebackground and then explains the Feminine Consciousness, at last it shows the theSignificance of the feminine consciousness. The second chapter tries to elaborate thevarious escapes in Lily and Wharton’s lives based on feminine consciousness,exhibiting the escapes in them lives again and again to revolt against the conventionaland routine life when they seek for spirit freedom and independence. The inner spirit ofthem is developing through the progress of escapes, so they are becoming maturegradually. This is a progress of self-realization. The third chapter makes a comparativeanalysis between Lily in the House of Mirth and the author Edith Wharton. Both ofthem find the bad environment around them, which is created by the Old New Yorksociety and achieve the self-recognitions through a series of renewed endeavor. Thefourth chapter analyzes the causes of these escapes, which consist of three reasons, thesocial economic cause, the background in Old New York, and the awakening ofFeminine Consciousness. The five chapter sums up the significance of escape: Fleeingfrom Unbearable Reality for Solace; Seeking for freedom and happiness; making apositive impact on other women.Through detailed analysis of the process they escape, from their predicaments totheir fighting against the patriarchy society, these escapes make them more mature thanbefore and reveal that women can get out of their dilemma through self-awakening andself-recognition of the feminine consciousness gradually.