Lacanian Readings Of Lily Bart’s Self-Development In The House Of Mirth

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was one of the greatest American women writers at the turn of twentieth century. She is declared to be "one of the most intelligent American women who ever lived"(12) by Richard Warrington Baldwin Lewis in his Edith Wharton: A Biography. Most of Wharton’s works focus on the people in the Old New York upper-class society at the end of Victorian period.The House of Mirth describes women’s self-cognition, self-awakening and self-development under the adverse influence of patriarchal society. It explores the plights Lily Bart encounters in her self-development that are the moral crisis and the loss of humanity, stresses the false self-cognition because of the patriarchal culture.This thesis analyses Lily’s self-development under the guidance of Lacan’s mirror-stage, and three orders theory. Under the social mirror, Lily lives as an objectified ornament and an exiler because of women’s status set by the patriarchal society. In the imaginary order, Lily is expelled from the upper-society for the abuse and persecution of the hypocritical people in upper-class, meanwhile she finds another self in her that expects love and freedom. In the symbolic order, Lily identifies herself with the social rules, and finds the "the truth of existence"; she gets the true essence of love that is faith and trust; she gets her sister friendship that is Gerty’s honesty and Nettie’s sincerity. In the real order, Lily proves her purity at the cost of her life; her hallucination symbolizes her new birth. Lily achieves self-development in the psychic aspect; she enters into her ideal spiritual world. In the process of struggling for living, Lily Bart grows from a money-worshipped girl to the one with true love and spiritual freedom, which reflects the formation of women’s self-independent consciousness. Through Lily’s story, Edith Wharton explains the most important living principle for women is the right self-definition and self-independence. The writer of this thesis believes that self-independence is the root of women’s existence. Only by this way can women make a living out of men.