Analyzing The Development Of Wharton’s Female Thought In The House Of Mirth And The Age Of Innocence

Edith Wharton is an important and prolific American female writer in the 20~thh century,who writes numerous terrific works,including nineteen novels,eleven collections of short stories,an autobiography,letters,travels,ghost stories and literary criticism.Among them,The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence are her best-known novels,which are set in the upper society of old New York that Wharton is familiar with.The House of Mirth,published in 1905,first makes Wharton well-known and she becomes the best-selling author.Published in 1920,The Age of Innocence makes Wharton gain the Pulitzer prize in literature in 1921,and Wharton’s writing career gets to the summit.Wharton is honored as“The Feminist Forerunner”,whose novels mostly concern women’s fortune,consider women’s development and way out,and are full of feminist thought.After Wharton passed away,with the development of the second feminism movement,there is a researching rush on Wharton.As a result,from the angle of feminism and Maxism,this paper uses the related theory of Virginia Woolf,Sandra Gilbert,Susan Gubar and Herbert Marcuse to analyze the feminist thought of The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence.According to the comparison of the two female protagonists’s female thoughts and the two male protagonists’opinions about women,it can be found that Wharton’s female thought is developing,which enlightens the present world greatly.It enlightens modern women to cultivate critical two-dimensional thought,get rid of the manacle,liberate the eros,and become the women with subjectivity.This paper is divided into five parts.Chapter one,the introduction part,mainly introduces Wharton,her works and the research overview at home and abroad.Chapter two compares the female thoughts of the two female protagonists.Chapter three compares the two male protagonists’opinions about women.Chapter four describes the practical significance of Wharton’s female thought development.The conclusion part summarizes the whole paper and emphasizes the significance of analyzing the development of Wharton’s female thought with feminism and Marxism theory.