A Study Of Media Culture In Edith Wharton’s The Custom Of The Country

Edith Wharton（1862-1937）,a preeminent American realistic writer in the early20^th century and also a renowned“novelist of manners”,is the author of The House of Mirth（1905）,The Age of Innocence（1920）,Ethan Frome（1911）and The Custom of the Country（1913）.Born in the upper class of Old New York,Wharton created most of her works under the backdrop of Old New York.Through her own rich experience and keen insight,she faithfully portrayed the customs and manners of Old New York Society.The Custom of the Country,Wharton’s classic work depicting Old New York Society in the early 20^th century,is her most favorite one among all her works.The novel is unfolded with the development of the four marriages of the female protagonist,the ambitious Undine Spragg,who wants to ascend into the upper-class society but could not bear monetary shortage.Through remarrying for three times,she eventually obtains both social status and wealth and turns into the first-rate socialite broadcast by the news report.The Custom of the Country was accomplished in 1913 when the United States was in the heyday of the development of newspaper.Therefore,the novel contains multitudes of media elements which carry a certain cultural significance and have a profound influence on individuals,masses and society.As media and culture interact,infiltrate and collide with each other,the cultural inheritance and meaning construction generated by media discourse system in specific historical context provide a new research point for literary criticism.Currently,in the face of various research perspectives about this novel,this thesis makes an attempt to analyze it from a brand-new way,that is from Frankfurt School’s theory of media culture criticism,focusing on Marcuse’s“One-Dimensional Man”and Horkheimer and Adorno’s“The Culture Industry”to carry out a specific analysis on media culture in The Custom of the Country.In Wharton’s novel,media culture envelops the whole American society and penetrates into every corner of public life.It manipulates the formation of the masses’ideology,affects the construction of individual and public memory,inspires the sense of avarice of human being,stirs up endless desire of the public,and also leads to the estrangement of the supposed intimate family members and leaves unrelieved aches and pains.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One provides a brief introduction to Edith Wharton and The Custom of the Country;an outline of the overall research condition of Edith Wharton and her novel;initiation,development and main points of Frankfurt School’s theory of media culture criticism;and then feasibility and research significance of this thesis.The second,third and fourth chapters are the main body of this thesis.Chapter Two argues Undine’s self-construction under the impact of media culture,including her imitation of upper-class ladies’behaviors,dresses,and house appliances,her deliberate maintenance of thinness and countenance,as well as her character shaping and life choice.Chapter Three discusses the construction of individual and collective memory of that era under the influence of media culture,taking the construction of the individual memory of Paul and Mrs Heeny and the collective memory of the public for Undine’s three different marriages as examples respectively.Chapter Four delves into the boundless appetite of the individual,the estrangement among family members and the incurable pain brought by media culture.Chapter Five is the conclusion.It brings out Wharton’s view on the influence of media culture on New York Society at that epoch and her critique of media culture and also points out the limitations of this thesis.The Custom of the Country successfully shapes an image of a fetishistic and superficial new noblewoman bred by media culture.By creating a story of an ordinary middle-class woman who finally gains both acclaim and fortune yet with infinite inner poverty under the impact of media culture,Wharton exposes the blind following,cognitive variation,trauma and anxiety of the lower and middle classes and their ultimate woeful transformation to the“one-dimensional men”under the impact of media culture in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century.The novel inspires us to ponder over how to correctly view the impact of media culture on contemporary people’s self-cognition and value orientation.