| The Age of Innocence is one of the masterpieces of American woman writer Edith Wharton (1862-1937). Old New York in this novel is a patriarchal society full of unwritten rules. Under this general background, the novel tells about a love triangle between Newland Archer, May Welland and Ellen Olenska. Wharton not only describes the emotional entanglement of the three people, but also explores the dilemmas that trap the characters when they face strict social conventions.According to Sigmund Freud’s Tripartite Model of the Mind, the human psyche can be divided into three parts:id, ego and super-ego. The id is driven by the "pleasure principle" which seeks immediate pleasure and gratification; the rational ego acts according to the reality principle and the super-ego is the moral component of the psyche which acts to perfect and civilize our behaviors. At the beginning, both Ellen Olenska and Newland Archer are driven by their ids to pursue self-satisfactions, but their desires clash with the traditional social codes. Although their rational egos make them act according to reality principle, their inner world is not at peace because their ids are in constant war with their super-egos which suppress their socially unacceptable desires and force them to behave according to their internalized moral principle. After some struggle, they finally go back to their different life tracks and gain some inner peace by following their super-egos. Different from Ellen Olenska and Newland Archer, May Welland follows her super-ego all along and perfectly obeys all social norms. Finally she wins the fight for her marriage. Throughout the novel, she does not experience much painful inner struggle and dies without any regret in the end.This thesis intends to apply Sigmund Freud’s Tripartite Model of the Mind to the analysis of the three main characters in the novel. It then argues that New York upper-class society described in the novel is dominated by patriarchal principles and conservative conventions; living in such a society, the three main characters in the novel cannot achieve their inner peace unless they hold onto the choices dictated by their super-egos. By psychoanalyzing the three main characters-Ellen Olenska, Newland Archer and May Welland-this thesis hopes to get a better understanding of the inner conflicts of the characters, and thus shed some light on the understanding of the novel as a whole. |
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