Consuming Culture and Social Codes in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence

• Main Authors: Wei-wen Hung, 洪慧雯
• Other Authors: Tsui-yu Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/29081959917891271197

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 96 === The Age of Innocence is a best seller and a Pulitzer Prize winning novel written by Edith Wharton. As its title suggests, it is a novel set in the age of innocence (the gilded age in the historical period), that Wharton later called “a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought” (The Age of Innocence 47, hereafter abbreviated as AI). As Wharton puts it, the group in which she grows up is like an empty vessel into which no new wine would ever again be poured. Therefore, everyone who wants to exist in the exclusive world must obey the fixed and unsuspected social manners and mores and try his/her best to avoid anything unpleasant. The Age of Innocence is alive with high society tableaux in exquisite details. Wharton weaves her observation of society and the strings of her own past into the fabric of her novel. Born as a member of the old rich, Wharton succeeded in depicting this dwindling world with energy, vitality, humor, and irony, because she knew it too well and felt the suffocating and dehumanizing qualities. This thesis tries to analyze The Age of Innocence in terms of consuming culture and social codes, examining how the rise of capitalism interacts with codes of morality (i.e. duty to the family and to uphold image in society) and interpreting innocence from different angles. This thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter One introduces the background of The Age of Innocence and defines consuming culture and social codes. Chapter Two discusses consuming culture in the Gilded Age, with special focuses on fashion, location and decoration of houses, and recreation (travel/ sports/ reading). Chapter Three concentrates on the social codes. Chapter Four sums up the main points of this study and concludes that The Age of Innocence mirrors Wharton’s own life and reflects her conspicuous desire for preserving the bygone past and recording the social changes in a transitional period.