Woman At Home, Woman In Exile In Edith Wharton’S The Age Of Innocence

In her novel The Age of Innocence, Wharton (1996) presents two contrasting female characters, Ellen and May, while depicting high society of New York in 1870s. This paper focuses on the concept of domesticity and how Ellen and May deal with it. The most important virtue of True Womanhood in the nineteenth century was domesticity, and women could exist only within the family, bound to domestic sphere of home. However, a domestic sphere can also signify the unity of a nation in opposition to foreign threats. Although both Ellen and May can be viewed as victims of forced domesticity, their positions differ considerably when domestic sphere is read as New York, or America itself. While Ellen fails to become a domestic housewife as a runaway Countess, she is again alienated, and expelled as a foreigner. On the other hand, May not only tries her best to fit into the domestic sphere, but she also plays major role in preserving the domestic land which is New York, from the contamination of European foreignness which Ellen brings. Nevertheless, in the end, Wharton (1996) seems to point out the narrowness of the womanhood that is unable to understand women as individuals.