Friendly Matters

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Chapters 6 & 7

"'I do believe what you say, Mr. Rosedale,' she said quietly; 'and I am ready to marry you whenever you wish'" (Wharton, page 205).

By this point in the novel, I am more than proud of Lily for making a decision about her future. Although the decision was brought about through her social downfall, she attempted to actually make a good choice for her future stability. Rosedale does decline at this point because of her downfall but gives her a chance to change his mind. The theme of the black-mail and revenge plays again as Rosedale tries to convince Lily to use the letters from Bertha Dorset to Selden as a way to get back into the social circle. I am glad that Rosedale advises her to use them quietly and not publicly as I am sure that would cause more harm than good. 

Describes Lily

Another aspect I have noticed is that Lily and other socially active people change their friends frequently. Lily was close with Selden and Mrs. Trenor, and then moved to new friends at different points in the novel including Gerty Farish, Mrs. Fisher, Mrs. Gormer, and Mr. and Mrs. Dorset. I find it silly to change friends so often and that aspect has seemed to bring a downfall to Lily as well.

As I was proud of Lily, I am also proud of Mr. Dorset. When he confronted Lily about their relationship, I wanted to applaud him. He confronted her. My last comment was that these people seem to avoid confrontational situations but I am pleased that Mr. Dorset became an exception to a close-minded society. Likewise, Rosedale seemed to do the same yet he had different intentions than Dorset as Rosedale was focused on getting something out of Lily. 

In reference to Wharton's writing style, her dialogue has struck me finally while reading these two chapters. I never noticed before but she uses colons frequently before a character speaks. Other times though, she seems to use no punctuation. In another note, I thought that separate paragraphs were needed when another person speaks, but she tends to run all of it together in paragraphs. I am not sure why she does this but it can create confusions sometimes.

On a side note, I have been listing to the audiobook of Youtube while reading to help understand scenes. I was caught off-guard when I was listening to chapter six. From the physical copy I have, chapter six ends at a different spot than the audiobook and runs into chapter seven. I thought this was different and was curious as to why the audiobook was split up differently there. Everywhere else it followed perfectly. 

Another side note, I was listening to One Direction earlier, and I thought Lily was described in this song.
(As I have progressed through my blog posts, I have noticed that I seem to be a little all over the place. I try to write about the main points I notice while reading and use a lot of different aspects to compose my blogs as multiple response guides fit with each set of chapters.)