This is my favorite book, no one seems to understand why, so I will finally try to explain my reasons. I took a womens’ literature class in college, and one of the books we studied was House of Mirth. I remember never speaking up about my thoughts on this book, because everything I seemed to believe about the story and characters was contradictory to the instructor’s lesson.

Lilly Bart, is the woman I always dreamed of being, she is beatiful and calculating in that she can use her beauty and whit to advance herself. She however is a tragic figure, she like many women does not want to marry to simply be a trophy wife and yet that is really her only option if she wants to live well. Lilly has vices, she smokes, drinks and gambles, which does not appeal to certain gentlemen with whom she is trying to impress. The story would have been boring if she had simply married Percy Gryce and lived happily ever after as a good christian girl, and I’m pretty sure Edith Wharten knew that. Instead, Lilly gets herself into debt . Her aunt leaves her nothing after her death and she must depend on men with less honorable intentions. She continues to make the wrong decisions and always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,. The irony is that she ends up with her independece yet with no money and is all alone. Lilly dies a sad death, but was loved after all by Lawrence Selden.

The book is tragic and shows the constrains on women but also the power that women wield. It is a fascinating story of a woman’s fall which was caused by her conflicting goals for wanting all the luxuries of life and yet her independence.