1.In “The House of Mirth Revisited” Diana Trilling observes the parallel between Lily Bart’s decline and “the inevitable defeat of art in a crass materialistic society.” Trilling does not develop all of the implications of this statement, though she goes on to remark that “Lily herself possesses the quality of a fine work of art” and that  “her own ambitions are those of art.” Certainly “new New York’s” reduction of all values -emotional, ethical, artistic-to questions of portable property was a consistent object of Wharton’s scorn and satire; yet at least insofar as the problem of art is concerned, Lily’s role in The House of Mirth is a more complex one than Trilling’s observation can describe. Within the world of the novel, both Lily and her friends perceive her confusedly: she is an uncertain blend of art and nature with a “streak of sylvan freedom in her nature that lent such savour to her artificiality.” Often neither she nor her closest observers can distinguish between the merely spontaneous and the studiedly affecting (the careless lack of definition in her “suicide” is of a piece with the rest of her behavior). Indeed, it is not too much to say that this consistent confusion between the ideal and the real as it is manifested by all the characters in the novel-and the resultant depersonalization of the chrysalid character that is Lily’s only inheritance-leads directly to the heart of the tragedy.  ( 16)

2.These two schools of art-widely different but often overlapping -agreed in one respect: both viewed woman as an essentially “artistic” creation, worthy of representation and innately disposed to “appropriate” behavior. The effect on actual women was direct; it was reveled in their clothing, in the manner in which they wore their hair, in the numerous accoutrements of private life. The varied nuances of this particular notion of femininity would have been familiar to all of Wharton’s audience; its atmosphere pervades the world of The House of Mirth, creating the distinctive climate in which Lily Bart spends the lingering summer of her youth. For many real women, perhaps for most, the effect of this artistic definition of the feminine might have been superficial. Any woman who was subject to strong alternative influences and any woman who had significant real life roles to play might reflect the aesthetic attitude toward women and women’s virtue in little more than a fashionable attitude. But other women, women like Lily who had nothing more to offer than a superb capacity to render themselves agreeable, might be lured by the seductive confusion between representation and reality. Should this confusion occur, the woman would view herself not as a person but as an object-to be admired, to be sustained in her beauty. The men around her would have significance principally as connoisseurs or collectors. It is this exquisite, empty image of self that has contaminated Lily’s life; it is, ultimately, this confusion between the ideal and the real that leads to her final tragedy.

It is not altogether easy to trace the origins of Lily’s failure. Lily’s past is conjured in memories of a mother who had “died of a deep distrust. She hated dinginess, and it was her fate to be dingy” (p.55) . the agonies felt by Lily’s mother when she is called upon to confront poverty spring  from a relatively vulgar desire for display. “Mrs. Bart was famous for the unlimited effect she produced on limited means; and to the lady and her acquaintances there was something heroic in living as though one were much richer than one’s bankbook denoted” (p.46). Thus Lily’s mother cares for artistry principally as an indication of the family’s monetary status. She is entirely familiar with the rate of exchange in the world in which she lives, and she nurtures and indulges Lily’s beauty-first as the visible sign of the family’s station (Lily had, typically, a “dazzling debut”) and finally as its one remaining asset. Lily is trained to become a decorative object. ( 21)

3.The novel opens with meeting between Selden and Lily, establishing the terms of their relationship and alerting the reader to Wharton’s structuring of the process of Lily’s decline. The narrator begins in Selden’s mind, presents Lily only as he sees her, and shows him to have the lingering, appraising, inventorial mind of the experienced collector: he is fascinated with her surface appearance, misses no detail of her exquisite finish. He thinks, automatically one must suppose, in the categories of the connoisseur. He remarks the chiaroscuro effect of “her vivid dead, relieved against the dull tints of the crowd,” takes in the details of her clothing and “ the purity of tints, that she was beginning to lose after eleven years of late hours and indefatigable dancing”(p.4). As they walk up Madison Avenue the inspection continues with Selden “taking a luxurious pleasure in her nearness: in the modeling of her little ear, the crisp upward wave of her hair… and the thick plating of her straight black lashes”(pp.6-7). ( 27~28)

4.Wharton herself saw the tragedy of the novel as centering in the character of Lily,16 and a modern reader can trace rather explicitly the ways in which Lily has been destroyed. Constrained by the monetary and emotional impoverishment of her life, Lily has adopted her society’s images of women narrowly and literally: she has long practiced the art of making herself an exquisite decorative object, and under Selden’s eye she comes to think of herself as a moral object as well. Yet the crucial term here is “object.” She learns to evoke approval and appreciation in others by a subtle and ingenious series of graceful postures. It is an art she has practiced so well and for so long that she can no longer conceive of herself as anything but those postures; she can formulate no other desire than the desire to be seen to advantage. “There were moments when she longed blindly for anything different, anything strange, remote and untried; but the utmost reach of her imagination did not go beyond picturing her usual life in a new setting. She could not figure herself as anywhere but in a drawing-room, diffusing elegance as a flower sheds perfume” (p.161). ( 33~34)