Chapters IX & X
Thus far in Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, Miss Bart's motivations have almost entirely been driven by a desire for a wealthy lifestyle. Lily has always been envious of the lives of her friends who spend money freely on their respective desires. Once Gus Trenor was able to invest the little savings Lily had into the stock market and, thus, give her a taste of such a lifestyle, she was finally somewhat satisfied. However, until Chapter Ten, this satisfaction came only from spending her money in a selfish manner (dresses, jewels, travel, etc).
Nonetheless, in Chapter Ten, Miss Bart made a sizeable donation to the Miss Farish's Girls' House. From this action, Miss Bart received unexpected feelings of satisfaction.
"The satisfaction derived from this act was all that the most ardent moralist could have desired. Lily felt a new interest in herself as a person of charitable instincts: she had never before thought of doing good with the wealth she had so often dreamed of possesssing, but now her horizon was enlarged by the vision of a prodigal philanthropy" (Wharton, 91).
When reading this passage, the word "philanthropy" stimulated a connection to Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth, a concept a learned in Mrs. Bohn's APUSH class. It was Carnegie, the King of Carnegie Steel in the early 1900s, who believed that the wealthy should act as the benefactors of society, using their money to build libraries, parks, hospitals, or for other purposes that would work for improvement of society as a whole. In Carnegie's mind, the wealthy were the blessed members of society who not only had the opportunity, but rather the obligation to take care of the less fortunate. Here, Miss Bart is the first character in the book to even remotely adopt this mindset. The Trenors, Mr. Rosedale, and the other members of "society" continually spend their money on extravagant parties, priceless jewels, gambling, etc. I found this small excerpt of selflessness to be quite refreshing.
No comments:
Post a Comment