Chapters V & VI
Near the end of Chapter V of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, Miss Bart ponders once more a marriage with Mr. Rosedale. She is well aware of the fact that he strongly admires her. However, she believes that this admiration stems predominantly from the potential she has to raise and strengthen his status in "society." Rosedale claims that a wife is the last piece he needs in order to exploit his new found wealth and social status. Knowing this, Lily, with her instinctual desire to always be in control, contemplates making Rosedale genuinely fall in love with her-"What if she made him marry her for love...."(Wharton, 195). This is just another example of Miss Bart's manipulative manner. Relationships must always stand on her own terms, and if not, she will eventually make them so.
When reading this, I was reminded of the plot of the movie 27 Dresses. In the film, a woman named Jane is "always, always, always a bridesmaid." She longs to fall in love and get married as many of her friends have, but she has trouble finding the right man. That is, until a news reporter named Kevin enters the picture. Jane begins to fall for Kevin; little does she know, however, that Kevin is secretly developing a close relationship with her in order to write an article on her astounding number of appearances as a bridesmaid. At the climax of the movie, Jane is heartbroken at the discovery of Kevin's secret. He had made her fall in love with him for the wrong reason, much similar to the plan Miss Bart is formulating for Mr. Rosedale.
I have decided that Miss Bart's manipulative manner is clearly her hubris. As I predicted earlier, her manipulation has lead to her loneliness throughout the novel, yet she continues to exercise it. Though intially appealing to her, such action has continually lead to her downfall.
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