4. Setting the Scene- for Lily

The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton

"The afternoon was perfect. A deeper stillness possessed the air, and the glitter of the American autumn was tempered by a haze which diffused the brightness without dulling it" (Wharton, 50). Wharton does an execptional job of depicting a beautiful scene for her story. She goes on to describe the scene in terms of "woody hollows", "a faint chill", the country that "unrolled itself in pastoral distances" (Wharton, 50). All of these depictions are truly stunning images to put into my head, but what makes the incredible scene so memorable, is that the main character, Lily Bart, is so beyond finding it to her satisfaction. It's like the author and the main character are having this ongoing but behind-the-scenes banter about the setting of the book. Back in the first several pages, Lily remarks about trees along the road and about people actually having the "humanity" to plant them there (Wharton, 3). In the sixth chapter, the narrator explains Lily's disdain for the simplicity of nature even further, when she says, "Lily had no real intimacy with nature, but she had a passion for the appropriate and could be keenly sensitive to a scene which was the fitting background of her own sensations" (Wharton, 51). This exerpt clearly elicits Lily's view on the setting- that it is hers, that she paints the background in accordance with her own sensations, rather than Lily herself being a part of the background.