FREE ESSAY ON HOUSE OF MIRTH: LONELINESS

HOUSE OF MIRTH: LONELINESS

Jenny 
Lily Bart's Loneliness: A Self-Realization
Loneliness is a prevalent theme throughout Edith Wharton's novel,
The House of Mirth. The following passage relates to the theme of loneliness and
dramatizes Lily Bart's dilemma of poverty: All she looked on was the same and yet
changed. There was a great gulf fixed between today and yesterday. Everything in the past
seemed simple, natural, full of daylight-and she was alone in a place of darkness and
pollution.-Alone! It was the loneliness that frightened her. (p.142) The passage shows
the abrupt loneliness Lily feels since she loses her friends, and it also dramatizes her
poverty by enabling her to reach a startling realization about herself. Lily realizes
that the loneliness she feels is not due to not having friends or money, but the fact
that she had been living a life so poor in purpose or reason.
Lily begins to feel lonely after she quickly loses the company of her friends. In the
past, she enjoyed a simple life of playing bridge and attending fancy dinners with the
wealthy women of high society. But now, her reputation is shattered and she realizes the
women in her society are cruel and would not hesitate to talk about her behind her back,
She knew, moreover, that if the ladies at Bellomont permitted themselves to criticize her
friends openly, it was a proof that they were not afraid of subjecting her to the same
treatment behind her back. (p.125) Lily feels so lonely that she is desperate in
rebuilding her reputation, and the first step in the tedious task was to find out, as
soon as possible, on how many of her friends she could count. (p. 217) But without the
money and luxuries that her old friends had, Lily finds she has even fewer friends to
count on that she thought, making it very difficult to regain her position in high
society.
Lily's increasing poverty, in addition to the loss of all her old friends continues to
make her feel lonely. The painful fact that she owes Gus Trenor nine thousand dollars is
a hard blow on Lily. Lily knows she is alone in a terrible position, and feels trapped:
She seemed a stranger to herself, or rather there were two selves in her, the one she had
always known, and a new abhorrent being to which it found itself chained. (p. 142)
Suddenly she is no longer the strikingly beautiful Lily Bart that everyone attends to,
but a poor and lonely woman in a crowded restaurant whose eyes sought the faces about
her, craving a responsive glance, some sign of an intuition of her trouble. (p.290) 
Lily's feelings of loneliness are heightened when she discovers that she did not inherit
her aunt Julia's estate. A large sum of money could easily alleviate most of her worries
and loneliness. She knows that if she had money she could pay off all of her debts and
maybe go on to win back her friends. That's why her aunt Julia's death is not as shocking
as expected; she could use her inheritance to pay off the debts and to finally put an end
to the feelings of loneliness caused by them. But after the reading of the will, Lily
stood apart from the general movement, feeling herself for the first time utterly alone.
(p. 213) She knows that the women would have accepted her if she had inherited the entire
estate, They were afraid to snub me while they thought I was going to get the
money-afterward they scuffled off as if I had the plague. (p.214) Without the money, Lily
continues to live alone and helpless.
Lily Bart's dilemma of poverty is dramatized when Lily feels a different kind of
loneliness, one that leads her to a horrifying self-realization. This new loneliness that
she feels is not due to material poverty, but of deeper empoverishment-of an inner
destitution compared to which outward conditions dwindled into insignificance. (p. 306)
Being poor made Lily feel lonely, but now she is sickened by the realization that her
life quickly passed by without any meaning or substance. While other women married and
lived rich lives, or worked for charitable causes like Gerty Farish, she saw that there
had never been a time when she had had any real relation to life...Such a vision of the
solidarity of life had never before come to Lily. (p. 306-7) Lily's dilemma of poverty
and now this deeper impoverishment is further dramatized when Lily feels moments of
happiness before falling asleep at the end of the novel.
Before falling asleep Lily feels Nettie Struther's baby against her arm: she suddenly
understood why she did not feel herself alone...Nettie Struther's child was laying on her
arm...but she felt no great surprise at the fact, only a gentle penetrating thrill of
warmth and pleasure. (p. 310) Lily finds comfort in Nettie's baby and cherishes its
essence. Nettie's child gives hope, and confirms Lily's new beliefs that she could find
happiness within a lifestyle less than luxurious. Without the discomfort of loneliness,
Lily peacefully falls asleep believing that she could beat the odds like Nettie Struther
had done. 
After losing all of her friends and all of her money, Lily's sudden loneliness enables
her to realize that her life was fleeting and insignificant. Her carefree days are over
and her shallow friends gone. Lily had no heart to lean on, (p. 143) and the pains of
being poor and lonely lead her to realize that her life had passed quickly with nearly no
purpose or reason. But Nettie Struther's child, a symbol of perseverance offers a glimmer
of hope and eternal peace. The novel ends dramatically when Lily dies still feeling
Nettie's child beside her, with all her debts paid, and all the loneliness vanished; yet
Lily Bart is still something rootless and ephemeral, mere spindrift of the whirling
surface of existence. (p. 306)
Bibliography
Bantam Classic Edition, 1984