Edith Wharton

This study considers Wharton's fiction as a reaction against both the male pastoral romance and the female domestic novel. It argues that her novels are concerned with the bond that exists between the individual and society rather than an escape from, or passive acceptance of, social constraints.
19th century American writers often differ by gender in the stories they tell about the American experience. The male quest most often depicts the hero's journey away from the domestic world of women; the female quest situates the heroine within the domestic world of marriage and motherhood. This study considers Edith Wharton's fiction in opposition to both the male pastoral romance and the female domestic novel. Like other American women writers, Wharton places her protagonists within the social, domestic world. Unlike male romancers who celebrate escape from society, she depicts the inevitable bond or covenant between the individual and the group. Wharton differs, however, from the female novelists who celebrate domesticity by emphasizing the bonds or restrictions the group imposes on the individual.