The Age of Innocence

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products of the society.
May Welland was the fiancé/wife of Newland Archer, the young, wealthy, respectable, well-known lawyer in New York City. Newland describes her as having a “frank forehead, serious eyes and a gay innocent mouth of the young creature whose soul custodian he was to be.” (Wharton 30) She was a proper, innocent, beautiful young woman of society. She was the perfect, pure, product of society around that time. She followed all of the customs that a woman should. Her parents raised her to be that perfect product of society and the well-known Mingott family gave her a good name. They raised her to be a good wife and a good mother. She was not selfish and did not care about herself; she “knew nothing and expected everything.” (Wharton 30) She was incapable of thinking on her own. All she cared about was conforming to society’s’ and her family’s expectations of what she should be. Newland “did not want May to have that kind of innocence, the innocence that seals the ...

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careless of the dictates of taste.” (Wharton 11) In Europe, this would have been acceptable but her style was so unorthodox for the New York City society. But, Newland did not actually care about the way she dressed in fact, he felt that Ellen had an edge to her and was the type he could have fun with. But, in the end Ellen realized what she had to do and she changed and made herself into someone who would be someone of the New York Society.
Newland Archer had been infatuated with Ellen since he first met her. He had been having feelings with her and sent her secret signals that he thought no one would notice. He knew that in the New York Society, it would not be accepted to do what ...

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