Study Guide for Important Book Quotes from The Age of Innocence

These important quotes from Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence will help your understanding in the themes based in the novel.
Quote: '. . . in metropolises it absolutely was 'not the thing' to reach early with the opera; and the fact that was or had not been 'the thing' played an element as important in Newland Archer's New York because the inscrutable totem terrors which had ruled the destinies of his forefathers 1000's of years ago." (Book One, Chapter 1)
Analysis: This quote explains very at the start of the text the important role that society and its rules can play in the novel. The lives of those that are a part with the upper crust of New York society are governed by the set of conventions, which dictate anything from what one wears to where one would go to how early one arrives in the opera. Everyone knows the guidelines, and everyone is watching to make sure they are adhered to. This is a system that is around for generations, as there are much girls number for friendship the reason that system that Newland find comforting. Eventually Newland can come to question these rules, but he could be never capable of walk away from them entirely. He with his fantastic generation will continue caught up in these arbitrary restrictions. However, the next generation will finally toss them aside to be unimportant.




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Quote: "The persons of the world lived within an atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies, has he and she or he understood the other without a word appeared to the young man to bring them nearer than any explanation would've done." (Book 1, Chapter 2)
Analysis: One of the things that draws Newland to May Welland would be the fact they originated from the same background. They were raised within the same social circle and understand its mores. He feels that common background draws them together. It is also a part of what makes Newland think May is the perfect woman to become his wife. While this common bond is an attraction to Newland, throughout the course of the book, he actually starts to feel he needs more. His infatuation with Ellen brings him into connection with a woman quite different from May, person who was raised outside of their social circle. This causes her being more independent than May, both emotionally and intellectually. In the end, however, May is able to use the common bond of society and its particular expectations to hold Newland within the marriage.




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Quote: "In reality each will lived in the kind of hieroglyphic world, in which the real thing wasn't said or done and even thought, but only represented by way of a set of arbitrary signs . . . . " (Book One, Chapter 6)
Analysis: This is one from the more often cited lines from the ebook. The line explains what it is like to live within the New York culture which May and Newland were members. It was being a secret society where just the members knew the guidelines, which were unwritten and unspoken. That is what caused it to be so difficult for somebody like Ellen to get accepted nowadays. She was an outsider who didn't know or understand the policies and so was constantly breaking them. Also, this caused it to be easy for her to get pushed out from the society when she was considered a threat.
Quote: "He shivered just a little, remembering some of the new ideas in the scientific books, and also the much-cited instance from the Kentucky cave-fish, which had ceased to produce eyes because they had no use on their behalf. What if, when he had bidden May Welland to spread out hers, they can only look out blankly at blankness?" (Book One, Chapter 10)
Analysis: Newland has always imagined being capable of open May's eyes around the world. He had wanted a wife he could mold, intellectually and emotionally. He had planned to introduce her to stuff that were crucial that you him, such as art, travel, and literature. However, it can be occurring to him that May may not be as pliable as he thinks so that as open to transforming into a different type of woman. Newland is suddenly confronted by the idea that May is not as capable of change as they has imagined her to get, and he actually starts to believe that she may turn in to a carbon copy of her mother, who plays beautifully the role in the perfect society wife. Of course, he's got been foolish to fall in love with a girl in the hopes of changing her, but she has held onto a sort of male arrogance that has led him to believe it's his duty to 'form" his wife into his preferred image.
Quote: "There were certain things that had to be done, and when done whatsoever, done handsomely and thoroughly; and something of these inside the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to become eliminated through the tribe." (Book 2, Chapter 33)
Analysis: Here the power and unity from the New York society is illustrated because the people combined efforts to say goodbye to Ellen as she returns to Europe. May has utilized the societal rules in which she has been raised so that you can protect her marriage and make Newland. She knows he'll almost certainly not leave her once he realizes jane is pregnant, and that Ellen would not let him even consider doing such a thing. She is able to rally the other members of the society around her and push out Ellen, as Newland sees throughout the farewell dinner party that May insists on hosting to be with her cousin. At this same time, Newland realizes that everyone believes he has been unfaithful with Ellen, and they may be eager to remove her in order to restore social normalcy. Ironically, it really is not the fact that he was unfaithful to May that might have been a problem. It would be the fact he was considering leaving her for the opposite woman.