Study Guide for Important Book Quotes from The Age of Innocence

These important quotes from Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence might help your understanding in the themes perfectly located at the novel.
Quote: '. . . in metropolises it turned out 'not the thing' to reach early at the opera; and what was or has not been 'the thing' played an important part as important in Newland Archer's New York because inscrutable totem terrors which had ruled the destinies of his forefathers millenia ago." (Book One, Chapter 1)
Analysis: This quote explains very at the beginning of the text giving her a very role that society as well as rules will play in the novel. The lives of those that are a part in the upper crust of New York society are governed by a set of conventions, which dictate everything from what one wears to where one goes to how early one arrives on the opera. Everyone knows the principles, and everyone is watching to be sure they are honored. This is a system that's been around for generations, and there is much for the reason that system that Newland find comforting. Eventually Newland should come to question these rules, but he's never capable to walk away from them entirely. He and his generation will remain 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 their world lived in the atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies, it comes with he and he or she understood the other without a word did actually the child to bring them nearer than any explanation could have done." (Book 1, Chapter 2)
Analysis: One of the things that pulls Newland to May Welland is always that they came 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 section of what makes Newland believe May is the best woman for being his wife. While this common bond is an attraction to Newland, throughout the course in the book, he actually starts to feel he needs more. His infatuation with Ellen brings him into exposure to a woman very different from May, one who was raised outside of their social circle. This causes her to get more independent than May, both emotionally and intellectually. In the end, however, May is in a position to use the common bond of society and it is expectations to maintain Newland within the marriage.




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Quote: "In reality each WhatsApp Numbers of them lived inside a kind of hieroglyphic world, the location where the real thing was never said or done or perhaps thought, but only represented by the set of arbitrary signs . . . . " (Book One, Chapter 6)
Analysis: This is one of the more often cited lines from the novel. The line explains what it's like to live inside the New York culture of which May and Newland were members. It was like a secret society where exactly the members knew the policies, that have been unwritten and unspoken. That is what got so difficult for a person like Ellen being accepted on this planet. She was an outsider who were not sure or understand the policies and so was constantly breaking them. Also, this managed to get easy for her to become 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, along with the much-cited instance in the Kentucky cave-fish, that have ceased to formulate eyes because they had no use for them. What if, when he previously bidden May Welland to spread out hers, they might only watch 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 wanted to introduce her to items that were vital that you him, such as art, travel, and literature. However, it's occurring to him that May may not be as pliable while he thinks so that as open to learning to be a different type of woman. Newland is suddenly met with the idea that May is not as capable of change while he has imagined her to become, and he starts to believe that she may turn right into a carbon copy of her mother, who plays beautifully the role of the perfect society wife. Of course, he's been foolish to adore a girl within the hopes of changing her, but he's held onto a sort of male arrogance which has led him to believe it really is his duty to 'form" his wife into his preferred image.
Quote: "There were certain things that had to be done, and if done in any way, done handsomely and thoroughly; the other of these within the old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from your tribe." (Book 2, Chapter 33)
Analysis: Here the power and unity with the New York society is illustrated since the people come together to say goodbye to Ellen as she returns to Europe. May has used the societal rules with which she has been raised to be able to protect her marriage and make Newland. She knows he'll not leave her once he realizes she's pregnant, understanding that Ellen may not let him even consider doing such a thing. She is capable to rally the other members with their society around her and push out Ellen, as Newland sees throughout the farewell social gathering that May insists on hosting on her cousin. At this same time, Newland realizes that everyone believes he has been having an affair with Ellen, and these are eager to eliminate her so that you can restore social normalcy. Ironically, it's not the fact he was unfaithful to May that could have been a difficulty. It would be the fact he was considering leaving her for another woman.