Study Guide for Important Book Quotes from The Age of Innocence

These important quotes from Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence can help your understanding in the themes based in the novel.
Quote: '. . . in metropolises it was 'not the thing' to reach early in the opera; and what was or wasn't 'the thing' played an important part as important in Newland Archer's New York as the inscrutable totem terrors which in fact had ruled the destinies of his forefathers thousands of years ago." (Book One, Chapter 1)
Analysis: This quote explains very at the start of the text quite role that society as well as rules can 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 anything from what one wears to where one would go to how early one arrives at the opera. Everyone knows the guidelines, and everyone is watching to ensure that they are followed. This is a system which has been around for generations, then there is much because system that Newland find comforting. Eventually Newland should come to question these rules, but he or she is never capable of walk away from them entirely. He and his generation will stay caught up in these arbitrary restrictions. However, the next generation will ultimately 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, has he and she understood each other without a word gave the impression to the child to bring them nearer than any explanation could have done." (Book 1, Chapter 2)
Analysis: One with the things that pulls Newland to May Welland is the fact 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 portion of what makes Newland think May is the best woman to become his wife. While this common bond is definitely an attraction to Newland, through the course with the book, he begins to feel he needs more. His infatuation with Ellen brings him into experience of a woman not the same as May, one that was raised outside of their social circle. This causes her to be 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 help keep Newland inside the marriage.




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Quote: "In reality all of them lived in a very kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing never was said or done and even thought, but only represented by the set of arbitrary signs . . . . " (Book One, Chapter 6)
Analysis: This is one with the more often cited lines from the book. The line explains how it is like to live inside the New York culture ones May and Newland were members. It was like a secret society where merely the members knew the rules, that have been unwritten and unspoken. That is what made it so difficult for a person like Ellen to become accepted these days. She was an outsider who would never know or understand the policies and so was constantly breaking them. Also, this made it easy for her to get pushed out with the society when she was considered a threat.
Quote: "He shivered a bit, remembering some of the new ideas as part of his scientific books, along with the much-cited instance of the Kentucky cave-fish, that have ceased to produce eyes since they had no use for the kids. 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 able to open May's eyes around the world. He had wanted a wife he could mold, intellectually and emotionally. He had wished to introduce her to stuff that were important to him, such as art, travel, and literature. However, it really is occurring to him that May might not be as pliable as he thinks so when open to transforming into a different sort of woman. Newland is suddenly confronted by the idea that May isn't as capable of change as they has imagined her to be, and he actually starts to believe that she may turn into a carbon copy of her mother, who plays beautifully the role of the perfect society wife. Of course, he's got been foolish to love a girl inside hopes of changing her, but she has held onto a kind 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 which in fact had to be done, and when done in any way, done handsomely and thoroughly; and one of these inside old New York code, was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about being eliminated in the tribe." (Book 2, Chapter 33)
Analysis: Here the energy and unity with the New York society is illustrated because people come together to say goodbye to Ellen as she returns to Europe. May has utilized the societal rules that she has been raised so that you can protect her marriage and make Newland. She knows he'll not leave her once he realizes she is pregnant, knowning that Ellen wouldn't normally let him even consider doing such a thing. She is capable of rally one other members of their society around her and push out Ellen, as Newland sees through the farewell dinner party that May insists on hosting on her cousin. At this same time, Newland realizes that everyone believes she has been having an affair with Ellen, and they may be eager to remove her so that you can Whatsapp girls numbers restore social normalcy. Ironically, it really is not the belief that he was unfaithful to May that might have been a problem. It is the fact that he was considering leaving her for one other woman.