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 of the themes located in the novel.
Quote: '. . . in metropolises it absolutely was 'not the thing' girls whatsapp number to come early in the opera; and that which was or has not been 'the thing' played a part as important in Newland Archer's New York because the inscrutable totem terrors that have ruled the destinies of his forefathers thousands of years 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 can play in the novel. The lives of those who are a part from the upper crust of New York society are governed by way of a set of conventions, which dictate sets from what one wears to where one visits how early one arrives with the opera. Everyone knows the policies, and everyone is watching to make certain they are followed. This is a system that has been around for generations, and there's much in this system that Newland find comforting. Eventually Newland can come to question these rules, but he or she is never capable to walk away from them entirely. He and his awesome generation will continue to be 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 these world lived in a atmosphere of faint implications and pale delicacies, it comes with he and she or he understood one another without a word seemed to the son to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done." (Book 1, Chapter 2)
Analysis: One in the things that pulls Newland to May Welland is the fact that they originated in 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 think May is the perfect woman being his wife. While this common bond can be an attraction to Newland, in the course from the book, he starts to feel he needs more. His infatuation with Ellen brings him into experience of a woman quite different from May, individual who was raised outside with their social circle. This causes her to become more independent than May, both emotionally and intellectually. In the end, however, May is capable to use the common bond of society as well as expectations to maintain Newland inside the marriage.




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Quote: "In reality all of them lived inside a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was not ever said or done or perhaps thought, but only represented with a set of arbitrary signs . . . . " (Book One, Chapter 6)
Analysis: This is one in the more often cited lines from the novel. The line explains how it is like to live in the New York culture that May and Newland were members. It was just like a secret society where merely the members knew the policies, that have been unwritten and unspoken. That is what managed to get so difficult for a person like Ellen to become accepted these days. She was an outsider who did not know or understand the principles and so was constantly breaking them. Also, this caused it to be easy for her being pushed out of the society when she was regarded as a threat.
Quote: "He shivered just a little, remembering some in the new ideas in the scientific books, and also the much-cited instance with the Kentucky cave-fish, which in fact had ceased to formulate eyes since they had no use for the children. What if, when he had bidden May Welland to start hers, they can only keep an eye out blankly at blankness?" (Book One, Chapter 10)
Analysis: Newland has always imagined being capable to open May's eyes around the globe. He had wanted a wife he could mold, intellectually and emotionally. He had wanted to introduce her to things that were imperative that you him, including art, travel, and literature. However, it's occurring to him that May most likely are not as pliable as he thinks in addition to being open to being a different type of woman. Newland is suddenly confronted with the idea that May isn't as capable of change as he has imagined her to become, 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, she has been foolish to fall in love with a girl in the hopes of changing her, but he has held onto a sort of male arrogance which includes led him to believe it 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 whatsoever, 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 in the tribe." (Book 2, Chapter 33)
Analysis: Here the energy and unity in 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 that she has been raised so that you can protect her marriage and Newland. She knows he can not leave her once he realizes she actually is pregnant, knowning that Ellen may not let him even consider doing such a thing. She is capable to rally another members of the society around her and push out Ellen, as Newland sees during the farewell dinner party that May insists on hosting on her cousin. At this same time, Newland realizes that everyone believes she has been unfaithful with Ellen, and they're eager to get rid of her so that you can restore social normalcy. Ironically, it really is not the belief that he was unfaithful to May that could have been a challenge. It is always that he was considering leaving her for another woman.