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 of the themes perfectly located at the novel.
Quote: '. . . in metropolises it had been 'not the thing' to come early at the opera; and the thing that was or was not 'the thing' played an element as important in Newland Archer's New York because the inscrutable totem terrors that had 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 and its particular rules can play in the novel. The lives of those that are a part from the upper crust of New York society are governed by the set of conventions, which dictate from what one wears to where one goes to how early one arrives at the opera. Everyone knows the principles, and everyone is watching to ensure that they are honored. This is a system that's been around for generations, and there is much in that system that Newland find comforting. Eventually Newland can come to question these rules, but he is never in a position to walk away from them entirely. He with his fantastic generation will remain caught up in these arbitrary restrictions. However, the next generation will finally toss them aside as being unimportant.




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Quote: "The persons of these world lived within an atmosphere of Whatsapp usa faint implications and pale delicacies, and the fact that he and she understood the other person without a word seemed to the kid to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done." (Book 1, Chapter 2)
Analysis: One in the things that draws Newland to May Welland is the fact they originated from the same background. They were raised inside 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 ideal woman to get his wife. While this common bond is an attraction to Newland, through the course from the book, he begins to feel he needs more. His infatuation with Ellen brings him into connection with a woman quite different from May, one who was raised outside of these 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 expectations to hold Newland in the marriage.




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Quote: "In reality each of them lived in the kind of hieroglyphic world, the place that 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 from the more often cited lines from the novel. The line explains how it's like to live inside the New York culture ones May and Newland were members. It was just like a secret society where merely the members knew the policies, that had been unwritten and unspoken. That is what managed to get so difficult for somebody like Ellen to be accepted nowadays. She was an outsider who would never know or understand the guidelines and so was constantly breaking them. Also, this made it easy for her to be pushed out in the society when she was perceived as a threat.
Quote: "He shivered just a little, remembering some in the new ideas in the scientific books, along with the much-cited instance in the Kentucky cave-fish, that have ceased to produce eyes because they had no use for the children. What if, when he'd bidden May Welland to open up hers, they could only look blankly at blankness?" (Book One, Chapter 10)
Analysis: Newland has always dreamed of being in a position 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 important to him, like art, travel, and literature. However, it is occurring to him that May most likely are not as pliable as they thinks and as open to being a different form of woman. Newland is suddenly confronted with the idea that May is not as capable of change because he has imagined her to get, and he actually starts to believe that she may turn right into a carbon copy of her mother, who plays beautifully the role in the perfect society wife. Of course, he's been foolish to adore a girl within the hopes of changing her, but he has held onto a type of male arrogance containing led him to believe it can be his duty to 'form" his wife into his preferred image.
Quote: "There were certain things that have to be done, and if done in any way, done handsomely and thoroughly; then one of these in 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 electricity and unity of the New York society is illustrated as the people combined efforts to say goodbye to Ellen as she returns to Europe. May has utilized the societal rules with which she has been raised in order to protect her marriage and keep Newland. She knows he'll almost certainly not leave her once he realizes jane is pregnant, which Ellen wouldn't let him even consider doing such a thing. She is able to rally the opposite members with their society around her and push out Ellen, as Newland sees through the farewell supper party that May insists on hosting on her behalf cousin. At this same time, Newland realizes that everyone believes he has been being unfaithful with Ellen, and they are eager to remove her as a way to restore social normalcy. Ironically, it can be not the fact that he was unfaithful to May that might have been a difficulty. It is the fact that he was considering leaving her for the other woman.