American Literature / Unit 11 AML 1040 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Edith Wharton and the Novel of Manners
Captions available
The idea
Wharton wrote from inside the old New York money she was born into, anatomizing a society whose rules are unwritten and absolute. Her subject is what those rules cost the people who obey them, and she writes with a precision the witness places beside James's.
In practice
A closed society, described from within.
Where people slip
The rules in her novels are never stated aloud.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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