The Age Of Innocence Theme Essay

The Age of Innocence focuses on several different themes throughout the course of the novel. These themes are recurrent and one can seem them being used at various times throughout the story. They add meaning to the story and give readers of Edith Wharton’s novel many things to take into consideration during and after reading it. Class: This is evidently the largest theme in The Age of Innocence. The wealthiest of New York’s elite are the central focus of the novel. Being well-respected and holding a place in society is of utmost importance so all characters fear being excluded from the perfect society that they have built. Newland refers to other men in society and how doing anything other than what is customary is acceptable when Wharton
The narrator states that “It was the old New York way of taking life “without effusion of blood”: the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than “scenes”, except the behavior of those who gave rise to them” (Chapter 33, page 286). Evidently, upholding class is most important for characters in the novel and change is regarded with disdain. For society, values and tradition should come before anything else. Love: This is a theme in the novel that is inaccurately portrayed by members of New York’s upper class. Characters in the play frequent operas which are filled with romantic passion, which in their own lives they seldom experience. The true love seen on stage does not exist to them in real life. For society, love and marriage go hand in hand with each other. Despite a man and a woman caring about one another and liking each other as individuals, it is rare for actual love to be present. Couples are matched based on their equal family status and the wealth that they equally share. When Newland thinks about May Welland, his fiancé at the time and a woman from a well-to-do family, he does not