A Clandestine Countess in a Sociable Setting

Analysing Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence from a Modernist Lens

Abstract

Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (1920) is an American novel of manners set in pre-war New York society. It explores the dichotomies present in old New York by comparing the new ways with the old in the form of characters representing contrasts between American and European ideals. This study aims at understanding the elements of modernism prevalent in the novel. Taking into account Madam Olenska’s clandestine nature with regard to the hieroglyphic world she enters, the contrasts and comparisons between America and Europe, the evolution of America and sense of innocence of the time, the analysis proves how Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence is an escapist work that vouches for divorce from the old ways.