Ellen Olenska as The Real Thing: Edith Wharton’s Interrogation of “The Real Thing” in The Age of Innocence

Wharton’s shrewd use of “quotations” underscores the problematic preoccupations and ideologies of Old New York. Through Ellen, she eradicates  “the real thing”—the artificial, and immobile— and creates the real thing —the raw and the powerful— a real woman in her truest form. The influence of Italian art and landscape resonates within Wharton’s oeuvre. In Edith Wharton and the Visual Arts, Emily J. Orlando explores Wharton’s repeated invocation of nineteenth-century visual culture, specifically those of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who Orlando asserts are primarily known for their tendency to paint portraits not of individual women but of icons whose bodies the male gaze is subjected, Well-versed in the Italian masters, Wharton made particular use of their art, specifically those of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Founder of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Rossetti’s artwork rebels against academic art conventions, fostering a return to the painting style that preceded the High Renaissance artist Raphael. Pre-Raphaelite paintings emphasize the real thing, cultivating a sincere artistic style that rejected the artificial and ideal prevalent in mainstream Victorian art. Rossetti’s deep ties to Italian art, infused with medieval influences, resonate with Wharton’s appreciation for the Italian aesthetic. In Ellen Olenska, the protagonist of Edith Wharton’s novel The Age of Innocence, we find a multifaceted representation of women reminiscent of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s work. Although Orlando rightfully and correctly argues that Age of Innocence functions as “a cautionary tale about the dangers of misguided reading and the detrimental ways in which women have been represented as works of art that are often overtly sexualized” (171-172), Ellen embodies this complexity in a much more nuanced way. Nevertheless constrained by the idealized fantasies of men, particularly penchant in Newland Archer, I argue Wharton’s engagement with Rossetti extends beyond thematic parallels; in its totality, The Age of Innocence  employs the visual and the textual to reimagine feminine sexuality and agency in its most powerful and simplest form.

Language in its Real Textual and Visual Form

In “‘The Intolerable Ugliness of New York’: Architecture and Society in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence,” Cynthia Falk assesses the architecture, interior design, and codes of conduct in late-19th-century America, shedding light on Wharton’s perceptions of Old New York. She highlights Wharton’s preference for unaltered European architectural styles, contrasting them with what she sees as America’s superficiality, “‘where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only presented by a set of arbitrary signs'” (24). Instead of extolling American culture, which she believes lacks authenticity, Wharton employs European aesthetics to subtly reshape perceptions of the New American Woman from her own perspective. Falk argues that Wharton’s scrutiny of late-Victorian values is evident in her detailed descriptions of architecture. By juxtaposing Falk’s analysis of architecture and Wharton’s representations of artwork, Ellen’s physical and conceptual rebellion dismantles an artificial that “refuse[s] to look beyond the insular community of with they [are] part” (28). Janet Beer and Avril Horner’s “‘The Great Panorama’: Edith Wharton as Historical Novelist” delves into the intertextual connections among Edith Wharton’s historical novels, focusing mainly on scenes of architecture and landscape. Beer and Horner highlight Wharton’s enduring fascination with periods marked by rapid social and political transformation, arguing the novel’s emphasis on language and literatures […] both reflect and help construct different world views” (78). This analysis sheds light on Wharton’s artistic allusions and how they convey and embody conflicting ideologies. 

These include Old New York’s opposing notions of female identity. In her article, “Contradictory Depictions of the New Woman: Reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence as a Dialogic Novel,” Sevinc Elaman-Garner interrogates the novel’s use of “angelic” and “monstrous,” highlighting the dialogic nature of the narrative, which amplifies a “multiplicity of contending voices and perspectives” (14) Elaman-Garner’s examination of binaries provides a valuable framework for analyzing Wharton’s approach to create the real thing by bringing together the visual and textual. Rather than depict a woman as new/old, virgin/whore, or immobile/free, she establishes a spectrum in which the real female can live. Wharton’s defiance against the era’s prevailing notions of Victorian womanhood depicts characters like Ellen who challenge established “clichés and moral codes of femininity,” thus reshaping “new feminine codes and sexual values” (3). Rather than prescribing Ellen as “how women ought to be,” (12) Wharton reimagines who a woman is and should be, fostering a narrative of empowerment and self-definition. Recognizing Wharton’s appreciation and exploration of language is crucial as it plays a significant role in the novel. Candace Waid’s  Edith Wharton’s Letters from the Underworld presents an innovative reading of Wharton’s work and how mythological representations of female figures manifest the real “feminine aesthetic” and “dwell in the ‘underworld’ of experience” (9). In her chapter, “The Devouring Muse,” she brings to light the inspiration for the author’s feminine aesthetic by providing Wharton’s salient references to Walt Whitman: 

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The language of Whitman, according to Wharton, reveals rather than conceals: “His epithets, his images, go straight to the intimate quality of the thing described — to the inherences of things … he sees through the layers of the conventional point of view [and] of the conventional adjective, straight to the thing itself … to the endless thread connecting it with the universe.” To Wharton, this “sense of the absolute behind the relative gives to [Whitman’s] adjectives their startling, penetrating quality, their ultimateness.” (132)

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Age of Innocence continually interrogates “the real thing,” skillfully woven by Wharton’s language to subtly unveil the essence of the real feminine aesthetic founded on empowerment and agency. “‘The best adjective,’ [Wharton] advises, ‘is that which while most vividly embodying the salient quality of the thing described or its external appearance throws light upon the greatest number of these indirect associations with which the simplest object has become gradually encrusted by the slow accretions of thought'” (Waid 132). Employing mythological references and language evocative of the supernatural, Wharton crafts new adjectives that transform notions of “Taste” and “Form” from “ugly” to enchanting, from “foreign” to refined, and from “strange” to distinct [click here to complete list]. It is as though Wharton seeks to awaken language in The Age of Innocence, prompting readers to recognize both its layers of meaning and the web of associations, fostering a renewed connection and intimacy with the simplest of objects — in this instance, the essence of female identity. The novel reinforces an aspiration for women to exist authentically, devoid of the need for explanation or justification, free to live on their own terms without constraint or contention.

Wharton’s interrogation of “the real thing” centers on understanding art and artifice. Unlike “Undine, in The Custom of the Country, who “represents an artificial wave that in Wharton’s private literary mythology itself represents an artificial language” (Waid 153), Ellen’s foreignness empowers her with female agency, imbuing her actions with significance. It is the society of New York and the Victorian ideals of womanhood that embody artificiality and rigid identities, constraining women to feign innocence rather than embracing the vibrant power of their sexuality and agency. Recognizing Wharton’s mythological imagery, Ellen’s beauty and strength can be interpreted as an allusion to the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, functioning as inspiration to add depth to her character.

ELLEN AS MEDUSA

In her introduction to The Age of Innocence, Waid examines aspects of the text that invite interpretation and exploration through the novel’s intricate web of allusions and artistic references. Her analysis of Sir Joshua Reynold’s “evocative portrait” calls attention to the “paradoxical [visual] aesthetics of motion and stillness” (xv) depicted in Ellen, a motif mirrored in historical illustrations and contemporary film adaptations. Edith Thornton sheds light on Victorian projections in “‘Innocence’ Consumed: Packaging Edith Wharton with Kathleen Norris in Pictorial Review Magazine, 1920-21.” Thornton interrogates the novel’s textual history, juxtaposing the original illustrations from the first edition with subsequent visual interpretations by magazine editors, illustrators, and filmmakers. She scrutinizes how these depictions, influenced by cinematic and theatrical conventions of realism, melodrama, and nostalgia, perpetuate stereotypical ideologies of the era: “the ‘histrionic code’ in which ‘performers, audiences, and critics all know that a theatrical presentation was an artificial construct meant to bear little resemblance to any off-stage reality” (36). Whether it is the illustrations in Pictorial Review or Martin Scorsese’s 1993 film adaptation, Thornton elucidates the problematic effect of visual transmission and reinterpretation, resulting in divergent versions of the text that convey contrasting authorial voices, but, more importantly, two contrasting Ellens. Echoing Waid’s observations in the novel’s introduction, Thornton highlights a 1920 Pictorial Review illustration titled “Newland and Ellen in a Romantic Lodge,” portraying Ellen in a state of “stillness,” deflecting attention to “female sexuality” (39). The textual depictions of Ellen tell a story that resonates with Medusa. “Warned not to look directly at her, he gazed instead at her reflection in his shield and, guided by her mirrored image, cut off her head” (2). However, Wharton’s representation of Medusa is not physical but conceptual.  As Marjorie Garber and Nancy Victors explain in their introduction to The Medusa Reader, “the head of Medusa, initially figuring rebellion, competition, and sexual desirability, becomes, under Athena’s sign, transformed into a beneficial emblem and a source of civic and marital strength … [her head] literally warding off or turning away the evils it embodies. Terror is used to drive out terror, so that the formally stupefying image is turned back upon one’s enemies” (2). Ellen, like Athena’s emblem, becomes Old New York’s representation of “what not to be.”  Thus, when the New Woman emerges as a symbol of strength and defiance, she becomes worthy of blame rather than praise. However, what is fascinating is that Wharton recognizes that those who uphold these monstrous ideals are the ones indeed constrained—not by Ellen, but by their own rigid notions: 

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Mrs. van der Luyden’s portrait by Huntington (in black velvet and Venetian point) faced that of her lovely ancestress. It was generally considered “as fine as a Cabanel,” and, though twenty years had elapsed since its execution, was still “a perfect likeness’ … Her fair hair, which had faded without turning grey, was still parted in flat overlapping points on her forehead, and the straight nose that divided her pale blue eyes was only a little more pinched about the nostrils than when the portrait had been painted. She always, indeed, struck Newland Archer as having been rather gruesomely preserved in the airless atmosphere of a perfectly irreproachable existence, as bodies caught in glaciers keep for years a rosy life-in-death (34).

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Wharton’s description of Mrs. van der Luyden mirrors the illustrations seen in Pictorial Review Magazine, revealing how publishers deviated from Wharton’s original intent to preserve the notion of female innocence. Wharton’s portrayal of Ellen aligns with the artistic Rossetti’s nuanced depiction in Aspecta Medusa [Fig. 2] and accompanying sonnet “Aspecta Medusa (for a Drawing)” [Fig. 3] further emphasizing the reality of Old New York’s constraining conventions.

The juxtaposition between the figures in Rosetti’s text presents two females in binary opposition. Andromeda is looking and uses reflection to avoid being petrified, whereas Medusa is “aspecta,” who is looked at but also reduced to a shadow. However, Ellen makes it very clear to Archer that “the real thing” has not been reduced to a shadow.

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Her tone was so natural, so almost indifferent, that Archer’s turmoil subsided. Once more she had managed, by her sheer simplicity, to make him feel stupidly conventional just when he thought he was flinging convention to the winds.
“I think you’re the most honest woman I ever met!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, no—but probably one of the least fussy,” she answered, a smile in her voice.

“Call it what you like: you look at things as they are.”

“Ah—I’ve had to. I’ve had to look at the Gorgon.”

“Well—it hasn’t blinded you! You’ve seen that she’s just an old bogey like all the others.”

“She doesn’t blind one; but she dries up one’s tears.”

The answer checked the pleading on Archer’s lips: it seemed to come from depths of experience beyond his reach. The slow advance of the ferry-boat had ceased, and her bows bumped against the piles of the slip with a violence that made the brougham stagger, and flung Archer and Madame Olenska against each other. The young man, trembling, felt the pressure of her shoulder, and passed his arm about her.

“If you’re not blind, then, you must see that this can’t last.”

“What can’t?”

“Our being together—and not together.”

“Your vision of you and me together?” She burst into a sudden hard laugh. “You choose your place well to put it to me!”

He had never heard her speak in such a tone, and he remembered the phrase she had used a little while before.

“Yes, the Gorgon has dried your tears,” he said.

“Well, she opened my eyes too; it’s a delusion to say that she blinds people. What she does is just the contrary—she fastens their eyelids open, so that they’re never again in the blessed darkness. Isn’t there a Chinese torture like that? There ought to be. Ah, believe me, it’s a miserable little country!” (173-175)

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Ellen, who has fled her cruel and unfaithful husband only to be demonized in New York as an adulteress because of her husband’s allegations, has viscerally experienced life’s darkness. Her illusions have been destroyed by her experience—which can be seen in Rossetti’s Medusa. The painting underscores the tension between when one relies on reflection to reveal truth and the other embodies shadowy truth that challenges “the real thing.” Garber and Victors underscore that “Medusa’s volatile femininity add[s] another dangerous element. What Hertz calls ‘the representation of what would seem to be a political threat as if it were a sexual threat,’ locates in the Medusa figure something not only powerful but also elusive, elliptical, unable to be subdued” (3). Archer’s “aspecta” an “artificial product, a manufactured symbol of patriarchal authority” (Ammons 439), fails to recognize Ellen’s relationship with the Gorgon functions as an emblem of female empowerment. Two women demonized by the public and who have endured heartbreaking tragedy come together to call out Archer. The ability to see the real thing comes with a price: “The seeing eye is for Wharton a kind or artistic sensibility,” Orlando asserts; it is “an intuitive ability” to discern what is most real and completely artifice, “endow[ing] an individual with the gift of recognizing, as Olenska does, the inference between ‘visions’ and reality” (171). Through the Gorgon’s “seeing eye,” Wharton’s retelling of Medusa’s inherent duality is intriguing—the original perception of her as a beauty evolving into a monstrous figure, which Wharton draws attention to when Archer remarks on Ellen’s past beauty. This exquisite beauty has been distorted into ugliness. However, the simple truth remains: beauty is intrinsic, not defined by societal conventions that seek to demonize the authentic. Despite women’s complexities and challenges, the “new woman” emerges as a symbol of strength and defiance, deserving of praise rather than blame. Wharton’s character embraces these misconceptions of ugliness and monstrosity, reimagining them to reclaim womanhood. As “Medusa has long been associated by commenters with female rulers and also with Amazons … [and] Not as petrifier but as beheader” (Garber and Vickers 3), Ellen beheads the artificial with the real thing. Medusa’s formidable power manifests in the stagnancy and superficiality of old New York society, while Ellen embodies vitality and authenticity, symbolizing liberation. 

Rossetti’s La Bella Mano [Fig 4] underscores representations of female liberation seen in Ellen. The objects in Rossetti’s painting also tell a subtle yet powerful story. The figure of the beautiful woman washing her hands also carries dreadful implications, as it does in Rossetti’s Washing Hands [Fig. 5]. In Dante Gabriel Rossetti, An Illustrated Memorial of His Art and Life, author H. C. Marillier, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century journalist, critic and art historian, quotes Rossetti’s description of La Bella Mano found in a letter to an unknown correspondent:

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The painting “represents the last stage of an unlucky love affair. The lady has gone behind the screen (in the dining-room perhaps) to wash her hands; and the gentleman, her lover, has followed her there, and has still something to say, but she has made up her mind … when both of the parties have come to see in reality that it will never do, [it is the lady who first has] the strength to act on such knowledge … It is all over, in my picture, and she is washing her hands of it” (139).

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The juxtaposition between Rossetti’s painting and Ellen’s and Archer’s intricate relationship unveils a parallel in a powerful liberation exercised by both the visual and textual representations of women. By resituating and contextualizing La Bella Mano, another layer of significance emerges, resonating with Rossetti’s portrayal of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini [Fig. 6]. Rendered as an elaborate version of the left panel of a triptych, this watercolor depicts the illicit love affair between Francesca da Rimini and her brother-in-law, Paolo Malatesta.

Noteworthy is the inclusion of a small insignia above the lovers’ heads, nestled within stained glass, depicting a serpent-winged dragon encircled by the phrase mala testa: “mala” the feminine of “malo” translates to “wicked,” and “testa” to head, signifying a stubborn and malicious person. Here, Rossetti’s linguistic choice, employing the feminine conjugation of “mala” instead of the masculine, intimates at female culpability, particularly attributing deviance to Francesca. However, the duality of female identity, as elucidated by Elaman-Garner — oscillating between the “angelic” and the “monstrous” — provides insight into the dialogic interplay characterizing both Rossetti’s painting and Wharton’s novel. Wharton’s interplay challenges conventional notions of female and male agency, prompting a reassessment of who assumes the role of the deviant and who that of the victim.

ELLEN AS LILITH

Wharton’s use of mythological language is not merely a literary device, but a powerful tool to challenge patriarchal norms. Through this language, she manifests mythological figures in Ellen, who is not demonized but beautifully powerful, thereby subverting traditional gender roles. Rossetti’s Lady Lilith present an alluring, nevertheless dangerous woman. Often depicted as a demon or a supernatural being, she is a symbol of formidable power, a representation of Wharton’s New Woman, liberated from male dominance and challenging the patriarchal norms of the Victorian era. “According to the legend, she was created with Adam from the same handful of dust, and, as his equal, refused to be subordinate to him,” Virginia Allen explains in “‘One Strangling Golden Hair’: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Lady Lilith.” “She left him to consort with demons,” Allen continues because she refused to turn to Adam, her own demon-begot infants die daily, and she prays on the babies of others. She also visits men in their dreams and bewitches them” (286). 

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In Age of Innocence, Ellen experiences the opposite: “Her parents had been continental wanderers, and after a roaming babyhood she had lost them both, and been taken in charge by her aunt, Medora Manson, also a wanderer” (38). Ellen’s loss alongside Medora’s poor taste bolsters Old New York’s judgments. Through Archer’s eyes, readers learn that New York socialites deem Ellen from childhood— “gipsy foundling,”—to adulthood a lost soul who “fell under the charm of Medora’s high colour and high spirits …  a fearless and familiar little thing, [that] … possessed outlandish arts” (38).  Archer’s awareness of Ellen’s “mysterious authority of beauty, a sureness in the carriage of the head,” and “the movement of the eyes, which … struck his as highly trained and full of a conscious power(39), juxtaposed against Old New York’s persuasive, nevertheless, pervasive conclusions, underscore Ellen’s Lilith like virtues—demonized virtues that must be eradicated to protect the “innocent” conventions. Waid’s assertion that “the novel is comprised of layer upon layer of allusion that, taken together, create a world of great complexity where objects [such as artwork] themselves […] are included to tell a story” (xix) underscores Ellen inherently foreign, a concept echoed in representations of mythological and biblical figures in art. The perceived sexual allure of Ellen, akin to Lilith, poses a threat, one which Wharton strategically employs to challenge the established norms of society. In the novel, foreign visitors must be removed: 

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… In the Old New York code, [it] was the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe … it was the old New York way of taking life “without a fusion 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. (200-201)

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In this scene, Wharton’s language concerning Ellen’s return to Europe evokes images of a witch-like trial. Alongside Faust, a recurring motif in the novel, Ellen’s female desire and agency serve as a focal point in Wharton’s reimagining of the American Woman. Although Wharton withholds Act Five: “Walpurgis Night,” the “satanic, orgasmic” festival lingers in the background and society’s perceptions of Ellen. 

In Rossetti’s painting, Lilith combs out her golden hair and gazes in her mirror, with “complete self-absorption” (Allen 286) friend of Rossetti, Dr. Hake, suggests. When Archer returns to the drawing-room he finds Ellen “standing by the mantelpiece, examining herself in the mirror.” However, as she examines herself in the mirror and casually asks for a cigarette, she exudes a sense of self-assuredness and independence. More importantly, like Rossetti’s Lady Lilith painting, Ellen suggests  “an independent energy: enchanting-and enchanted-her gleaming tresses both expressed her mythic power and were its source” (Gitter 936). Lady Lilith alongside Faust, specifically Act Five: “Walpurgis Night.” Although Wharton does not include these scenes in the novel, the fact that the Opera is a significant motif, this “satanic, orgasmic” festival lingers in the background and society’s perceptions of Ellen.

In her close reading of Lady Lilith, Allen examines Rossetti’s sensual depictions of female beauty and his representations of hair as seductive prisons. Elisabeth G. Gitter in “The Power of Women’s Hair in the Victorian Imagination” brings additional insight into Victorian notions of hair: “… the powerful woman of the Victorian … angel[‘s] shining hair was her aureole or bower; when she was demonic, it became a glittering snare, web, or noose. Silent, the larger-than-life woman … used her hair to weave her discourse; immobile, she used her hair at times to strangle [her lovers]” (936). Throughout the novel, Wharton employs Lilith-like language to empower notions of female agency. Archer’s desire to have Ellen “steal up behind him [and] throw her light arms about his neck,” conjure Lilith-like power. However, Archer’s imaginings reimagine Ellen. In Rossetti’s painting, Lilith combs out her golden hair. She gazes in her mirror, with “complete self-absorption” (Allen 286) friend of Rossetti, Dr. Hake, suggests. When Archer returns to the drawing-room he finds Ellen “standing by the mantelpiece, examining herself in the mirror.” However, as she examines herself in the mirror and casually asks for a cigarette, she exudes a sense of self-assuredness and independence. More importantly, like Rossetti’s Lady Lilith painting, Ellen suggests  “an independent energy: enchanting-and enchanted-her gleaming tresses both expressed her mythic power and were its source” (Gitter 936). Ellen is portrayed as a captivating blend of Lilith’s independence and the allure of a siren, embodying both female agency and sexual empowerment. Through artistic representation, her character challenges societal norms by depicting women as empowered beings in charge of their own desires. Wharton creates a real woman empowered by her agency and independence. Her fearlessness and serene, nevertheless confident, demeanor foster mythological power. 

ELLEN AS THE SIREN

A final exploration of La Bella Mano reveals a convergence of representations, merging the figures of Medusa and the Siren, thereby capturing Wharton’s multifaceted conception of the real American Woman. On the left hand side of the painting, a Gorgon is delicately woven into the doily tablecloth [see Fig. #]. Garber and Victors offer a diverse array of illustrations of Gorgoneion figures in their text. The winged Gorgon carved into the silver ten scruples coin from the early to mid-third century B.C.E. [see Fig. #] depicts nuanced similarities.

Sirens, like Lilith, are associated with manifestations of sight and sound, possessing both a seductive nature that leads men to their death and a longing for direct connection to divine glory. It’s worth noting that long before the popular human-mermaid hybrid in literary descriptions, Sirens were portrayed as birds living along the sea. In his 1891 painting, Ulysses and the Sirens [see Fig. 13], John William Waterhouse dramatically illustrates an episode from the journeys of Odysseus, who was warned by Circe of the beautiful women with bodies of birds.

Thus, while the female figure and her companions painted by Rossetti in La Bella Mano could be interpreted as representations of the goddess of love and her cupid angels, the subtle inclusion of the winged Gorgon juxtaposed with the three figures’ red wings alludes to a powerful mythological underpinning.

Wharton characterizes May, often associated with the Greek goddess Diana, as a “manufactured symbol of patriarchal authority” (Ammons 439). She dresses May in white, a stark departure from Ellen, who is frequently adorned in a vibrant red cloak. Wharton’s use of color of red—and yellow [see Fig. 14], a color Archer deems “too rich, too strong, in their fiery beauty” (51)—reinforces her admiration for Rossetti’s works. In one poignant scene, Archer encounters Ellen, described as “a slight figure in a red cloak…who fled away across the snow.” As they walk together, “the ground seemed to sing under their feet” (83), with Wharton employing language that echoes the allure of the Sirens: the snow symbolizing water and the act of “fleeing” suggesting flight.

Wharton’s Sirenesque language, employed to characterize Ellen throughout the novel, is evident in various instances. Ellen’s actions, such as touching Archer’s “knee with her plumed fan” (42). and “tranc[ing]” him to hallucinate, where he finds himself “adrift far off in the unknown” (113) underscore her Siren-like allure. However, rather than condemning Ellen for disrupting the conventions of Old New York, Wharton utilizes these manifestations of the Siren to reconceptualize female agency. Ellen’s allure does not lead Archer into dangerous waters; instead, societal norms and expectations serve as the true hazards, prompting Archer to seek a “safe anchorage” in Ellen and save from his “voyage [into] uncharted seas” (28).

Although Ellen’s demeanor is often described as “still,” Wharton’s use of language speaks to a tranquility imbued with active agency. Her physical relocation from New York to Washington and Paris underscores Waid’s assertion that the novel comprises layers of allusion interwoven to construct a complex narrative world. Ellen’s mobility transcends mere geographic displacement; it subtly permeates her existence, symbolizing a more profound journey to freedom.

By merging artistic references and literary ingenuity, the novel incorporates progressive European ideologies to subvert the dominant Victorian notions of womanhood. Ellen serves as a representation of Rossetti’s pursuit of real art that empowers female autonomy and beauty. Ellen emerges as a complex figure in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, embodying a simple fusion of passionate beauty and empowering agency while grappling with oppressive forces. Much like Rossetti’s idealized depictions of women, Ellen is subjected to the oppressive influence of characters like Archer; however, Ellen also symbolizes his quest for authenticity in real art and the celebration of the real woman. Through these interconnected themes and symbols, Wharton weaves together mythological figures, visual subject matters, and literary craft to offer nuanced commentary on societal constraints that reinforce “the real thing.” 

Works Cited

Allen, Virginia M. “‘One Strangling Golden Hair’: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Lady Lilith.” The Art Bulletin (New York, N.Y.), vol. 66, no. 2, 1984, pp. 285–94.

Ammons, Elizabeth. “Cool Diana and the Blood-Red Muse: Edith Wharton on Innocence and Art.” The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, edited by Waid, W. W. Norton, 2003, pp. 433-447.

Beer, Janet, and Avril Horner. “‘The Great Panorama’: Edith Wharton as Historical Novelist.” The Modern Language Review, vol. 110, no. 1, 2015, pp. 69–84.

Elaman-Garner, Sevinc. “Contradictory Depictions of the New Woman: Reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence as a Dialogic Novel.” European Journal of American Studies, vol. 11, no. 2, 2016, pp. 1-15.

Falk, Cynthia G. “‘The Intolerable Ugliness of New York’: Architecture and Society in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.” American Studies (Lawrence), vol. 42, no. 2, 2001, pp. 19–43.

Garber, Marjorie B., and Nancy J. Vickers. The Medusa Reader. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Gitter, Elisabeth G. “The Power of Women’s Hair in the Victorian Imagination.” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. 99, no. 5, 1984, pp. 936–54

Orlando, Emily J. Edith Wharton and the Visual Arts. University of Alabama Press, 2007.

Thornton, Edith. “‘Innocence’ Consumed: Packaging Edith Wharton with Kathleen Norris in Pictorial Review Magazine, 1920-21.” European Journal of American Culture, vol. 24, no. 1, 2005, pp. 29–45.

Waid, Candace. Introduction. The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, edited by Waid, W. W. Norton, 2003, pp. xiii-xx.

Waid, Candace. Edith Wharton’s Letters from the Underworld: Fictions of Women and Writing. The University of North Carolina Press, 1991.