Oddness In The Age Of Innocence
In The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton uses the minor character Ned Winsett, to contrast with the protagonist, Newland Archer. Newland Archer is a young lawyer from a rich New York family, living by conventions and sticking to the social order, on the other side of the spectrum is Ned Winsett, an unconventional journalist. While Archer is rich, Ned is poor; Archer thinks Ned is free to do whatever he pleases and is not held down by a strict social life like him. Ned Winsett serves as a character that helps bring out the oddness in the character Archer. Archer and Ned are opposites of the pre-war American society, a society so different from each other that they rarely interact. Wharton uses Ned’s character to bring out this difference and also
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From this realization, Archer comes to the decision that there is no flawless alternative to the confining social structure of New York high society. Archer’s conversation with Ned always makes him take a look at his life and look at how little it contained. Although Archer finds talking with Ned different from his conversations with people in his own social class and even though Archer finds it interesting, they are not friends. This can be seen when Wharton says, “though their common fund of intellectual interests and curiosities made their talks exhilarating, their exchange of views usually remained within the limits of a pensive dilettantism (Wharton 88).” Ned acts as a sounding board for Archer at times and makes him think of things that he normally does not. His conversations with Ned about politics and books make him wonder about how small his world is and how smaller, and similar Ned’s world is.
Ned’s voice becomes the voice of the majority of America that are not in the elite upper class in the novel. He passionately believes that Archer’s world and his people are slowly becoming irrelevant to modern American society. He tells Archer that unless they make themselves useful in an economic or social way, they will be as relevant as painting in an empty house (Wharton
From this realization, Archer comes to the decision that there is no flawless alternative to the confining social structure of New York high society. Archer’s conversation with Ned always makes him take a look at his life and look at how little it contained. Although Archer finds talking with Ned different from his conversations with people in his own social class and even though Archer finds it interesting, they are not friends. This can be seen when Wharton says, “though their common fund of intellectual interests and curiosities made their talks exhilarating, their exchange of views usually remained within the limits of a pensive dilettantism (Wharton 88).” Ned acts as a sounding board for Archer at times and makes him think of things that he normally does not. His conversations with Ned about politics and books make him wonder about how small his world is and how smaller, and similar Ned’s world is.
Ned’s voice becomes the voice of the majority of America that are not in the elite upper class in the novel. He passionately believes that Archer’s world and his people are slowly becoming irrelevant to modern American society. He tells Archer that unless they make themselves useful in an economic or social way, they will be as relevant as painting in an empty house (Wharton