Sunday, January 23, 2011
Age of Innocence
There has been a general agreement in our class that Age of Innocence is going to be boring. I always find that connecting books like that to today's world makes them much more interesting. So: How is culture today similar to/ different from the culture Wharton describes? What would you like/ dislike about living in Wharton's world, in comparison to ours?
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While reading Age of Innocence, it is pretty cool recognizing names of places in New York City in the book that i have been to. In that sense, culture has preserved these historical locations in society. However, one can witness how drastically society has changed from the time depicted in Age of Innocence. The biggest thing that comes to my mind is how superficial all the people seem. That is to me, at least. The majority of the characters (Mrs. Mingott) seem really pretentious. They seem as the type of people who are over-obsessively concerned with how people view them. They are always concerned about their "reputation." Then again, there is a lot of this in today's society. People in modern society even pay people, known as Public Relations, to make sure that they have a clean image, or an image that will make them money. That is probably the biggest aspect of Wharton's world that i would hate living in.
ReplyDeletein my mind:
ReplyDeleteAge of Innocence=Gossip Girl.
Evidence 1:
Nate Archibald= Newland Archer
Ellen Olenska=Serena Van der Woodsen
May Welland= Blair Waldorf
Julius Beaufort=Chuck Bass
Evidence 2:
Oh look here they actually are performing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VLF0uphGLw
*note: they are not played by the correct person, which makes it oh so ironic, for the enlightened viewer. but the ending is really relevant to this question.
Evidence 3:
They both take place in New York.
Culture today is very much the same as it was in Wharton’s time, if you’re in the right places, but even if you are not parts still echo.
Part of me, would love to live in Wharton's sensible superficial society, existing in a place, where appearance is everything. It would be like a game and the drama would be so entertaining. But I feel that eventually the pettiness would frustrate me.
Personally, as an international student, I could connect with the society that Wharton created, similar to an Asian society. Influenced by Confucianism, Asian people are self-conscious about their appearance because Confucius taught his students that being well dressed and good-looking are big parts of etiquette and being a high class man. In fact, Plastic Surgery is done by a lot of people and the technique of this type of surgery is thriving to meet people's demands. Of course, I am from a small part of Asia and it is hard for me to represent the whole culture of Asian society. But to compare with America, Asian people definitely care about how they will be seen by others. In America, generally, a lot of people drive Toyota which has a good quality but not an extremely expensive car. I do not know if this is true or not, but Americans seem more practical when they spend money. They do not spend a lot of money for the sake of pretending to be rich. In Korea, one’s car and house are symbols and standards of wealth which bring a lot of people to buy BMW or Mercedes Benz even if they cannot sufficiently afford it .In any case, the novel, Age Of Innocence, is not all about people's attitude in caring about their appearance. However, what I felt from the opening scene in the novel is that Wharton formed a society that is similar to the Asian society rather than the American society. I would be tired of living for other people's eyes rather than being myself if I lived in Wharton's society. In that society, people would be judgmental, especially based on the appearance, and rumors would spread out fast with all the gossips.
ReplyDeleteI can actually see some of the elements of this culture in LCDS: a). We try not to be, but as a private school we are somewhat elitist. b). Gossip gets around fairly fast. c). Dress code, anyone? If our clothing isn't considered "proper," there are consequences. and d). The people in Age of Innocence are judged every day, and earn a place in society based on their performance (and money and family). In school, we are judged daily, and receive grades.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I would like to claim that society has evolved past the elitist snobby rituals seen in Age of Innocence, it is hard to definitively say that it doesn't exist any more. I agree with you Emily that as much as some of us prefer to turn a blind eye to it, being a private school is somewhat elitist, and I have been judged by some public school students because I go to a private school. I also agree that the social atmosphere in most high schools contains a lot of judging and gossiping, unfortunately that just gets pinned on teenagers being teenagers. Today's political atmosphere is very similar to the social interactions in Age of Innocence. Politicians are caring more of what their constituents think of them, rather than what the "commoners" want. The polarized situation in Washington is created by two caucuses caring about maintaining their elevated social status and voting straight party lines (similar to keeping within the unseen, yet unbreakable social laws in Age of Innocence) rather than caring about what the voters want.
ReplyDeleteI think in many ways, society today wishes Wharton's world still existed. Look at prom. It's the one night a year when you have to dress up to a comparable degree to Wharton's characters. It's a somewhat big deal who you go with, how late you show up, etc. There's a lot of judgment over the dress you pick. A sophomore once told me that she can remember the dress of EVERY girl at prom last year. She went on to rattled off a half dozen, critiquing each one.
ReplyDeleteI see a lot of Age of Innocence in my parents' world as well. Before elections, my mom always goes to parties at people's houses to meet and support local candidates. When she comes home, she analyzes the food, the guest list, the size and beauty of the hostess's house, etc. And maybe she'll also discuss the candidate as well.
I think people refer to old traditions/rules because it's just easier to have a set of rules to follow. As long as you do what's expected of you, you won't go wrong. It's much riskier to be original and do something different.