Edith Whartons The Custom of the Country :: Edith Wharton Custom country Essays

Edith Whartons The Custom of the CountryIn The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton weaves affair and greed into the society of her novel. Undine, the heroine of the novel, has insatiable wants, complete disregard for anyone elses demand and frightening precision in getting what she desires. Although the novel very seldom treads into the offices of W either Street and only alludes to the transaction practices making and breaking the characters, business is brought into the parlor and even bedroom of Undine Spragg,She had done this incredible thing, and she had done it from source that seemed, at the time, as clear, as logical, as free from the distorting mists of sentimentality, as any of her fathers financial enterprises. It had been a bold move, but it had been as carefully calculated as the happiest Wall Street stroke. She had gone absent with Peter because, after the decisive scene in which she had put her powerfulness to the test, to yield to him seemed the surest mean s of victory. (p.229)In this passage she goes over the recent invidious events of divorcing her sickly husband and then, compromising her respectability, goes about with Peter caravan Degen. She describes this shoo-in with only regret that she had been foiled in her plans. The language of this reflection is all business, a disturbing theme of the novel. She does not feel even clemency for the hard-working husband who forfeited his health to give her what he could, and thinks of her relationship with Van Degen as a game of cat and mouse. Undine and her comrades of the nouveau riche social climbers embody the ace of the modern American woman, so effected by the commerce infused atmosphere, they locomote their declare kind of entrepreneurs. Looking for husbands they go about their work with particular study and in Undines case, careful emulation, hoping for a glamorous lookstyle for which their husbands will merely provide a good name and unmeasured funds. This passage e xemplifies Undines philosophy on how to go about life by calculating and trading. Undine in her constant need to emulate and sound in, takes from the business background of the novel the same skills and puts them to use in her own selfish plots.