Lily Bart and the Nature of Nature - Literature Essay Samples

Nature, whether in the form of the arctic tundra of the North Pole or the busy street-life of Manhattan, was viewed by Naturalist writers as a phenomena which necessarily challenged individual survival; a phenomena, moreover, which operated on Darwins maxim of the survival of the fittest. This contrasted sharply with the Romantic view, which worshipped Nature for its beauty, beneficence and self-liberating powers. In Edith Whartons The House of Mirth, Lily Bart attempts to survive within the urbane drawing-room society she inhabits. Although Selden uses Romantic nature imagery to describe Lily, throughout the novel such Romantic imagery and its accompanying meanings are continually subverted. By simply invoking different understandings and views of Nature, Wharton demonstrates that not only is Lilys ability to adapt to various environments isnt necessarily salutary, but also that flower imagery, used in an ironic fashion, captures perfectly Lilys need for climates of luxury. It is Wh artons image of a hot-house, however, which ultimately captures the ambiguous nature of what, to Wharton, truly is Nature. Lily, although a city-dweller, is described by Selden as one who is intimately connected with a benevolent, life-giving Nature. He exclaims, The attitude revealed the long slope of her slender sides, which gave a kind of wild-wood grace to her outline- as though she were a captured dryad subdued to the conventions of the drawing-room (13). Seldens notion of Lilys sylvan freedom and her interconnectedness to all things natural is echoed later in the novel, when Lily is either described as, or compared to, a rose, (167) an orchid (150), a water plant (53) and a fine flower (216). Even her name, Lily, like the kind of flower, relates to nature and things natural. Thus a cursory reading of such material would suggest that Lily, despite her urban status, manages to retain a spiritual connection with Mother Nature, a connection, unfortunately, which is restrained and subdued by the conventions of the drawing-room. It could be argued, therefore, that Wharton views the industrial city as preventing Lily from understanding and experiencing her true self- namely that self present in a state of nature We shall quickly see, however, that Wharton doesnt always share Seldens Romantic view of Nature. Throughout The House of Mirth we witness Lilys ability to adapt herself (53) to whatever environment she enters. Wharton writes, Selden noted the fine shades of manner by which she harmonized herself with her surroundings (192) and describes, Her faculty for renewing herself in new scenes, and casting off problems of conduct as easily as the surroundings in which they had arisen (196). Such ability is seen most clearly when Lily is forced, unwillingly, to enter the Gormer milieu (234). Although she doesnt enjoy this milieu it is through her immense social facility, her long habit of adapting herself to others without suffering her own outline to be blurred, the skilled manipulation of all the polished implements of her craft that she wins an important place in the Gormer group (237). This adaptability, which ostensibly parallels Darwins notion that biological species, in order to survive, must adapt to changing environments, does not, in reality, contribute to Lilys survival. Nor does it allow her to retain any sort of spiritual connection with Nature. Rather its effect is quite the opposite. Wharton writes, (Lilys) faculty for adapting herselfŠserved her now and then in small contingencies, but ultimately hampered her in the decisive moments of life. She was like a water-plant in the flux of the tides (53). Whartons simile here, She was like a water-plant in the flux of the tides, changes the way in which the reader must understand and view Nature. Whereas Selden, when describing Lily, used Nature to represent a kind of benevolent, self-freeing phenomena, Wharton uses Nature in this instance to represent a heartless, unthinking Dar winian process where only the strong survive. Although Lily is still described in terms of natural imagery (a water-plant), her connection to Nature is no longer liberating or life-renewing, but rather serves to, as Wharton tells us, hamper her in the decisive moments of life (53). Thus in this instance Natures character is altered, which in turn changes how we can interpret the naturalistic imagery used to describe Lily. Her adaptability as a water-plant, rather than being spiritually rewarding, instead proves ultimately unhealthy.Although Lily has, as we have seen, adaptive powers, Wharton makes it clear that such powers, in addition to not always being healthy or beneficial, are actually quite limited in scope. Although Lily can survive for a while outside of her high-society drawing-rooms, she is inexorably drawn back to them, like a swimmer coming up for water. Wharton tells us, (Lilys) whole being dilated in an atmosphere of luxury, it was the background she required, the only climate she could breathe in (26). We see again how the meaning of Nature has been completely transformed. Unlike Seldens view of Nature, which held that actual, physical surroundings held the key to Lilys well-being and self-liberation, in this case Nature has nothing to do with pastoral, idyllic settings, but instead refers to drawing-rooms. But similar to Seldens view of Nature, we see that, Nature, (in this case, life in the drawing-rooms) is absolutely necessary for Lilys continued existence. It is that which gives her life and allows her to breathe. As Selden tells Lily, Your lungs are thinking about air, if you are not. And so it is with your rich people-they may not be thinking of money, but theyre breathing it in all the while 69). Not only, however, does Wharton (again) completely transform the meaning of Nature, she also ironically draws upon Romantic nature imagery to complete this transformation. Wharton avers, (Lily) could not figure herself anywhere but in a drawing- room, diffusing elegance as a flower sheds perfume (100). The phrase as a flower sheds perfume captures accurately the irony which Wharton sees in using Romantic nature imagery (i.e. flowers) within the context of her own version of Nature, that of the drawing rooms. To say that a flower sheds perfume connotes the image of a flower giving off an odor, an odor which is then bottled and made into a perfume, a perfume which is then used by high-society ladies to smell nice. Thus Wharton, in choosing to describe Lily as a flower reinforces the notion that Lilys Nature, her natural habitat was that of the drawing-room. But as she is a flower that sheds perfume Wharton captures the double-meaning extant in such a symbol, showing that not only was Lilys natural habitat the drawing-room, but also pointing out the irony of Lilys Nature. Wharton demonstrates that Lilys supposed Nature is a world in which flowers dont shed scents or natural odors but rather smell like bottled, artificial perfu me, ironic, of course, because perfume is not commonly thought of as natural. Whartons final, and most effective, re-imaging of Nature comes when Lily contrasts the dreary limbo of dinginess with that little illuminated circle in which life reached its finest efflorescence, as the mud and sleet of a winter night enclose a hot-house filled with tropical flowers. All this was the natural order of things, and the orchid basking in its artificially created atmosphere could round the delicate curves of its petals undisturbed by the ice on the panes (150). This passage is the absolute symbolic crux of Whartons Nature imagery, capturing fully the way in which Wharton views the relationship between Lily and Nature. In this instance Nature is not singly portrayed as a benevolent, life-giving force, nor a heartless, amoral reality, or as being embodied in high-societys drawing-rooms. Rather Nature is an artificially created atmosphere, an insulated natural world with a natural state of things protected from the harsh Nature of external reality; a world, if you will, within a world, a nature within a greater nature. This symbology corresponds nicely to Whartons dual fashioning of Nature. Her two views of Nature, that it is an unthinking, unfeeling harsh physical reality, or, conversely, that it exists in the drawing-rooms of New York city as well as in the physical, rural environment, is embodied perfectly in Whartons image of a hot-house. The Nature, and natural forces, that exist within the hot-house can be viewed as being akin to the Whartons Nature, and natural forces, that exist in a drawing-room. Conversely, the external Nature which rages on outside of the hot-house, can be viewed as being akin to Whartons (other) Nature, and natural forces, of an unthinking, unfeeling harsh physical reality. If we accept, as we should, that the orchid represents, symbolically, Lily, we can understand fully Lilys relation to Nature, viewed in either sense. To represent Lily as an orchid basking in its artificially created atmosphere hearkens back to Seldens Romantic view of Lily as a physically natural being which needed to be in Nature to truly understand and free her self. Seldens view, however, employed the idea of Nature as being external, un-artificial and benevolent. Whartons hot-house although benevolent, is artificial and does not exist in rural nature, although it does function within rural nature. In any event, Wharton states that the orchards (Lilys) development was the natural order of things. Such a statement, in turn, reveals the dual ways of thinking about what is actually natural. Is an orchid growing within a hot-house, within a larger nature, truly natural? That, of course, depends on how you choose to view Nature, a view left ambiguous by the decidedly ambiguous nature of a hot-house. Whartons The House of Mirth is a novel in the Naturalist tradition, but a novel which manages to express the endless complexities of Nature at work both in r ural countrysides as well as urban jungles.