Wharton, every time I have hope you crush it!
But really, I think I wouldn’t be as satisfied if you didn’t crush it.
As I was reading Summer, particularly the middle on the Fourth of July, I couldn’t help but get excited for this country girl who was experience her first fairy tale love. He bought the perfect broche for her, he paid $10 just so they could ride around the lake together on a carriage, but more importantly he took her to the city that she had only been to a couple times. Harney kisses her after the fireworks in a deeply romantic moment and my heart flutters for them…. But only for a second, because I did realize I was only have way through the book, and this happy middle could not possibly stay happy, and no matter the love that Wharton presents her readers, she seems to always find a way to use the love to make an even more depressing ending.
Of course, as other have brought up it certainly could have been more depressing, should could have killed herself because she was so depressed, she could have publicly embarrassed herself by finding him and begging him to come back, only to be cruelly rejected, she could have also, as the book points out, become a prostitute to support her child that would be taken care of by someone else. So all and all, marrying the man, who has almost always looked out for her, besides his dull appeal, undoubtedly is the best possible result. However, when you’re reading it like a fairy tale and it ends in reality it is a let down. Harney could not be her Prince Charming, and she could only be Cinderalla for a little while, as she wore the slippers of the woman who was actually the fiancé to Harney.
I have to completely agree with your comment about how happy Charity and Harney are as a foreshadow to future events. I have come to realize with Wharton, if it contains a marriage, it can't be fairytale or by any means happy, but life sentence that chosen by the protagonist. If things had worked out for Charity, would she have remained in love with Harney or would she have grown up and realized their love was more of an idolization than reality?
ReplyDeleteI agree that this book is much better that it crushes hope. But I not even sure if there was much hope there to begin with, and Im almost happy that Charity got what she got in the end because it was her inability or unwillingness to change herself that spelled her demise.
ReplyDeleteChris Kiick
I like that fairytale metaphor, Ashina.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is a fairytale for Charity. For my précis I wrote about an article on Ethan Frome that related it to a fairytale. I think that Wharton was very in tune with fairytales and wanted to invert what fairytales were normally about and relate them to real life, so I think your metaphor fits for the novel and the author.
ReplyDelete-Stefanie Eggers