Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
That's my impression as well, especially as each time they met, he hardly recognized her. He had built up a completely fictitious picture in his mind of her appearance. Nor was she as unconventional and free from the restraints of society as he believed her to be. Her main claim to fame in that area was that she refused to let herself be tied forever to a marriage that was most unhappy for reasons that were never made entirely clear.
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I think she served another purpose, too, to point up an essential difference between Americans and Europeans. No matter how privilege and cultured, Americans were perforce a different stock and not just quasi or aspiring Europeans.
Ellen was an orphan, brought up by a peripatetic aunt one of whose husbands had a papal title, Ellen herself married abroad and had a title, and yet she was inherently American and wanted to be an American. Her love for Newland was in part because he awakened that sense in her. She chose to embrace that but had to renounce it, for May's sake and for the sake of Newland's own integrity as an American. While she frequently and amusingly deplores Americans' taste, I think Wharton claims the moral high ground for Americans and that has her personal stamp of approval.