In her novel The Age of Innocence, Wharton (1996) presents two contrasting female characters, Ellen and May, while depicting New York’s high society in the 1870s. This paper focuses on the concept of domesticity and how Ellen and May deal with it. The most important virtue of True Womanhood in the nineteenth century was domesticity, and women could exist only within the family, bound to the domestic sphere of the home. However, a domestic sphere can also signify the unity of a nation in opposition to foreign threats. Although both Ellen and May can be viewed as victims of forced domesticity, their positions differ considerably when the domestic sphere is read as New York, or America itself. While Ellen fails to become a domestic housewife as a runaway Countess, she is again alienated and expelled as a foreigner. On the other hand, May tries her best to fit into the domestic sphere, but she also plays a major role in preserving the domestic land, which is New York, from the contamination of European foreignness that Ellen brings. Nevertheless, in the end, Wharton (1996) seems to point out the narrowness of the womanhood that is unable to understand women as individuals.

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Byun, J. (2016). Woman at home, woman in exile in Edith Wharton’s the age of innocence International Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, 2(3), 105-110