The House of Mirth, Book 1, Parts 7 and 8

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Part 7 begins with Judy Trenor giving Lily a long and melodramatic tirade about how she has scared off Percy with her spontaneous detour with Lawrence. Lily's friend is so naive that within her exhortation she would never even begin to believe that Lily and Lawrence's visit had anything to do with intimacy. However, now back at the estate Lily falls into her normal routine "...in which moments of seeming brilliancy and freedom alternated with long hours of subjection" (Wharton 62). After her long lecture, Mrs. Trenor summons Lily to pick up Gus Trenor on his way home from work. Lily does it with reluctance but, however, finds a silver lining to spending time with a such a "coarse dull man" (Wharton 67). While riding in the carriage with Gus, Lily very slyly presents her current financial problems to Gus, and with a simple sob story and bat of the eyes, Gus quickly decides to help Lily with her matters. With her money troubles soon to be resolved, Lily's overall mood immediately lifts. This shows, that although Lily is a very clever girl with a gift of manipulating people, she does let her own strife and problems easily upset her current mood. Some would say that her case is one of mountain peaks and valleys.

Lily's mood shifts from mountains to valleys

Part 8 takes place weeks later at the wedding between Jack Stepney and Miss Van Osburgh. I believe that Wharton uses this setting for the events about to take place in order to foreshadow that a dire and irreversible development may occur. At the wedding, whilst Lily is thinking about, "a soaring vastness to her scheme of life" (Wharton 72), her eyes meet with those of Lawrence Selden's and her prior aspirations of living a life of luxury with Gryce are shortly forgotten; Wharton writes, "his presence always had the effect of cheapening her aspirations" (Wharton 71). It is in Selden's presence that Lily becomes self conscious of her flirty nature among the other attendents. In a situation where she would have propitiated Mr. Rosedale, she now yields under the spell of Lawrence's observation, and takes a more polite and detached manner. During this part in the book, it is evident what Lily is attracted to and dislikes about Selden is his ambiguous nature to make her second guess the life she wants to live.