Women Against the Grain: The Fictional Heroines of Edith Wharton

Reflecting her own struggles as a woman writer, the American novelist, Edith Wharton reveals her complaint against the oppressive, authoritative social norms that deny women their own rights and reduce them to decorative objects. Accordingly, Wharton s female characters always find themselves at odds with the social environment as limiting to their desire for a free, satisfying life. The research attempts to study Wharton s female characters in The House of Mirth and Summer. Both novels show the predicament of women who are brought up to become decorative, marriageable objects for the sake of social propriety.