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Love in stormy relationships

the weaklings bruised, exhausted, flutteringback to earth.” (Chopin, The Awakening, p.110)And this becameof that advice, “The water of the Gulf stretched out beforeher, gleaming with the million lights of the sun. The voice ofthe sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring,murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there was no livingthing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the airabove, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to thewater.” This quote foreshadows the outcome of Edna’s attempt tobreak from tradition, it suggests her death. Using suchinviting imagery to describe the sea and the reoccurringreference to the bird allow us to formulate an idea as to whathappened to Edna, to hint at the inevitability of her suicide.Imprisonment, a theme threaded throughout House of Mirth. Theimprisonment of women by their roles in society and marriage.This institute of marriage becomes a prison for Wharton’scharacters; one from which the only escape comes in death ordivorce; an escape into or out of a male-dominated world. LilyBart(heroine of House of Mirth), never marries and finds herprison in society, its inacceptance of an individual female, anunmarried female. This lifestyle creates confrontation betweensocial conventionappropriateness versus the individual;conforming to society and being acceptedadmired or breakingfree at the risk of scrutiny, scorn, and the disapproval of therest of society. Lily, imprisoned in a society where theallowance of individual freedom depended on the threat of theintegrity to the structure of society:“How alluring the world outside the gilded cage appeared toLily, as she heard its door clang on her. In reality, as sheknew, the door never clanged: it stood always open; but most ofthe captives were like flies in a bottle, and having once flownin, could never regain their free...

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