Ellen Olenska is a cultural hybrid who was influenced by
French culture during her marriage with the Count but has returned to America
where the social customs are very different.
French society is driven by experience and understanding while the Old
New York society remains in a perpetual state of innocence which is most
prominent among the women. The Old New York society is driven by old fashioned
customs that society blindly obeys without understanding why or questioning
them, “inexorable conventions that tied things together and bound people down
to the old pattern”. The lack of understanding leads to a very superficial
society. This disgusts Ellen Olenska who asks “Does no one want to know the
truth here, Mr. Archer? The real loneliness is living among all these kind
people who only ask one to pretend!”. Because Ms.Olenska moved away with the
Count, she was not conditioned to forever remain in a state of innocence like
her fellow American women as Mr. Archer states, “the Polish Count must have
robbed her of her fortune as well as her illusions”. As a result she is able to
see parts of the society that the other women have to been taught to remain
blind too. This difference as she states is the reason for her loneliness. Newland
Archer also sees through the “illusions” of the American social system. Like Countess Olenska, he is “sick of the
hypocrisy that would bury alive a woman of her age if her husband were to live
with harlots”. He believes “women ought to be free – as free as we are”; an
unconventional viewpoint that Countess Olenska embodies in many ways. She doesn’t need to be constantly accompanied
by a man. For example, she ended a conversation with a gentlemen even though “etiquette
required that she should wait, immovable as an idol, while the men who wished
to converse with her succeeded each other at her side.” However she doesn’t purposely
going against the customs, she was “unaware of having broken any rule”. Because
of this, Newland Archer and Countess Olenska have a special bond, “there are
only two people here who make me feel as if they understood what I mean and
could explain things to me: you and Mr. Beaufort”. The contrast between a
society based on experience(the French) and
a society of innocence(The Old New York society) is highlighted by the
contrast of Countess Olenska and May Welland who are foils of each other. Mr. Archer is fascinated with the Countess who
represents the realism that is lacking in the superficial Old New York Society.
In fact, when thinking of his fiancée, Mr. Archer is “discouraged by the thought that
all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product”. However with
Countess Olenska he knows she will say what’s on her mind and won’t be “oppressed
by his creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy
of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and longdead ancentresses”. Through the
countess, Mr.Archer identifies the “illusions” that everyone else is blinded to
and he says she is “opening my eyes to things I’d looked at so long that I’d
cease to see them”.
["French society is driven by experience and understanding while the Old New York society remains in a perpetual state of innocence which is most prominent among the women. The Old New York society is driven by old fashioned customs that society blindly obeys without understanding why or questioning them, “inexorable conventions that tied things together and bound people down to the old pattern”."]
ReplyDeleteI hate to say this, but I find your description of the two societies in Paris and New York as rather broad and a little superficial. I suspect there are different layers of societies in both cities . . . and in other cities. It's possible that Ellen Olenksa merely adhered to a less conventional society found in Paris and other parts of Europe. But like New York, the European cities had societies that were just as rigid and conventional as the one in which Ellen's family is a part of. And there were societies in New York and other parts of the U.S. that were unconventional.