Edith Wharton¯s the Age of Innocence pride a vivid scene of cvanity fair¯ in New York in the late 19th century. Through a tragic love story between Ellen Olenska and Newland Archer, the author revealed °the old New York way of taking life cwithout effusion of blood¯: the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than cscenes,¯ except the behavior of those who gave rise to them±. In that age no one could challenge the upper social rules, or he would be exiled from the intercommunication of the upper society.

Both Ellen Olenska and Newland Archer are the members of upper society. Ellen is from an old aristocratic family of New York, she is taken to Europe when she is a young girl and marries there. But her marriage with a Polish count is a fault, so she comes back to New York, her home land, for her relations¯ helpªshe wants to divorce. But what she gets is not what she expects. She can not get any support, and her cnoble¯ relations try their best to drive her back to her husband, just to keep their good reputation. Her innocent love affair

is mind and comes to realize and accept the new changes in his life: children grows up into adults, do the things he had desired but never did, the society becomes more open and tolerant. In this time he will review °what a deep rut he had sunk ± and admits ° The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else. At least that was the view that the men of his generation had taken.± But what is the use of knowing ° right and wrong, honest and dishonest, respectable and

even heard from Miss Welland (not disapprovingly)

with old Mrs. Mingott. Archer entirely approved of

of the few black sheep that their blameless stock

future wife should not be restrained by false prudery

the cousin always referred to in the family as "poor

While Newland is more round and complex character. He is always swinging between his own mind and the reality. He °felt himself distinctly the superior of these chosen specimens of old New York gentility; he had probably read more, thought more, and even seen a good deal more of the world, than any other man of the number.± So he defends Ellen¯s behavior by saying °I¯m sick of the hypocrisy that would bury alive a woman of her age if her husband prefers to live with harlots± and the coutrageous¯ words like °women ought to be freeªas free as we are.± When he finds Ellen is more close to him, spiritually, than his betrothedªMay Welland, his heart unconsciously turns to Ellen. However, Newland is not a warrior who has the boldness to break the game rules. He himself is somewhat the defender of the tradition. His vanity is shown by the self-contradictory attitude:

It was

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1108
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)