Lily and Isabel are both extremely attractive and charming, which cause them to have more than one marriage propos

The possibility of remaining unmarried and independent is not a realistic option for Lily because she has neither the financial resources to care for herself nor the financial support of family and friends once they turn their back on her. Isabel has both of these advantages as well as the love and respect of her family and friends. Sadly, to many of the people in her life Lily is merely a decorative object whose beauty and charm make her a valuable asset to them: '...She felt herself of no more account among them than an expensive toy in the hands of a spoiled child ( The House of Mirth, 231). She is not entirely blameless though for she allows them to treat her this way and considers this treatment to be worth the benefits.

There are a very limited number of possibilities open to young women who refuse to conform to society's ideals and expectations of them. A woman's future is not her own to create. Madame Merle puts it rather well when she says: " A woman, it seems to me, has no natural place anywhere; wherever she finds herself she has to remain on the surface and, more or less to crawl" ( The Portrait of a Lady, 217). Unfortunately, this seems true for both Isabel and Lily, despite Isabel's advantage of wealth, simply because they are women. Isabel becomes trapped in a loveless marriage and knows she is partially to blame for her own misery: " Nothing was a pleasure to her now; how could anything be a pleasure to a woman who knew that she had thrown away her life? There was an everlasting weight on her heart-( The Portrait of a Lady,465). Lily is also miserable and ' feels the clutch of solitude at her heart, the sense of being swept like a stray uprooted growth down the heedless current of the years ( The House of Mirth, 306). Like Isabel, she knows the role that she played in her own unhappiness, and this knowledge makes her misfortunes all the more unbearable. She is not a strong enough person to cope with life's hardships, and her intense need for 'a brief bath of oblivion' due to lack of sleep and utter emotional exhaustion lead to her untimely death. Isabel is a much stronger person than Lily and chooses to live with the consequences of her mistakes even if that means being miserable and unsatisfied with her life. Both characters strive for independence, but ultimately the result of all their 'free' choices, which they feel compelled to accept, lead them to an inevitably tragic end.

Lily and Isabel's determination to retain their independence is ultimately self-defeating. They fail to realize that it is within their power to make their lives better despite the obstacles they perceive to be standing in their way. Isabel marries Osmond for the wrong reasons just as Lily does not make an effort to be with Seldon for the wrong reasons. For Lily, Seldon represents the freedom that she herself desires but as a woman can never have. Isabel sees Ralf this way as well and calls him an 'apostle of freedom'. Lily measures her self worth in terms of how beautiful and manipulative she can be. She considers herself to be a product of her environment as a way of partially shifting the blame from her own character. Seldon knows that Lily is superficial and ambitious but he also sees her potential.

The following quote from The Portrait of a Lady is indicative of why marriage is not always the most appealing option for women for women as independent-minded as Lily and Isabel: ' A women has to change a great deal to marry.' ( The Portrait of a Lady, 601) Neither one of them is willing to make the necessary changes even though Isabel eventually gets married and Lily wants to. Isabel is much truer to herself than Lily is. Lily is a kind of social chameleon who changes herself to adapt to her surroundings. She knows that she is only valuable to her 'friends' as long as she is useful to them. She accepts this role of a 'decorative object' because she sees herself as having little else to offer: ' She

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Approximate Word count = 2980
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)