Thursday, June 30, 2011

The House of Mirth Drawing-Room

I think that although she wants to be able to make up a drawing room, it would only work for her if she is married and is "able to make up a man's drawing room." She looks down on Gertie, but Gertie is able to do her own drawing room on her own terms but without the need for a man. Lily doesn't have to be married in order to have a drawing room to express her artistic soul, she is just too afraid of having to be alone and create her own living space around the drawing room. I think that symbolizes that women are able to be given an illusion of power by being able to do over a man's drawing room, but they really are just disillusioned as it is the men who own the house and the objects that make up the drawing room. It leads back to the caged bird analogy.

3 comments:

  1. I agree about the analogy of the caged bird in reference to Lily. The drawing room seems to be a pretty important thing that she wants to be able to accomplish of owning. Throughout you see Lily character dependent on the male figure to where she feels like that is where she will be able to have this success from. For instance, why she feels she needs a husband with a lot of money. Lily feels that this drawing room would be her space that she would be able to do what she loves to do and would be her own. I also agree with the disillusionment of the man owning that own and thus him owning everything within the home including every room. It seems that Lily is struggling with her debt that she has caused by gambling but is just looking for a way to get out through a man even though she is the one that caused it. She does seem to not agree with Gertie since she is doing everything she pleases without a man to have to help her and guide her along the way. Lily seems envious of this but never refers to it as such. Lily does not want to be alone and feels that the only way everything she wants can happen is if she finds the right man to marry. In her eyes is a wealthy man, personality or not.

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  2. To me throughout the whole story the presence of material possessions ruled; and the drawing room summed up and represented the need for these possessions. In this social class it seems as if you are solely measured on what you have or what you have married in to. While the language is business-like and the main driving force is what you own or what you can have based on who you marry these people hold true to the fact that marriage is a social contract rather than a showing of love. It is more of a business move or social strategy in order to increase the level of ones own prosperity and to find true love you can always just sleep with someone else’s wife or husband. Lily’s yearning for her own drawing room rather than a normal marriage based on love is the proverbial bullet that she shoots into her own foot therefore hindering all her chances at happiness.

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  3. In response to others' comments about Lily's desire for a drawing room and it only being because she wants something to call her own, I disagree. I don't think that any drawing room is necessarily thought of as "a man's" room. Historically, the drawing room in a house (most commonly a wealthy person's house) was the room used for entertainment. Not only was the drawing room was used for evening entertainment, it was also used for the woman of the house to receive guests during the day while the husband was at work. If anything, the drawing room was a woman's room, which is why I think Percy's mother specifically expresses a wish that she not do-over the drawing room; she sees it as her own sense of pride.

    Lily obviously needed to marry, and marry money at that, in order to maintain her social lifestyle. Her desire to make over a drawing room seems to be more of a desire to have "a room of her own" not for writing but for entertaining in a way she was raised to believe as being socially fitting. While, yes, the drawing room would be more or less hers to decorate however she pleases, I think that the real reason she wants to do-over and own a drawing room is because she doesn't want to always be the one attending events, but rather hosting them. She wants to advance to a higher role within her social world.

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