Newland archer biography sampler

Both he and Madame Olenska are free agents in their middle age: Newland should go for it. Newland Archer Back More. Back More Cite This Page. Tired of ads? Join today and never see them again. Logging out…. Logging out However, he also knows the opera well enough to respect it and love it. Newland Archer's contentment with his life is thoroughly developed in the first chapters.

When he engages himself to May, he is perfectly happy with his choice for a wife. May follows all the conventions of her society: she is beautiful, but not sexy; she adores him and lets him lead her intellectually; and she is trained to be perfectly innocent of all that he feels he is so worldly wise about. Marrying May will make Newland more masterly.

He'll be able to teach her his thinking and mold her to his desires. Newland feels as if he is acquiring an exquisite object of art, one that will show off his good taste. But then he changes drastically. He meets Ellen Olenska and is introduced to the freshness of her unconventional behavior. He begins to recognize the emptiness of the society that has been the center of his life.

He recognizes the dullness of his social equals and dreads the seeming inevitability of his becoming just like them. Most importantly, he recognizes the cruelty of their social condemnations and restrictions. Ellen and Newland's families think nothing of sacrificing her life for the purpose of maintaining their scandal-free existence. They even encourage her to return to her husband and cut her off financially when she refuses.

In seeing the way his society treats one of its members who has noble but quite divergent values, Newland begins to see it for its flaws. Newland's journey is the medium for much of Wharton's theme, which is that the truly good life is the one that is dedicated to the greater good. Newland Archer has to sacrifice the love of his life to do the right thing, and manages to be content.

It is a truly heroic action, despite the modern response to such ideas. Newland's internal journey is best reflected by the following pattern: happiness; the sudden introduction of something new; discontentment and a longing for the new; reconciliation with the old; and then contentment again. It is a very insular society, one that tolerates no divergence from its strict rules of etiquette and social distance.

Ellen Olenska comes in from the outside, unaware of the rigid confines of behavior. He has bohemian and intellectual newland archers biography sampler and Archer values his conversation and company because he stands, to a large extent, outside conventional society. He has, however, paid a price, in that he is poor and somewhat embittered.

Archer enjoys the conversation of the cultured Riviere. Later, Riviere shows up in New York, telling Newland that he was sent by Ellen's husband to try to convince her to return to Poland. It is an odd twist of fate, but Newland is most interested to know if Riviere is the secretary with whom Ellen was reported to have run away. The answer is never made clear.

Dallas Archer: Newland Archer's son. Artistic and spontaneous, Dallas stands in contrast to his restrained and self-denying father. We provide an educational supplement for better understanding of classic and contemporary literature. Please check back weekly to see what we have added. Please let us know if you have any suggestions or comments or would like any additional information.

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Newland archer biography sampler

Character Profile Newland Archer: The protagonist, from whose point of view much of the story is told. Facebook share Twitter WhatsApp. Harry Shippe Truman. Herbert Hoover. The Presidency of FDR. James Madison. John Quincy Adams. President Andrew Jackson. President Jackson. The Life of George Washington. Yet, she is conniving, described as the huntress Diana, and conspires to control Newland throughout the novel.

May's cousin, a non-conformist. Newland falls in love with her for her defiance of social convention. Ellen leaves her brutal husbad in Europe for the comforts of her home in New York. When she returns she finds New York very differnt from the simple paradise she had remembered. She falls in love with Newland but is silently banished back to Europe by her family.

May and Ellen's grandmother. The matriarch of New York society. Although she is the archetype of convention she attained her position by being defiant and aggressive in her youth. The "model of form" in New York society; he is addressed whenever matters of style or decorum are at issue. Yet, ironically, he is a lying adulterer. Ellen Olenska's aunt and caretaker.

Ellen's parents died young She is eccentric and avant-garde; she raise Ellen like a "gypsy foundling.