The House of Mirth: Caught in the Web

The society in The House of Mirth loves to gossip and spread rumors, like those that surround Lily and Gus Trenor.

Poor Gerty. Poor Selden.  Poor Lily. Everyone is caught up in the giant web of misunderstanding thats is intricately weaving its way into the plot of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth.  Selden has embraced his love for Lily and admitted it to her, only to be bashed with her money concerns. Gerty finds herself in love with Selden (who is her cousin, ew), and therefore hates her friend Lily for being the focus of Selden's affections, "But on her bed sleep would not come, and she lay face to face with the fact that she hated Lily Bart (Wharton, 132)." And Lily adds to the confusion when she visits "Mrs. Trenor" who turns out to be out of town and is ambushed by Mr. Trenor and his advances.  Distraguht and terrifies Lily flees the house, as witnessed by Selden and another man. At this point, I am hating Mr. Trenor with a  passion.  He is an older man with a wife and fortune, yet he has trapped Lily in a horrible situation after pretending to simply off his help.  Lily again has stuck to her morals and intends to pay Mr. Trenor back everything that she owes him so that he will leave her alone.  If she doesn't pay him back and stop accepting his money, the rumors and constant harassment will never cease. Gerty really grows in my mind as one of my favorite characters in this part of the book as well because despite her resentment of the fact that Selden loves Lily instead of her, she accepts Lily into her home and allows her to spend the night, no questions asked.  She converses with Lily a little and realizes that Selden has come to love Lily of his own accord, not because of her flirtatiousness or mere beauty.  That would be really difficult, to overcome that intense hatred in order to understand more fully the situation.  That is something that does not often happen, especially in high school where teenagers, particularly girls, hold grudges and spread rumors about each other because of trivial things like boyfriends or whatever.  It can just be really hard to conquer your feelings toward a person, especially in a situation like Gerty's where Lily is favored by Gerty's love.  Her jealousy is intensified by the fact that she believes Lily is leading Selden on and will never actually marry him because of his money situation. I know that it would take a lot of self control for me to look past all of that in order to understand that she is deserving of a love that I wished could be mine.  Gerty is definitely next to Selden now on my list of favorite characters.  Then there is Selden: Selden who has finally accepted in his own mind that he loves Lily, told her, kissed her, and is expecting that she will agree to marry him (or at least hoping).  Now he has witnessed her leave the house of a married man, about whom rumors have already whispered scandalous associations with the lovely Lily.  The assumptions that no doubt immediately came to his mind are well reasoned.  They are incorrect, but sadly Selden doesn't know this.  This is even more tragic because he had been disguised by the gossiping about Trenor and Lily that he had overhead that night, and had wished that he could put an end to it to protect Lily. Now the rumors are being revealed before hie own eyes and this makes me pity both him and Lily.  I feel for Selden and his crushed hopes and I pity Lily for her deteriorated position in Selden's eyes.  Lily is unaware that Selden saw her leaving the Trenor household, but I am feeling bad for her anyways.  That feeling that comes when someone thinks something about you that isn't at all true, yet you cannot prove that it is false is horrible.  This is made even more true when the circumstance involves your reputation or perception in that person's mind, as in this case with Selden and Lily.  If the situation was as it appeared, Selden would have every right to disrespect Lily. This entry is extremely lengthy, but I'm honestly explaining and digesting this whole situation as much for my own benefit as well as for the blog.  The tragedy of the situation is even further emphasized when Lily expresses to Gerty the night after she fled from Mr. Trenor that Selden had long ago warned her of the dangers of society.  She wonders aloud if Gerty thinks that Selden would help her or would he condemn her, as all these other men have done.  Gerty, bless her heart, admits that she thinks he would help her, highlighting Selden's moral standings.