Edith Wharton was claimed to be a feminist especially after her novel, House of Mirth was published. This is due to her preference of emphasizing, either directly or figuratively, on the repression of women in her novels recurrently.

What did Edith Wharton do in the Gilded Age?

Edith Wharton. Wharton drew upon her insider’s knowledge of the upper class New York aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921.

What role did women play in Wharton’s Society?

In the society where Edith Wharton lived women did not fit into any creative or participant role. They were regarded as a supremely satisfying object of masculine possession. The male automatically became interested in parading the well-decked woman as his proud possession.

What happened to Edith Wharton’s first husband?

In 1908 her husband’s mental state was determined to be incurable. In the same year, she began an affair with Morton Fullerton, a journalist for The Times, in whom she found an intellectual partner. She divorced Edward Wharton in 1913 after 28 years of marriage.