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VOICE ONE:
I’m Phoebe Zimmermann.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Doug Johnson with the VOA Special English program, Peoplein America. Every week we tell about a person who was important inthe history of the United States. Today, we tell about writer EdithWharton.
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VOICE ONE:
A critic once described American writer Edith Wharton as a”self-made man.” She liked the comment and repeated it. Others saidshe was a product of New York City. But the New York she wrote aboutwas different from the New York of those who came after her.
Edith Wharton was born in New York City in Eighteen-Sixty-Two.New York then was several different cities. One New York was made upof people who worked for a living. The other was much smaller. Itwas made up of families who were so rich they did not need to work.
Edith was born into the wealthy New York. But there was a “right”wealthy New York and a “wrong” wealthy New York. Among the richthere were those who had been given money by parents orgrandparents. Then there were those who earned their own money, thenewly rich. Edith’s family was from the “right” New Yorkers, peoplewho had ‘old’ money. It was a group that did not want its way ofliving changed. It also was a group without many ideas of its own.It was from this group that Edith Wharton created herself.
VOICE TWO:
Like many girls her age, Edith wrote stories. In one of herchildhood stories, a woman apologizes for not having a completelyclean house when another woman makes an unexpected visit. Edith’smother read the story. Her only comment was that one’s house wasalways clean and ready for visitors. Edith’s house always was.
Edith spent much of her childhood in Europe. She was educated byspecial teachers, and not at schools.
If Edith’s family feared anything, it was sharp social, cultural,and economic change. Yet these were the things Edith would see inher lifetime.
The end of the Civil War in Eighteen-Sixty-Five marked thebeginning of great changes in the United States. The country thathad been mostly agricultural was becoming industrial. Businessmenand workers increasingly were gaining political and economic power.
Edith Wharton saw these changes sooner than most people. And sherejected them. To her, the old America was a victim of the new. Shedid not like the new values of money replacing the old values offamily.
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VOICE ONE:
In Eighteen-Eighty-Five, she married Edward Wharton. He was hersocial equal. They lived together for twenty-eight years. But it wasa marriage without much love.
In Nineteen-Thirteen, she sought to end the marriage. That shewaited so long to do so, one critic said, was a sign of her ties tothe idea of family and to tradition.
Some critics think that Edith Wharton began to write because shefound the people of her social group so uninteresting. Others sayshe began when her husband became sick and she needed something todo.
The fact is that Wharton thought of herself as a writer from thetime she was a child. Writing gave her a sense of freedom from therestrictions of her social class.
VOICE TWO:
Writing was just one of a seriesof things she did. And she did all of them well. She was interestedin designing and caring for gardens. She designed her own house. Shehad an international social life and left a large collection ofletters. In her lifetime she published about fifty books on a numberof subjects.
Many critics believe Edith Wharton should have written the storyof her social group. To do this, however, she would have had toremove herself from the group to see it clearly. She could not dothis, even intellectually. Her education and her traditions made itimpossible.
The subject of Edith Wharton’s writing became the story of theyoung and innocent in a dishonest world. She did not make aconnection between her work and her own life. What she had was theability to speak plainly about emotions that, until then, had beenhidden.
She also was among the first American women writers to gain asense of the world as an evil place. “Life is the saddest thing,”she wrote, “next to death.”
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VOICE ONE:
To show that she could do more than just write stories, she Wrotea book with Ogden Codman, “The Decoration of Houses.” It was verysuccessful. About the same time, her poems and stories also began tobe published in Scribner’s Magazine.
In Eighteen-Ninety-Nine her collection of stories, “The GreaterInclination,” appeared. It was an immediate success. When she was inLondon, she visited a bookstore. The store owner, who did not knowwho she was, handed her the book. He said to her, “This is whateveryone in London is talking about now.
VOICE TWO:
Three years later her first novel, “The Valley of Decision,” waspublished. Three years after that she published her first greatpopular success, the novel, “The House of Mirth.”
“The House of Mirth” is the story of a young woman who lacks themoney to continue her high social position. As in so many stories byEdith Wharton, the main character does not control what happens toher. She is a victim who is defeated by forces she does not fight toovercome. This idea is central to much of Edith Wharton’s bestwriting. The old families of New York are in conflict with the newlyrich families. The major people in the stories are trapped in ahopeless struggle with social forces more powerful than they. Andthey struggle against people whose beliefs and actions are not asmoral as theirs.
VOICE ONE:
This is the situation in one of Wharton’s most popular books,”Ethan Frome,” published in Nineteen-Eleven. Unlike her othernovels, it is set on a farm in the northeastern state ofMassachusetts. It is the story of a man and woman whose lives arecontrolled, and finally destroyed, by custom. They are the victimsof society. They die honorably instead of fighting back. If theywere to reject custom, however, they would not be the people theyare. And they would not mean as much to each other.
In Nineteen-Thirteen, Wharton’s marriage ended. It was the sameyear that she published another novel that was highly praised, “TheCustom of the Country.” In it she discusses the effects of newwealth in the late Nineteenth Century on a beautiful young woman.
VOICE TWO:
Most critics agree that most of Edith Wharton’s writing afterNineteen-Thirteen is not as good as before that time. It was as ifshe needed the difficulties of her marriage to write well. Much ofher best work seems to have been written under the pressure of greatpersonal crisis. After her marriage ended, her work was not as sharpas her earlier writing.
In Nineteen-Twenty, however, she produced, “The Age ofInnocence.” Many critics think this is her best novel. In it shedeals with the lack of honesty that lies behind the apparentinnocence of the New York social world. A man and woman see theirlives ruined because they have duties they cannot escape.
Edith Wharton received America’s top writing award, the PulitzerPrize, for “The Age of Innocence.” In Nineteen-Ninety-Three, themovie of “The Age of Innocence” created new interest in her work.
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VOICE ONE:
In the later years of her life, Wharton gave more and more of hertime to an important group of diplomats, artists, and thinkers.Among her friends was the American writer Henry James. She likedJames as a man and as a writer. She often used her car and driver totake him on short trips.
At one time, Henry James was hoping that his publisher wouldprint a collection of his many novels and stories. Wharton knew ofthis wish. And she knew that the publisher thought he would losemoney if he published such a collection. She wrote to the publisher.She agreed to secretly pay the publisher to print the collection ofher friend’s writings.
VOICE TWO:
In Nineteen-Thirty, the American National Institute of Arts andLetters gave Wharton a gold medal. She was the first woman to be sohonored. Four years later she wrote the story of her life, “ABackward Glance.” Edith Wharton died in Nineteen-Thirty-Seven at oneof the two homes she owned in France.
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VOICE ONE:
This Special English program was written by Richard Thorman. Itwas produced by Lawan Davis. I’m Phoebe Zimmermann.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Doug Johnson. Join us again next week for another Peoplein America program on the Voice of America.