The Age of Innocence is set in New York City in the late 1800’s. At the time, New York had an intricate social system that was heavily divided by class. The social expectations and customs were very rigid and in order to fit into the society, people of the upper classes had to conform. The fabric of this society is complex and very well defined. The social gatherings and dinners are what form the shape of the lives of the characters. Wharton writes, “In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs…” (Wharton 20). The way of behaving that Wharton describes is a direct result of the social construct of this time and place.
The time and the place of the book is what creates the entire conflict. Had the book been set in another time and place, there would be no conflict. The major conflict of the book is Newland Archer’s love for the Countess Olenska. He is engaged and she is technically still married, though she’s estranged from her husband. If the book were not set in New York City in the early 1900;s, then these characters would be free to pursue their true desires. Near the end of the book, when Newland realizes that all of New York has conspired to prevent him from pursuing his true desires, Wharton writes, “It was the old New York way of taking life ‘without effusion of blood’: the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than ‘scenes,’ except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them. As these thoughts succeeded each other in his mind Archer felt like a prisoner in the centre of an armed camp. He looked about the table, and guessed at the inexorableness of his captors…” (Wharton 149).
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