Edith Wharton’s, The Age of Innocence, tells the inside story of New York’s high society at the turn of the century. The main character, Newland Archer, is a privileged bachelor who enjoys his place among the city’s elite and revels in the the rituals and expectations that his social circle entails. However, all of that is challenged when he meets the alluring cousin of his fianceé Countess Olenska. Olenska and Archer fall in love, however, they can never be together because Archer is engaged and Olenska is still married to her estranged husband. Though both characters learn from one another, they are ultimately trapped because of the scandal and ruin their affair would cause their family. Edith Wharton uses dynamic characters to reveal the theme that when people’s true desires are stifled by rigid societal expectations, the person, and ultimately the society, are doomed to suffer from discontent. In the beginning of the novel, the character of Newland Archer is contented in his status amongst the elite of New York City’s upper-class. He is engaged to be married to May Welland who is a sweet and innocent girl who is his social equal. However, when he meets her cousin, Ellen Olenska, he becomes infatuated with her despite his being engaged. His love for Ellen causes him to not only question his upcoming marriage, but also the life he once loved. When he is visiting Ellen in her modest, but liberated home where she can fully be herself, he is suddenly filled with regret about his own life. Wharton writes, "The young man felt that his fate was sealed: for the rest of his life he would go up every evening between the cast-iron railings of that greenish-yellow doorstep, and pass through a Pompeian vestibule into a hall with a wainscoting of varnished yellow wood. But beyond that his imagination could not travel" (Wharton 63). Here, Archer realizes for the first time that he will be fated to a mundane life that he no longer wants. His mindset is beginning to change. Later on in the novel, he fully realizes his love for Ellen and he vows to be with her. However, Ellen has also changed. Newland, who was advising her on how to free herself from her cheating husband, helps Ellen see the protection that her family can provide for her. Because of this, she decides not to divorce her husband to avoid a scandal for her family. This also means that she must give Newland up even though she loves him as well. In one of their rare moments alone, she says, “’it was you who made me understand that under the dullness there are things so fine and sensitive and delicate that even those I most cared for in my other life look cheap in comparison.” (106). She then explains that her new way of seeing the world means she can’t be with him, “so that others may be saved from misery.” (106). Ellen, who once didn’t care for society’s oppressive mandates, is now a part of its fabric and she must give live without Archer even if it makes her unhappy. Both Ellen and Archer have been given, a “glimpse of a real life,” in each other. However, both must “go on with a sham one” because they’re trapped within the bonds of their privileged society. And, while both characters feel, “it's beyond human enduring,” they do what they must (107). Wharton solidifies these characters as symbols of how unyielding societal expectations can cause overwhelming discontent.