Status Updates From Az ártatlanság kora

Oh my god … 😭😭

EACH TIME YOU HAPPEN TO ME ALL OVER AGAIN... that's how i feel about e*ma 😭

Wharton shows Newland’s conflict through his inspiration of Ellen’s need for independence. He says she “doesn’t care a hang about where she lives – or about any of our little social sign-posts” (Wharton 122). Newland admires her desire for freedom, but him referring to “our” shows that he still wants her to have a connection to the ideals of the era. His feelings for Ellen make his engagement to May harder.

Wharton shows conflict through Newland Archer's struggle between his own desires and the expectations of New York society. He is engaged to May Welland, but Ellen Olenska makes him question the strict rules that control women's lives and their future. When Archer says, "Women ought to be free-as free as we are," it reveals that his feelings for Ellen are causing him to challenge the values he once accepted (Wharton).

“The silence that followed lay on them with the weight of things final and irrevocable. It seemed to Archer to be crushing him down like his own grave-stone; in all the wide future he saw nothing that would ever lift that load from his heart.” (Wharton 153)

The forbidden love
Causing pain for all involved
But is it worth it?