The custom of the country / [electronic resource] by Edith Wharton.

New York : C. Scribner's Sons, 1913.

1 online resource (3 preliminary leaves, 3-594 pages)

Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010.

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Undine Spragg is the daughter of a midwestern middle-class couple who have moved to New York City at Undine's insistence to get away from the scandal caused by Mr. Spragg's successful but shady business dealings in the small town of Apex. Undine is determined to climb the social ladder into New York's upper class and tries for two years but fails to break into the café society. Finally, she meets Ralph Marvell who belongs to one of the "old moneyed" families. Ralph proposes and Undine accepts and is happy for a short time, until she realizes that Ralph's family is cash poor. They own a Washington Square mansion filled with generations of family portraits, antique silver, servants and a country house. However, the couple cannot afford to honeymoon in the fashionable St. Moritz, Switzerland, and instead, Ralph takes her to Sienna. Undine sulks about until Ralph gives in to her. Undine decides to enjoy the luxuries of her new class even though she cannot afford them, and thus begins a life of constant lies to cover the debts she incurs. Soon, she finds herself exploiting the men around her to get what she wants, leaving a carnage of male victimization in her wake. Some critics have dubbed Undine the most cruel woman protagonist of literature, and claim the novel has no feminist qualities. Others argue that the characters themselves compare European and American women within the text, and hold Undine an example of how intelligent women are forced to such behavior when the only profession allowed them is the role of wife, especially in the haute monde society.

Print version: Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937. Custom of the country. New York : C. Scribner's Sons, 1913

Books / Online

English

December 20, 2017

Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212