• Eman K. Mukattash

  Author

Wharton's portrayal of the attempts of the upper-class Lily and the working-class
Nettie at recovering social security turns The House of Mirth into a rich ground for a Marxist
reading of class and gender. It leaves space to challenge the traditional Marxist notion of the
individual as a product of class. By contrasting Lily's fall from the upper-class and Nettie's reentry
to the working-class, I propose to prove that the classical Marxist notion of class struggle
can be subjected to critique. Emancipation is not only economic but is also the "restoration of
the human world and of human relationships to man himself."
Yet, though change is possible in the case of the two women, it is Nettie, not Lily, who manages
to challenge the economically deterministic views inherent in traditional Marxism. Far from any
upper-class prejudices, Wharton seems to spot hope in the figure of the working-class woman.

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