Edith Wharton

Add a comment with your reflections on this author.

8 comments:

Charlotte T (Mrs. Anderson) said...

I chose Edith Wharton because I heard her books had good plot lines, fascinating ideas, and captivating characters. Most of her books are about people, relationships, and society. I read The Age of Innocence, The Glimpses of the Moon, and The Touchstone. The books were long, but not too difficult to understand and they were interesting. The longest book was less than 300 pages with a small font. I would defiantly recommend the books to anyone, even for out-of-school reading and I would reread the books. The books were not easy and yet not too challenging to write about. After much analysis I understood and saw trends in the books. I would definitely recommend Edith Wharton for an American Author Thesis project. Her writing is interesting and captivating and yet plain and worth reading.

Emily B (Ms.Brown) said...

I would recommend taking a lot of time exploring her extensive collection of novels before choosing Edith Wharton. I read The Age of Innocence, The Buccaneers, The Custom of the Country, Twilight Sleep, and The House of Mirth. Though I enjoyed Age of Innocence and House of Mirth, the others were very challenging to get through, and all of my books were about 300-400 pages. Her themes are very consistent (at least throughout the books I read), so it provides a really simple basis for your thesis, which of course makes the entire paper a little easier. Her writing is often somewhat humorous and overall pretty interesting, but I would definitely say that you should explore all of her novels before picking her and before choosing which ones to read.

Emma R (Ms. Brown) said...

Edith Wharton is a challenging author to choose, but it was definitely worth reading her work, as it is beautiful to read and full of themes, symbols, and interesting characters. All of the books I chose had a setting of New York City in the late 19th century. Wharton focuses on the lives of the wealthy and entitled, twisting together plot lines that reveal the true nature of wealthy people. It was very easy to find themes and connections between her books, as most of them were about relationships between parents and children, marriage, innocence, issues with appearance, and societal pressures. I recommend reading The Age of Innocence, The Buccaneers, The House of Mirth, and The Customs of a Country. These four all focused on young women dealing with pressures from their parents about finding love. Overall, Wharton, even if challenging at times, gives amazing insight on the idea of the “American Dream” that you will definitely never forget!

Sarah (Mrs. Anderson) said...

Edith Wharton’s works are set in a similar time period, and all of her novels document life in upper class society, which is what intrigued me. Although the readings may be dense and hard to follow at times because of all the characters she introduces, I found the reading experience to become more enjoyable for me as I read more of her novels. Despite the glamorous settings of her novels, the conflicts the characters faced were heartbreaking. However, these conflicts were similar in nature and I found it easy to find a topic to write my Author Thesis about. Although the reading process may be tedious at first, I believe that Edith Wharton is a good author to pick because it was worth it in the end to have a lot of great quotes and several solid arguments to choose from.

Anonymous said...

When choosing my author, I was told that Edith Wharton's novels were very much like Gossip Girl, only back 100 years ago. Additionally her work addressed issues surrounding the hierarchy, class issues, and upper class society. These topics really interested me and prompted me to choose Wharton as my author. Ultimately, I really enjoyed her novels and found them both interesting and relatively easy to draw themes from. Some of the books I read included The Age of Innocence (which is her most famous work), The Glimpses of the Moon, The Buccaneers, The House of Mirth, and The Customs of the Country. While I found the customs of the country to be rather boring, they all worked well in finding similar themes and ideas. Overall I was able to write a paper that I enjoyed simply because I was interested in all the topics and events being addressed in Wharton's novels. Her books are packed with effective and useful quotations and are great for writing a large scale essay like the Author Thesis. While some of her books largely resemble each other, I enjoyed reading her novels and found a variety of characters and different perspectives. Most of her books are moderately long, they vary from 100pages to 200 (depending on the version of the book) but all are very easy to read and interpret. While the middle of the books become rather bland, the endings always make up for it. If you find yourself interested in shows like Gossip girl which address wealth and possessions, Edith Wharton is the perfect author for you!

Unknown said...

Although Edith Wharton's works are relatively dense, she provides in depth plot lines and interesting characters. I would definitely recommend her for the author project, but only to one who wants to challenge themselves and has given careful consideration to her books. I read The Age Of Innocence, The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, and Summer, and despite struggling at times with the quantity and density of reading I had, Wharton is a classic author and I would encourage everyone to read at least one of her novels. She sets many of her books in New York city in the 1800s, and focuses on the social dynamics between the people of the upper crust of society. The social conventions of the time often dictate character's beliefs and actions, forcing them to make life altering decisions and often including a tragic ending. Once on finishes the reading portion of the project, crafting a thesis and finding evidence is surely much easier, as a lot of her themes are obvious and pervasive throughout all of her works.

Marissa Marcoux said...

Wharton's books consist of young wealthy women looking for love. If you like tragic love stories and drama then Wharton is the author for you! Although her books are dense and take a lot of time and effort, it’s worth it in the end. She has similar themes throughout every book, which makes the essay portion a little easier. I read The Buccaneers, The House Of Mirth, and Summer. Each book is an intricate story of a young girl searching for love and money. The middle of the books were slow, but the ending was always a shocking twist. The character development in the books is intriguing, because of the struggles they face and how they change from the beginning to the end of the books. I enjoyed writing the essay more than reading because her books didn’t have much action. There are so many themes in all books like, young love, independence, social status, and gender roles. Being a girl, I really enjoyed writing about the topic of gender roles and how society shapes women.

Anonymous said...

When choosing my author, someone told me that Edith Wharton’s books were full of engaging and dense themes including marriage, gender roles and social status. If you are not someone who enjoys or finds books about tragic love stories and societal expectations versus reality vigorating, Wharton’s books might not be for you. She puts so much detail into her characters that it is almost as if you are living inside the story. Although her characters have so many traits, complex aspects and sides to them, she has many different characters that lead different lives involving jealousy, love, and expectations that are unrealistic. Because of the different characters and plot twists, it was sometimes difficult to follow along as I was reading.

American Author Thesis

Now that you have written your essay, we ask that you reflect on the reading portion of the experience and write 100-150 words about your author.

Think of what you write as advice for someone next year and beyond, someone who (like you were doing last fall) is thinking about choosing your author - and maybe even the same three books - to read for the assignment.