Phillip Wei 02/08/2000English: Mrs.Cottam

Trace Newland Archer’s shift in perspective regarding May Welland and Ellen Olenska from the opening of the novel to Chapter X

The book opens with Newland holding May in the highest regard. He perceives her as the epitome of all he longs for in a wife. He adores her for her innocence – commenting to himself during a suggestive scene in the opera “The darling! She doesn’t even guess what it’s all about.” He notes with particular pride and delight how she appreciates his daily white flowers – “he drew a breath of satisfied vanity” – as if to suggest her slightest appreciation gives him a sense of true fulfillment.

Newland first sees his future with May as an entry into an expanse of new experience and joy. In his contemplation he fanaticizes about what he will teach and how he will educate his wife-to-be. In this first instance he sees May as the one person who can meet the demands of his masculine needs, as a person he can feel gallant in supporting and pleasing. Further more he feels he has a special and unspoken understanding with her “and the fact that he and she understood each other without a word seemed to the young man to bring them nearer than any explanation would have done.”

Through his eyes she has a face “rosy as the dawn” and truly “radiant eyes”. When he then sees May at Beaufort’s ball he feels a further swelling of love and adoration towards her unspoken thoughts and feels “no appeal could have found a more immediate response in Archer’s breast.” Throughout the ball he basks in his glowering joy and love towards May.

What Newland loves in May, is what society has brought him up to believe to love. “Nothing about his betrothed pleased him more than her resolute determination to carry to its utmost limit that ritual of ignoring the “unpleasant” in which they had both been brought up.” He sees within May a fellow follower of society and an icon of innocence.

May Welland is indeed all that Newland initially holds dear.Newland Archer’s first views of Ellen Olenska are very much prone to the

dictates of New York’s upper society – which considers Ellen as a pariah, a person whose past is too offensive for her to be considered acceptable. Newland considers her first appearance during the opera as “rather annoying”. His recollection of her past describes her as the “black sheep” of the family and though he perhaps pities her (he seems to empathize with society in the need to describe Ellen as “poor Ellen”) he still feels rather disgruntled that the Countess should make a public appearance aside his love and betrothed, May Welland. He further feels “troubled by her lack of Form and Taste” further demonstrating both Newland’s beliefs being tightly bound to those of New York and the dislike of sorts he feels towards Ellen.

Little consideration is taken towards the personality of Ellen at first – Newland is far more concerned by the effects her appearance has upon May’s reputation and character. “He hated to think of May Welland’s being exposed to the influence of a young woman so careless of the dictates of Taste.”

Newland then decides – only in order to show his loving support for May and her family – to introduce himself to the Countess. However when Newland does present himself to Ellen – he is not at all impressed by her personality. He considers her “open” way of speaking as rather rude and vulgar and is “shocked” at her candor.

When Ellen further comments comically upon the people below and how she remembers “everybody here in knickerbockers and pantalets” he feels “nothing could be in worse taste than misplaced flippancy”. He perceives Ellen’s unconventionality as not appealing but disrespectful. He continues by commenting, “Yes indeed you have been away a very long time” – as if to suggest she had been displaced from an acceptable society into a foreign and thus unrespectable environment – and that this was the cause of her inappropriate behavior. He reasons that Ellen is not an acceptable character and that society is correct – she is unorthodox and in being so she is unacceptable.

When reflecting later at the Beaufort’s ball, Newland repugnantly recalls Ellen as “the strange foreign woman” whom had been so upsetting he could not mention his betrothal to May Welland. He further feels slighted by Ellen and how her entry has somewhat marred his engagement announcement – “he wished that the necessity of their action had been represented by some ideal reason, and not simply by poor Ellen Olenska.” He exhibits “happy indifference” when Ellen does not show up and only contemplates his increasing love for May in their combined “ritual of ignoring the unpleasant” – the “unpleasant” being of course the Countess Olenska.

These views towards the two women held by Newland do, however, change through the course of the first ten chapters.

Newland begins to question his firmly rooted beliefs – or rather, his firmly rooted following of the beliefs of society. During a conversation over dinner with Mr. Sillerton Jackson he begins to ask why society feels Ellen is unacceptable – is it simply because she had an unhappy and unfortunate past? He becomes increasingly irritated and upset at Mr. Sillerton Jackson’s justification of society’s belief and continues to exclaim, “Women ought to be free – as free as we are.”

It is after this episode that he begins to have nagging doubts of his views. In the opening of chapter VI he begins to become suspect towards the true reasons of his love for May and begins an analysis of his feelings and future.

He looks at the average marriage within New York high society and sees nothing of excitable interest – and he begins to fear that this is what his marriage may become – “a dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other.” He considers the normality of extramarital affairs and notes with irony how New York’s foremost on form is also the foremost womanizer of other men’s wives.

He attempts to comfort himself with thoughts of his loving adoration of May – her “radiant good looks”, her “grace and quickness at games, her “shy interest in books”, her loyalty, sense of humor, “innocently-gazing soul” and the feeling that he would achieve when her innocence was to be woken and shattered, by him.

He still worries though – he is groping towards his inner fear that all this love is simply a product of the system and is “discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product.” He feels “oppressed” and somewhat angry towards the engineered feelings that he has been taught – he is beginning to feel uneasy towards “this creation of factitious purity”.

However, Newland has not undergone a radical change of thought. Though his thoughts and contemplations are moving him towards a radical train of thought, they only hint towards his inner unease. He is considering his resentment towards society but has not yet come to truly believe his own thoughts; he perceives his worries as simply the affects of cold feet before marriage and consoles himself with the thought that “he was not quite such an ass as Larry Lefferts.” He places the root and cause of his upset thoughts upon Ellen Olenska and curses her for the trouble she has caused – an attempt to divert his focus away from where his thoughts are truly leading him.

By the end of his self-reflection he is slowly beginning to understand his underlying feelings, but is not yet truly changed.

It is during the dinner party held for the van der Luyden’s Duke cousin that Newland’s perceptions and feelings towards Ellen Olenska begin to transform. From the onset, he considers society’s belief that Ellen as having “lost her looks” to be erroneous and “in that instant Newland Archer rejected the general verdict on her looks.”

He sees her as out of place in this room full of New York’s genteel class, and as emanating a “mysterious authority of beauty” – he is drawn to her movements and grace rather than her features or figure. He notices how different she is; she seems to him more “mature” than a room full of woman her senior.

But it is only when the Countess seats herself next to Newland and begins to talk, that he truly begins to feel an attraction towards her. The candor with which she speaks of things – which had previously irritated and annoyed him – now “pleased him so much.”

In this moment the attraction begins and he sees her as “undeniably exciting” in her daring venture of opinion. “He longed to question her” – within Ellen, Newland is beginning to see something he wishes to explore, and wishes to interact with. As they continue to talk Newland begins to enjoy himself – laughing and smiling. He notes – and perhaps even adores – the way she “glowed with sympathy”.

As the conversation progresses Newland “saw that her lips trembled” – and “impulsively” leaps to comfort her. Newland perceives not only the exciting and new in Ellen, but also the weak and vulnerable – something his masculine vanity lunges towards and loves.

Ellen opens herself up to Newland. Her frank and open speech pleases him, and she infers a dependency upon him – something his pride and vanity happily basks in. Though she tells Newland to “hurry away” to May, she says without moving, and without lifting her eyes away from his. As he gently declines she blurts, “Then stay with me a little longer.” She takes on a “low tone” and gives him a light touch – a light touch that “thrilled him like a caress”. In all her actions Newland begins to sense a feeling of intimacy and closeness.

In the next chapter Newland enters Ellen’s house by request during her departure from the Newland at the van der Luyden’s dinner. In this moment when they are alone he begins to feel an even greater attraction towards Ellen.

He enters the house – and even her house draws his interest. The room he enters is “unlike any room he had known.” The paintings “bewildered him, for they were like nothing that he was accustomed to look at” and the house seems “strange” with a “shadowy charm”. Her dwelling is exotic and he is unaccustomed – but also drawn – to this strangeness. The “atmosphere of the room” draws out from him a “sense of

adventure” – it seems “intimate, foreign, subtly suggestive of old romantic scenes and sentiments.” Even the smell of the house is different, diffused with her perfume.

While waiting for Ellen to return, the house heightens the strange attractiveness she exudes but also places questioning doubts in Newland’s thought. Will his marriage to May ever offer such variety, such attractive intimacy? Considering his future marriage to May he expects to inherit a house that will be like every other house in New York – and to enter a marriage similarly similar. Newland feels trapped and slightly depressed by his predestined future; “The young man felt that his fate was sealed.”

Then Ellen arrives – and with her the freshness that he longs for. Her language is earthly and intimate – she refers to her house as “funny” and a “heaven” and speaks earnestly and openly what she feels. Her earnesty “gave him an electric shock”. In addition, she alludes to a dependency and vulnerability that Newland’s masculine nature adores – “I want to feel cared for and safe”, “You must tell me just what to do,” and “you’ll warn me if I do.” In response he feels touched and close to her need of guidance.

Her actions too, draw his attraction – she carelessly tosses aside her clothing before him and “folded her arms behind her head” – a sexual and suggestive pose. And then she cries – a demonstration of fragility that almost demands him to comfort her and thereby become closer – physically and emotionally – to her.

Aside from the appeal of vulnerability, he begins to become attracted to her perceptive and incisive insight. She immediately understands the influence of the van der Luydens to be dependent upon the rarity of their appearances – and at this he laughs to himself. For, now, after she had explained it, it seems so obvious.

This meeting with Ellen offers him an escape from the reality of New York. He feels “deeply drawn into the atmosphere of the room, which was her atmosphere” and now “New York seemed much farther off than Samarkand.” He draws a parallel to viewing something through the wrong end of a telescope – for indeed New York feels far away from him. Ellen is that which has freed him from reality, and perhaps freed him from his miseries and worries.

But with the entry of the Duke with Mrs. Struthers, Newland Archer immediately relapses into reality – and the spell is broken. He reenters and reaccepts the views of society, as Mrs. Struthers’s appearance reminds him again how ‘vulgar’ the lower classes really are. “New York again became vast and imminent, and May Welland the loveliest woman in it.”

Yet his venture into a field of a new perceptive is not ended nor gone. When he enters the flower shop he buys a bouquet of yellow flowers for Ellen – flowers that were “too rich, too strong in their fiery beauty” for May. In him still lingers his attraction to Ellen.

Newland then seeks out May, to visit and remind himself of his love for her. Yet it does little to enhance or reinforce this love. Her innocence does not strike any strong appeal towards him, nor does her constant praise – “Newland! You’re so original”, “You do love me, Newland! I’m so happy,” and “I do love you, Newland, for being so artistic!” There is no reference to any particular joy that grows from these words nor any pride. Instead he seeks out something exotic, something different in May – something more like that which Ellen possesses. He asks, “But then – why not be happier?” and she responds like any dutiful follower of society – it is vulgar.

At this conformity with society he feels uneasy and he stands “silent, beating his stick nervously against his boot-top.” His love for May is not exactly dwindling, but neither is it growing any stronger or surer.

His irritation with the “sameness” that society represents – that his marriage to May represents – grows increasingly strong. He can hardly hide it from his sister or mother and begins irritably to dismiss any care for Family and Form. He shouts and interrupts and is generally uncaring towards propriety – this outburst is a clear demonstration of the unease and somewhat recalcitrant view of society he is beginning to form.

Though perhaps not directly related, it does adumbrate towards his feelings in general. He is tiring of the monotony of society – of which May represents – and is undertaking an attitude of disregard for society’s norm – of which Ellen represents. If at all this outburst suggests anything in his regards towards Ellen and May it would seem it shows his slight irritation towards May’s conformity and perhaps growing attraction towards Ellen and her freshness and variety.

After ten chapters, Newland Archer is undergoing a trend that is making him more wary of the life May represents and more drawn towards that which Ellen symbolizes. He is far from yet having the audacity to attempt something dramatic, but his views are much changed – his growing love for Ellen is being fueled and siphoned by his ebbing love for May.