How does The Age of Innocence explore the role of women?
May Welland contrasts starkly with Ellen Olenska. May is a carefully finished product of old New York society, groomed for her role of demure wife and mother by the women of her family. Unimaginative and predictable, she is concerned always to do the right thing in the eyes of society and her family. She is skilled in smoothing over any “unpleasantness” that threatens to ruffle the surface of high society. However, Archer underestimates his wife’s awareness of relationships, and her ability to calculate and manipulate. May knows all along of Archer’s feelings for Ellen, and sympathizes with him; and she disposes of her rival by prematurely telling Ellen she is pregnant. Ellen represents the opposite of May. Exotic, passionate and artistic, brought up by eccentrics and wanderers, she has carved out her own destiny in a variety of cultures with little reference to the expectations of others. However, she comes to see her ‘old’ life as selfish, and under Archer’s influence, grows determin
