In This House of Mirth, We Shall Be Free: Injustices of Choice in Captivity (A Rant for a Lost Coquette)

The choice between Boyer and Sanford isn't necessarily a new one, even for Eliza Wharton.  It's a mythical, age-old decision, spanning quite possibly the entire world, for it hits one of the foundational structures of our lives, or rather, our lives as manufactured by society: choosing Right.

What that means, to be honest, I still don't know, because it demands of all of us the supposition that Right is, in fact, a universal truth, when we all know it's not, being one of the most important subjective ideals we carry inside ourselves.  Eliza was trapped, as all women of this age were, trapped because not only had they not yet truly begun to acquire their rights, but because, in reality, men hadn't really come around to the idea that they had any rights to begin with, thereby sealing them in this space of supposed-to and of rightful conduct, never once explaining or justifying why these things had to be so.

All of this, of course, leads into my rant of the week: Why does society, even to a degree now, force us into that corner, between choosing and the inability to choose, and expect a result that is uncomplicated and untangled in the body, in desire, hell...in society?  It's not possible, because if one provides a paradox, the only way to exit it is through another paradox, and then another, and another...another cycle of violence, this one taking place between the heart and the mind.  Boyer and Sanford, being vessels for society's own punishment and cruelty, are only guilty insofar as Eliza is guilty of falling in love and accepting her right (as a perfectly adequate human being) to say no to a comfortable life in favor of one that is thornier and more resilient to the placid dullness her society seemed to almost require in all affairs.  One cannot, CANNOT, put a price on desires, much less ask to visibly simplify them, to adjust and realign them so they fit into the schema of Society, of what we THINK is able to be understood, and NOT what is actually meant to be unearthed in such an understanding.  It's all about appearance here, and apparently, to be resistant to this superficiality meant you were outcast, and exiled, in unimaginably horrid ways (I've linked to it below, but do check out The House of Mirth for an equally harrowing portrayal of a Ruined Woman).

The worst part about it, of course, is that neither man would have satisfied her...she would have, regardless, ended giving up her desire and her happiness in exchange for something darker and much more inefficient: resignation.  It's true that her friends, few she had, tried to warn her at first, but that these warnings came at the price of gossip, of whisperings behind cloistered little drawing rooms, in the privacy of one's own dinner parties...well, none of that should be surprising, for that is the spring on which scandal flows, on which Society builds its own foundations.  Boyer was too stuffy, Sanford too liberated...no happy medium on which to grow love and affection, true or otherwise...and this is a delicate balance that sometimes isn't provided to us, having nothing to do with how good-hearted we are or not.  Life is very Objective like that sometimes, a harsh lesson Eliza was thrust under in her final years.  Plainly put, my main objection to the entire text (in reference to what it speaks to, not the words themselves) is that, once again, we let ourselves get carried with the Word and refuse to accept that each Word can, and usually does, have many meanings.

What I'm saying is: A woman isn't just a woman, but she's a Woman, and in this society especially, it was taken to be a free pass to judge and describe this Woman as one chose freely...giving in to the VERY dangerous trappings of simplifying and decoding what will ALWAYS refuse to be simplified and decoded.  A woman is also a human being, is also the carrier of blood, sweat, tears, organs, emotions, thought...she isn't  just a piece of clay, a mold we can move and deign to choose the path of, otherwise...what would be the point in being human?  We'd just be manipulated corpses, for that is all we are when we remove the inherent Paradox of being Alive (or being Woman, for that matter).

You see, Boyer or Sanford, Eliza would have never been happy, but she would have been a free woman, and you know, despite her horrible ends, I do agree she was, all the way until her very bitter final breaths.  This isn't to say she made the right choices, or knew what she was doing, etc....all this rant is meant to translate is the simple notion that we are choosing creatures, and can NEVER be satisfied with the life that is handed to us forcefully by societies, can never be okay with not being able to be okay with uncertainty and indecision...we must always be on the lookout for the next contradiction, for the next leap into madness and absurdity...things I'm sure would have made Eliza's life seem all the more typical.

Poor Woman, that not only could she not choose Right, but she wouldn't have known what Right was if it had stared her in the face.  Such is the folly of a society that names the unnameable, and then throws away the meaning...

Quotes of Note:

"Let me then enjoy that freedom which I so highly prize."

"Marriage is the tomb of friendship."

"I am anxious, lest you should be made the dupe of a coquette..."

"I am convinced of that excellence which I once slighted; and the shade of departed happiness haunts me perpetually!"

"Necessity, dire necessity, forced me into this dernier resort."

"I really wish she had less merit, that I might have a plausible excuse for neglecting her."

"I am too much ingrossed by my divinity, to take an interest in any thing else."

and, of course, what I found to be a most notorious quoting, from Proverbs 9:17: "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant."

Here is a fantastic preview for an adaptation of a novel very close to The Coquette's heart: the aforementioned The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.  Have a look for yourself, and see if you don't see the parallels falling into one another:

A Ruined Woman, part II