society or individual

What is the value of an individual? Are individuals judged based on their own personal worth or their worth to society? Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence and Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House both explore the importance of society in an individual's journey to discovering him- or herself. In each work, it seems as though society is an oppressive force for some of the characters, whether male or female. 

For Wharton's novel, the oppression is stressed upon Ellen and May, each of whom are unable to escape the influences of society. In the work's New York society, there is a "way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered nothing was more ill-bred than 'scenes,' except the behaviour of those who gave rise to them" (Wharton 282). Any behavior or appearance that appeared abnormal compared to more common behaviors or appearances are rendered disrespectful of the New York way. 

Because of this idea of respect, Ellen's European mannerisms and lifestyle are viewed with disdain, and her apparent lack of sensibility, such as her desire to divorce her husband, is scandalous. According to Newland, "[their] legislation favours divorce--[their] social customs don't" (Wharton 93), and as a result, Ellen is encouraged to stay with her husband in order to maintain her societal standing.

May is also influenced by society in dictating her behaviors as a woman and as a wife to Newland. Her purity is "cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses," and Newland has the right of a husband to "exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow" (Wharton 39). While he gives himself to her already marred by an affair with a married woman, May must remain pure and clean when giving herself to him, lest she loses respect from society.

In Ibsen's play, both Torvald and Nora are forced to live by society's expectations of a respectable husband and a submissive wife. Within this setting, the men are seen as the breadwinners of the family while the women are expected to fall under the Cult of Domesticity. The ideals of this Cult of Domesticity included submissiveness, piety, and purity. 

As the male of the household, Torvald is expected to be the individual who provides for the family, the individual who's "man enough to shoulder the whole burden" (Ibsen 1198). He cares about how society would react should they find that Nora is trying to convince him to rehire Krogstad, feeling as if her persistence is belittling of his command of the family. Because he refers to Nora as his "most precious possession" (Ibsen 1218), it appears as though Torvald acts as Nora's guardian, giving her money to spend and showing her off to their friends.

Nora, on the other hand, is expected by society to allow Torvald to make all the decisions within the household. Her husband reduces her to a "lost and helpless creature" (Ibsen 1225), reinforcing the societal standard that women should remain submissive to their spouses. Indeed, when Torvald learns that his wife had secretly begun working to pay off her debt to Krogstad, instead of acting thankful for Nora's sacrifice to him, he grows infuriated and tells her she's unfit to bring up the children. 

Society in each of the works seems to overcome the characters, forcing them to lose sight of themselves and focus solely on how society sees them.

my mind is

my mind is
e.e. cummings

my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
chipping with sharp fatal tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
myself
Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet
bellowings.

Between innocence and experience, which is better to have? e.e. cummings presents this argument in his poem "my mind is," in which he discusses the human mind prior to experiences and its state after being chiseled by life.

While the mind is "nothing," it has been unexposed to real experience. It's a clean slate waiting to be molded by the senses. However, when the narrator mentions that the senses are "chipping with sharp fatal tools" his mind, it's implied that the changes are permanent. Because these tools are "fatal," perhaps the changes are viewed as deadly and irreversible. Experience, therefore, is negatively received, while the innocence before is worthless. 

When compared to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, this structuring of the mind can be seen as enlightenment. As people are given knowledge, their minds are shaped around this new information, and it's nearly impossible for them to regress back to a point when the knowledge was unknown to them. The freed prisoner in Plato's allegory attempts to become familiar with his fellow prisoners in the cave, telling them of all the knowledge he's been given from his experience above ground. However, they ridicule him and he's excluded from their activities, no longer having the same mindset as they do.

The narrator's "squirms of chrome" and "strides of cobalt" makes the narrator appear to be machine-like. The descriptions provide a rather mechanical representation of the movements, as if every human is built to act this way. By being exposed to new experiences, the narrator is being exposed to the repetition of society in which a structure is strictly imposed upon its citizens. The "agony" over performing such actions could be the narrator's hatred of conformity, which may also be appealing as the chisels are described as "sensual."

However, the "altering" experienced makes the narrator feel different, becoming "himself" amid a community of mechanical citizens. The narrator's mind is able to interpret experiences in a different way than others, so despite the outside behaviors resembling everyone else's, the narrator's inner thoughts are his own and individual in their meanings. As a result, the narrator is able to distinguish himself from his peers, becoming "himself" when others can only be "themselves." 

With the brain being exposed to all the different stimuli and experiences, the narrator begins to have violent threats of "shrieks" and "bellowings." These vocalized actions seem to be of turmoil and anger, as if the mind is threatening to split. He accepts the writhing under scattered thoughts and cluttered ideas as he's mentioned to be "helpless" upon all the experiences. This shows that the loss of innocence is inevitable, that the mind must face reality sooner or later. As the narrator mind was once a big hunk of "nothing," it is easily manipulated by the senses.

It's hard to determine whether cummings prefers innocence or experience in this piece. It seems as though each of the two are negative in their own ways, in which with innocence, the mind is nothing, while with experience, the mind is rendered "helpless." 

dolls in a dollhouse

Within A Doll's House and Age of Innocence, the females can be seen as dolls living in a dollhouse. Nora Helmer and May Welland are introduced as very naïve characters, filled with either innocence or ignorance of real-world issues. However, there may be more to their natures than meets the eye.

During the first act of Henrik Ibsen's play, Nora seems like a troublesome wife; she spends money recklessly and insists upon asking for more when it's all spent. She plays to her feminine attributes to get what she wants out of her husband, "playing with his coat buttons, and without raising her eyes to his," requests more money to purchase more (Ibsen, line 99). 

When Kristine Linde arrives, it's clear that she's been having troubles with her life. Widowed and childless, Kristine tries to find work as she feels her life is "unspeakably empty, [with] no one to live for anymore" (Ibsen, lines 334-335). Despite being told this, Nora seems insistent upon bragging about how lovely her life has been and how wonderfully her children have grown. She talks about how she "mustn't be selfish today; today [she] must only think of [Kristine's] affairs" (Ibsen, lines 245-246), but immediately after this she goes on and on about how splendid it is "to have heaps of money and not need to have any anxiety" (Ibsen, lines 259-260). Her lack of concern for her friend's troubles shows how self-concerned she is.

According to Newland Archer from Edith Wharton's novel, May Welland "simply echoed what was said for her" (Wharton 69), unable to voice her own thoughts and ideas. He found her terribly dull and bland, with "innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience" (Wharton 123). Her similarities to somewhat of a dummy or a puppet repels Newland, who is later attracted to the new and mysterious Ellen Olenska, who speaks strangely unlike any other.

While Torvald Helmer sees his relationship with Nora being one in which he is forced to pay for her expenses, Newland views his marriage with May to be a nuisance as well. He fears of it becoming "a dull association of material and social interests" (Wharton 37). His desire to keep this from happening forces him not to try and fix their marriage but rather seek out a new woman to satisfy him. However, further into their marriage, May begins to act as her mother, and Newland's fear of "gradually [sinking] into the placid and luxurious routine of their elders" (Wharton 107) becomes reality.

Despite how dependent and ignorant they initially seem, both Nora and May are secretive and conniving, scheming behind their husbands' backs. 

Nora's obsession with money turns out to be due to debt, not her need to buy everything. Her ability to manage money without her husband's knowledge, in spite of some inaccurate knowledge she may have about economics, shows that she is able to act independently from her husband. By seducing her husband, she can get money from him in order to pay off her debt to Krogstad, revealing plans that she's kept in the dark for a long time.

May, on the other hand, is knowledgeable of Newland's affair with Ellen. She uses this knowledge to her advantage and manages to push Ellen away from fraternizing with her husband by informing her that she's with child. Though it's not clear exactly when she finds out about her husband's cheating, May still manages to keep her knowing a secret from Newland, despite of all the grievances it may cause her.