 The
elisions in Wharton’s description of the wedding itself further suggest
the significance of social convention. The majority of the event
is conveyed to the reader through Newland’s eyes as he awaits the approach
of his bride; drawn out over nearly seven pages are the thoughts of this
bridegroom, like so many others, on the chancel steps. Wharton thus
emphasizes the ritualistic significance of Archer’s marriage before the
entire community, collectively representing the entirety of convention.
But once again, an ellipsis condenses the time that would have been spent
in decision-making or reflection by pulling us abruptly into the real time
of the novel at a later point: Like Newland, we are surprised when
“the white and rosy procession was in fact half way up the nave . . . the
vision of the cloud of tulle and orange-blossoms floating nearer and nearer”
(Wharton, 185). Interestingly, Newland does not even identify May
as a person until she is at his side. Thus, the entire ceremony and
the narrative strategy in describing it focuses specifically on Newland,
and further emphasizes Newland’s entrapment in social machinery.
After
the whirlwind wedding, Wharton creates further elisions in the novel’s
timeline which force the reader to insightfully infer what she omits.
As the happy couple travel to their honeymoon destination, we must continue
to concretize gaps in the novel. For plans unexpectedly change, and
they must now spend their honeymoon at the Patroon’s house where Newland
courted Ellen. A foreboding proposition for Newland, the one house
where Ellen insists she could be perfectly happy (Wharton, 191) will now
be shared by Newland and May on their wedding night. Readers expectant
of an embarrassing mishap with a discomfited Archer are disappointed; for
the chapter (XIX) ends in gloriously dreadful expectation, but the next
chapter (XX) does not begin where the former left off. Chapter Twenty
opens a month or so into the couple’s travels abroad, as they contemplate
a visit with Archer family friends. Where are the elaborate details
of Newland and May’s new life together? The elision of events immediately
following the wedding and soon thereafter leads us as readers to ask questions
about what Wharton’s narrative strategy necessarily omitted, and what perhaps
simply did not happen. May’s description of the honeymoon in letters
to her girlfriends was “vaguely summarized as ‘blissful’” (Wharton, 194).
The trip was certainly vague, but what made it blissful? May is no
more convincing than Wharton in her summary of events, and as readers we
are denied not only summary but psychological insights into Newland’s feelings
about spending his honeymoon in the house where he rendezvoused with Ellen.
In addition, after consistently building up Newland’s desire to “take the
bandage from this young woman’s [May’s] eyes, and bid her look forth on
the world” (Wharton, 81) throughout Book 1, there is no mention made of
it after the fact. The brevity of narrative description, or the complete
lack thereof, forces us as readers to make assumptions based on conventional
standards. While we can obviously figure out what occurs on one’s
wedding night, and make sufficient inferences about the bliss of the honeymoon,
the details Wharton omits make the honeymoon merely another fulfillable
and forgotten social convention. The honeymoon and all that it entails
is an inexorable event, which further reinforces the idea that there is
only one socially acceptable line of action to follow in this situation;
and Newland therefore acts accordingly.
Perhaps
the most interesting narrative elision in The Age of Innocence is from
May’s announcement of her pregnancy to Newland’s retrospective reflections
on his life almost thirty years later. Much like her telegram wedding
announcements, news of May’s pregnancy reaches Ellen before Newland is
told. This time too, May’s social cunning is directly exposed, as
she spoke with Ellen two weeks before the day she was sure and then told
Newland. It is there that the chapter ends. The final chapter
begins with events that are to happen twenty-six years in the future, which
is no small elision from the end of one chapter to the beginning of the
next. This epilogue, as it were, forces us to rely heavily on the
significance of the implied in our interpretations of what those years
must have been like for Newland and May. Undoubtedly they were consumed
by the fulfillment of conventional roles, such as the births of their three
children, and Wharton teases the reader with some details of what did come
to pass. But we are largely in the dark about critical moments of
those years, for the last chapter opens and May is dead. We learn
from her oldest son the details of her last words; when Dallas confronts
his father about “the woman you’d have chucked everything for: only
you didn’t,” (Wharton, 356) he reveals his mother’s full knowledge of Newland’s
love for Ellen. In addition, there is the question of whether or
not May ever “asked” Newland to give up what he most wanted (Wharton, 356),
a life with Ellen. Newland claims she never asked and, like Dallas,
as readers we are similarly tempted to accuse May and Newland of characteristically
“just sitting and watching each other and guessing at what was going on
underneath” (Wharton, 357). We have no way of confirming any sort
of exchange between Newland and May as that entire time period is carefully
obliterated from our view. Perhaps it does not matter whether May
ever asked or not, for the ultimate conclusion that would have been reached
would be the same: a conventional, long-lasting marriage of fidelity.
In effect, Wharton’s use of an extended ellipsis once again condenses time
and events to force reader implication of critical details, and emphasizes
the obligatory nature of social convention when personal choices to the
contrary are not made. |
