Newland accompanies Dallas to Paris on a business trip, where Dallas tells Newland the Countess Ellen Olenska has invited them to dine. Touched by her selflessness, Newland returns to New York. This is an age of innocence for a society — existing in its own niggling concerns — that cannot conceive of the devastating war that will change all life and history, and sweep away this innocence forever.

By August, a year later, Newland and May have settled into a fashionable if boring life in New York, living in a wealthy part of town and spending summers with the rest of the rich in Newport. A few stylistic notes must be mentioned regarding The Age of Innocence. When Newland speaks with Ellen — a passionate and exotic woman, unlike his quiet, innocent May — he finds himself falling in love with her, despite his engagement. This profound sense of irony leads, inevitably, to the question of Wharton's choice of title. Newland, while seemingly in charge of his world as well as the narrative, is actually one of the more naïve characters in the story. She has been taught to remain innocent and avoid life's difficulties; throughout her marriage she pretends not to know about Newland's passion for Ellen.

CliffsNotes study guides are written by real teachers and professors, so no matter what you're studying, CliffsNotes can ease your homework headaches and help you score high on exams. The supreme example of this is the farewell dinner for the Countess, a dinner that seems innocently gracious and honorable on the surface but which hides rigid assertiveness in enforcing the social order. Are you sure you want to remove #bookConfirmation# Looking back at her childhood, she was critical of a society that kept girls innocent, sheltered, and away from obstacles they might have to solve.

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It worries about its social code — wedding details, the season, rituals, and rules — passing its time in total ignorance of what is to come. In The Age of Innocence, this established order most often takes its most concrete form as the family.

This more remote narrator often serves to undercut Archer's opinions. Book II of The Age of Innocence begins with May marrying Newland as New York society watches.

On a more sophisticated level, these objects indicate the personality of the owner: his or her tastes, interests, and values. The Age of Innocence is a visual feast in which Scorsese and his collaborators — cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and editor Thelma Schoonmaker — ravish the senses.

Wharton uses the character of Newland Archer as a lens of consciousness through which to see Old New York. But he senses her loneliness and, despite some misgivings, sends her yellow roses. By the end of the novel, everyone has outflanked him, especially the women in his life who have used his innocence well. bookmarked pages associated with this title. Ellen promises to stay in America only if they do not hurt May with a clandestine affair. SparkNotes is brought to you by Barnes & Noble.

Elated but guilty, Newland decides to confess all to May, but she interrupts to tell him that Ellen is leaving for Europe and the Archers will give a farewell dinner for her.

In Newland's memory, their love stays forever young, perfect and unchanging over time. Newland has not seen her in 26 years.

The years pass. Until Ellen's farewell dinner, he does not even know that his entire family has plotted and planned without him, leaving him intentionally ignorant of their machinations. Quickly, because she has lived in a less dissembling culture, she learns that beneath the surface are cruelty, judgment, and hypocrisy. At many points throughout the book, both Archer and Ellen Olenska are expected to sacrifice their desires and opinions in order not to upset the established order of things.

Newland is 57 and he and May have two grown children: Dallas and Mary. Themes in The Age of Innocence. The Age of Innocence is filled with irony about innocence — true innocence, feigned innocence, ironic innocence, and unhappy innocence. To what extent is the era of Old New York truly an "Age of Innocence"?

Despite his supposedly cosmopolitan attitudes, he believes that a love affair with Ellen would be tolerated, an attitude showing his lack of realism. Of all the characters in the novel, she is perhaps the least naïve, forcing the reader to wonder how much of her knowledge is based on Wharton's life as an adult living in Paris.

"Her incapacity to recognize change made her children conceal their views from her .

Undaunted, the next day Newland meets Ellen at the Metropolitan Museum, where she finally agrees to a future one-time affair.

bookmarked pages associated with this title. Another of her large themes is that appearances are seldom synonymous with realities. The Mingotts enlist Newland's boss, Mr. Letterblair, to ask Newland to dissuade the Countess from seeking a divorce.

It is a January evening in 1870s New York City and the fashionable are attending the opera. Still under her spell, Newland lies to his wife and follows Ellen there. Wharton's life, the Gilded Age of the novel, and the characters all contribute to the irony of the novel's title. Later, when the family plans a dinner to introduce her to society, no one accepts. As is typical with a gifted writer like Wharton, there is no single answer. May Welland is the perfect embodiment of that child-raising principle.

Hypocrisy runs rampant in Old New York. Ellen has moved to Washington D.C.; she returns to stay with her grandmother briefly, but later leaves to visit Boston.

But now she is sure, sealing Newland's fate forever.