Edith Wharton: "The House of Mirth" Quiz

Answer: New York

Her previous novel was set in Europe, without much success. Henry James suggested to write a novel set in New York. Suprisingly enough James didn't like the novel. According to him it contained two different novels.

Answer: tea

Lily demonstrates how refined her manners are by making tea on a train. This shows how well she's integrated in the high society in spite of not being rich herself.

Answer: books

He collects Americana. Lily pretends to be interested in this boring subject, because she hopes to marry him for his money. Gryce is glad that finally somebody shares his passion!

Answer: Bellomont

The title refers to the decadent lifestyle of these rich people: gambling, adultery, speculation, big parties... They are the "new rich", most of them not of noble descent. Lily feels at home in this environment and loses a lot of money by playing bridge.

Answer: her aunt

Lily dislikes her aunt for being boring, but hopes to inherit her fortune. This expectation of a big inheritance helps her to infiltrate among the rich.

Answer: Gerty Farish

Gerty Farish is Selden's cousin. She has a sober lifestyle. Lily looks down on her in the beginning, but Gerty turns out to be one of her few real friends.

Answer: Lawrence Selden

She promised it to the Trenor daughters and to Percy Gryce. She originally hoped to get a marriage proposal from Gryce after the service, but Selden's arrival at Bellomont made her change plans.

Answer: the republic of the spirit

Selden shows Lily how shallow it would be to marry Gryce for his money. Lily is confronted with the dilemma between marrying Selden for love or marrying another for money.

Answer: Sim Rosedale

Sim or Samuel Rosedale is a rich Jew who wants to become a part of the New York upper class. He thinks it would help to marry a beautiful wife like Lily. She refuses, but later in the novel, when Lily is poor, the roles are reversed.

Answer: Evie van Osburgh

Lily has missed her chance. She regrets that Gryce's fortune is united with another fortune, the one of the van Osburghs. Evie's sister, Gwen van Osburgh, marries Jack Stepney, so Lily's cousin succeeds in marrying a rich woman.

Answer: Bertha Dorset to Lawrence Selden

Mrs. Haffen abusively thinks that Lily wrote the letters. She wants to blackmail her. Lily buys the letters, becauses she thinks about blackmailing George or Bertha Dorset herself. If they would divorce, she could marry George. However Lily is too good for this and ultimately burns the letters.

Answer: Reynolds

She represents the portrait "Mrs. Loyd" by Sir Joshua Reynolds (England, 1723-1792). Everybody in Bellomont admires the result, not so much for the resemblance, but simply for how beautiful Lily looks in that dress.

Answer: Bertha Dorset

Bertha will later become one of Lily's biggest enemies, when she suspects her of having an affair with her husband George. The invitation is the end of the first part. They plan to have a cruise on the Mediterranean, but will spend most of their time in Nice and Monaco.

Answer: Grace Stepney

Lily is disinherited, because she has gambling debts and because there are rumors about her alleged affair with George Dorset. Grace Stepney spends a lot of time with Mrs. Peniston and hates Lily, who looks down on her.

Answer: $9,000

Lily thought it was her own money, but found out that he actually paid her hoping to become her lover. The last thing she does before she dies is write a cheque to Gus Trenor.

Answer: altruistic

She is involved in charity work. Lily's donation is mainly for her own ego and is ironically enough paid with Gus Trenor's money. It helps Nettie Strutter-Crane to start a new life.

Answer: Alaska

She doesn't really like the Gormers, but wants to escape from her difficult situation in New York. Later Bertha Dorset makes sure that that relation is destroyed also.

Answer: two

First she's the social secretary of Mrs. Norma Hatch in the Emporium Hotel (although some of the things she is asked to do are not really all that respectable). Later she's a milliner. Although she was always proud that she could trim her own hats, she turns out to be terrible at this job and ends up unemployed.

When things got worse, she took on some less savory means of earning a living, including dancing in a bar.

Answer: False

She doesn't commit suicide. She just wants to sleep and takes too many sleeping-drops, in spite of being warned against this, assuming that the normal dose has lost its effect. This means her death is an accident.

Answer: Gillian Anderson

It was already a silent movie, by Albert Capellani, in 1918! Geraldine Chaplin, Charlie and Oona's daughter, played Lily in the 1981 tv adaptation. Gillian Anderson is a very good Lily. The story works well on the screen, because it's very visual.