The problem of cultural transformation and individual integrity in Edith Wharton's novels

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: G, Marmara University ( Faculty of Literature), language: English, abstract: ABSTRACTEdith Wharton¿s novels are mainly set between the 1870s and the 1920s. During the period the States experienced unequalled changes and transformed from an agrarian to an industrial nation. Urbanization, mechanisation, and new facilities promoted each other. The influx into cities ended the sovereignty of the established old families. This thesis titled as ¿The Problem of Cultural Transformation and Individual Integrity in Edith Wharton¿s novels¿ examines that transformation.The Age of Innocence and The Custom of the Country portray two different phases of the transformation and this thesis investigates the change and detect the inevitable disintegration of the old system in the face of the new one. After observing the socio-economic changes occured during the period, and searching the reflections of the transformation in the attitudes of social classes and moral perspectives of the protagonists of the two novels, the thesis arrives at the conclusion that the breakdown of the old system and old values were inevitable both because their day was over and because the ambitions of the parvenus were far more ber than theirs.