I wrote this for class (undergrad-sophomore required-class thing) but I think it's worth posting.
oh It's about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_Mirth The House of Mirth
Lily Bart is a paradox. She takes chances and gambles, yet she is ever hesitant to seal her fate. The most pressing risks are taken, whether or not to gamble, playing the stock market, not to mention the risk she takes courting more than one man simultaneously. But when Lily prepares for the future, she wants to remain at an intersection with many roads. She expects to have a steady supply of wealthy bachelors waiting after she deems her current unable to lift her to her desired spot on the social ladder. Unfortunately, she can not succeed because of her destiny from birth. In many ways, Lily is a bearded woman.
In the rich socialite world that Lily continually invades, money is god. I do not mean god as a man with a beard, or, perhaps, a woman with a beard. Many people believe in men with beards. My roommate has a beard. Therefore, I must believe in men with beards. Unless he's a liar, or worse, my senses can not be trusted, or even worse, he is not a man. We must divorce the idea of bearded men to see god as merely the highest power. Indeed, through unrelenting willpower I shall, or if fortune does not find me today, attempt to, cease to gaze upon my dorm brother's bristles for the length of my diction. This necessary act to ensure an unbiased write will drain the author of much constitution, so it may be asked permissible for errors of judgment and grammar to be made. Paradoxically, yet must be made clear, I will not come closer to unbearded god through this act of willpower for it will drain me of that which provides my power. In addition, my hairy faced cohort and comrade does not evoke the symbolism of beardedness that will be discussed forthwith and as such may sway the course of logic away from the true essence of beard.
Lily's beard is her past. A bearded woman is an outsider in society, and the beard is the component of the bearded woman that causes this ostracism. Lily's society of choice is high society, and in high society her shame, or beard, is her poor past. Lily grew up without a father. Her mother could not provide those luxuries that Lily would later seek, and as such created a deep shame inside her daughter. Rather than teach Lily to accept her beard and proceed amicably, she tries to shave the beard and pretend that Lily is devoid of hormonal imbalances. Lily learns this behavior, and does her best to keep her stubble hidden.
Waxing your face hurts. So, to avoid this pain as she grows older, and as follows her hormonal imbalance, or inability to assimilate, grows, she must somehow permanently rid herself of the secret shame of poverty. She must marry a wealthy man. In Wharton's era, this is the only method of attaining wealth available to a woman. Lily needs to make sure her husband can give her a close shave.
To Lily, acceptance is virtue. In the class she tries to infiltrate, acceptance is contingent on money. And as we know, within the society, money decides power. Truly, it is money that grooms the beard, for humans are not endowed with such tools to remove the bondage of out-of-control whiskers. Freedom, beardedness, without success, trimming, results in gypsy-like bushy beard reminding one much of "dinginess". Only god can truly smooth the face of the sinner, God being money, and that sin being the inability to attain power. Lily Bart is a sinful woman as long as she does not marry, for she knows her money will equate to virtue, and by refusing to accept proposals she is turning her back on the nature of god, in the unbearded sense. Why does Lily turn her back on the very power she should seek?
The answer may lie within the thick tangle of Lily's beard. A thick gypsy like beard, especially on a woman, has the disadvantage of a lack of power. However, it places our protagonist at the crossroads of infinity. Once indoctrinated into a class, or ordered path, also referred to as "taking estrogen to stop unfeminine hair growth", she has the choice to travel down this path for eternity. However, in marrying, her method of indoctrination, she is removing herself from the crossroads of infinity. This is the place outside of society where a bearded woman must naturally reside.
Lily's mother did not introduce her to the concept of being beside the ladder. Even as their female beards grew long, her mothers eventually so long and so draining of her power that she died, they cling to the ideal of wealth as virtue. This clinging itself is the leech of aristocracy.
The gypsy lives a happy life because he has accepted his big bushy beard, or her big bushy beard. As they have for themselves redefined virtue as altogether separate from power, they see being at the crossroads of infinity as the desired stage of life. Being at this crossroads, accepting that one's female beard greases the rungs of the bourgeoisie ladder, is to be in the midst of freedom. Each path, a life decision to work towards a goal, the end of the road, which is said to always be Rome, for it was not built in a day, once taken eliminates this total freedom. However, some roads go forever, such as the road of the aristocracy. More likely they drive on a parkway with pretty foliage and sunny meadows.
Lily starts to understand the nature of ladders in book two, as she loses her ever trembling grip on it and during her long fall has not the time to shave. Bertha does not find Lily's shaving kit, and as we know the beard, or Lily's born into lust for freedom, is responsible for the grease upon which she slips and falls. Bertha's action of alleging an affair between George and our hero is a natural action, as it places Lily closer to her nature, within the land of bearded women. Bertha too has a female beard, but it is her affair with Ned. She shaves it off by getting rid of George and Lily, those who might know about the cheating.
Lily toils getting back to the crossroads of infinity, paying off her debts, and revealing to many her dingy bearded nature. One who this nature is revealed to is Lily herself. She pays her debts, and nature is starting to work. Selden, the only character in the story to be possess traits of both the bearded and shaven, standing outside the ladder yet being powerful, comes to his nature and is about to join Lily at the crossroads.
Unfortunately, Lily fell very far off of the ladder. The pain of the fall leads her to an addiction with sleeping tonic. In her embracing freedom, the gypsy life of drug taking and beard growing, she has found an alternative way of living to the aristocratic parkway, where one must climb to power. As such, she no longer has a need for power. Consequently, she, without power, dies from this embracing. Indeed, her departure from our world is a weak one. Taking a bit too much of the freedom representing juice, she lightly drifts off into nonexistence. She is finally free, but she is dead.
Had Lily stayed on the ladder, continued to seek power, would her fate be the same? Certainly the rich too die, but unlike the poor, they exist after death. This is because of those who have climbed the ladder and chose a path no longer being at the crossroads. They are bound to their choice; the choice is to gather power. The wealthy, a distinct subset of the powerful, are often talked about by their wealth, or amount of money. A Forbes list is not significant because it has fifty names on it, certainly I could make a list of 50 names, quite possibly more entertaining than those on a Forbes list, for instance, Terd Ferguson, it is significant because those fifty names are linked with millions of dollars. When Bertha looks at the others in her circle, she sees them as money. The rich, if on the path to power through money, see themselves as their rung on the ladder.
A person on this path who has achieved wealth has therefore become money. They are their rung, and their rung is their money. As such, when the physical manifestation of the wealthy person dies, they still live on with their inheritance. In this way, the wealthy can live after death as long as no one manipulates the fortune past the point where it can be called the wealthy dead man's. Eternal life is then not limited to the wealthy, anyone who sets down a path which creates a record lasting past their death can be immortal.
Immortality is a bad thing. Lily died, and ceased to exist, because she passed nothing on, save the memories. However, she died free and fully bearded. Those who cling to the ladder will live forever, as slaves to the almighty Benjamin. Patrick Henry ironically, in this situation, and famously, in American situations, said "Give me liberty or give me death." Lily preferred the word and.
