Mortality And Immortality
...the Olympic pantheon of mythological Greek antiquity, New York Society cavorts and carouses, bickers and condemns while it feasts on ambrosia and canvas-backs. Newland Archer's sister is the gossipy Cassandra; his wife is the huntress Diana. And he, by all instances of the society around him, should be Diana's archer twin: Apollo. He, too, should be "immortal," that is, "like a god", "a deity", "never aging", "perfect", "alive although dead", "icy", "condemning" and "aloof." Surprisingly for Newland and the expectations of his society, after meeting Ellen Olenska he recognizes through the contrast between her and New York that he, like her, is different from the others in New York's pantheon. He, too, is "mortal," that is, "human", "aging", "imperfect", "feeling", "compassionate" and "warm". Once Catherine, the great matriarch of the pantheon, is able to fall from immortality and become a mortal, there is a possibility for Archer to leave the pantheon and live a mortal existence himself. But despite his realization of this possibility, Newland never leaves the pantheon to take on a mortal existence. His inability to freely act on his desires casts the "icy perfection" of immortality in a new light: immortality becomes a form of paralysis. He, ironically, is trapped in his immortality like a soul in a statue. Through the dichotomous metaphor of immortality and mortality, Wharton is able to cast New York and her hero (or perhaps, more precisely, anti-hero) Newland Archer as paradoxically "god-like" yet paralyzed.
When Wharton first describes the characters of New York society, they are always conceived of as immortal in some way. Beginning with Catherine Mingott, her "immense accretion of flesh" rewarded her by "presenting to her mirror an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh." So, Catherine, despite her very old age, manages to escape...
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