Visiting Mrs. Manson Mingott is intriguing. Her huge physical appearance is comedic and if she had not had such a scrupulous past, she would be a character from a wicked French novel. Her position allows her to make critical comments that others cannot make. Implying that Mrs. Lemuel Struther’s arrival is like fresh meat, she personifies New York as a carnivorous creature needing new blood.
In these chapters, Newland begins a puzzling defense of Ellen. While Mrs. Archer questions what their ancestors would have thought of Ellen’s behavior, she knows what current New Yorkers think. It is one thing to be ignorant of New York’s social code, but another thing to be told and not comply. Newland appears to totally defend Ellen, and it is puzzling that somehow Newland is forgetting the double standard favoring men.
However, alone in his study, we see another side of Newland and his thoughts about women. His society disallows women knowledge about life outside their narrow existence; in fact, his sister Janey is a perfect example. His fiancé, May, is also totally naïve and Newland feels that husbands and wives must live in a world “where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.” Before Ellen came, he had no problem with this code; why has her arrival had such an unsettling effect on him? Despite his protests to Jackson, “nice” women cannot be as free as men. But why should Lawrence Lefferts’ marriage be the gold standard, where a man can have numerous affairs, but his wife must not do the same? Newland defends Ellen’s right to be “free,” but contemptuously calls the Count’s women friends “harlots.” Obviously, women who are “free” trouble New Yorkers.
