Husbands and wives, scandals and lies. These chapters are quickly bringing the novel to its conclusion by highlighting the morality of the 1870s and the dilemmas it creates. First is the problem of the Beauforts: Family loyalty versus dishonor is the conflict that must be resolved. “The whole of New York was darkened by the tale of Beaufort’s dishonour.” After Regina’s visit to old Mrs. Mingott and her subsequent stroke, little sympathy exists for Regina’s role. The polite and correct thing would be to retire to North Carolina where they have a racing stable and Julius can be a “horse dealer” in truth. Newland and May’s opinion is the same: in sickness, health, and scandal, the husband and wife share equally. Ellen, however, sympathizes with Regina saying, “She’s the wife of a scoundrel . . . and so am I, and yet all my family wants me to go back to him.” When others will not visit the fallen Regina, Ellen will.
Second, Newland is caught in a web of lies. May’s insistence that he explain himself over the change in litigation and trip to Washington, reveals that she knows he is lying. Her sadness at his actions reveals a major theme of Wharton’s novel: They are products of the culture and code in which they live. Honor demands they stay husband and wife, and even if May cannot discuss his love for Ellen aloud, she certainly is aware of his unhappiness and her failure to keep his affection.
Ellen is the realist in this entire situation. She realizes that the societal principles and habits are what they would lose if they stooped to an affair. Newland made her see this when he defended her right to leave her husband and live a lonely life, but an honorable one. A clandestine affair would mean an end to the principles decent people hold to be true. He is the romantic, wanting to have Ellen near him, but not considering the price she would pay in her loneliness. He romantically says, “Each time you happen to me all over again.”
When Ellen kisses Archer and he realizes how much she loves him, he envisions a life where he can be married to May but have Ellen too. A product of his time, male gratification is the driving force behind his decision. When she says the word “mistress,” he thinks it crude, coming from a woman. He is not a man to break social conventions, while she looks at life more realistically. He exclaims, “I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words like that—categories like that—won’t exist . . . .” The realist, Ellen, knows that even if they ran away together, their love would become a shabby parody of life where they would end up in a smaller, dingier world. She asks, “Oh, my dear—where is that country? Have you ever been there?” She has lived outside the world of genteel New Yorkers and she knows Newland is inherently bound to that life and would be unhappy and not himself without it.
When he is with May in the privacy of their library, all of Newland’s longing is revealed when he looks at her head bent over her embroidery and realizes this is the life he will have to live. Ellen is right: They cannot hurt those to whom they are bound. He will live a death in life, bound to this unimaginative woman forever.
