The House of Mirth

The thought of the chloral was the only spot of light in the dark prospect: she could feel its lulling influence stealing over her already. But she was troubled by the thought that she had never before known what it was to be alone.

Economic-tragedy architecture—each refusal (Rosedale, Selden, Gryce) narrows Lily's path to boarding-house decline—the plot is social physics, not coincidence, so plot scores 90.

Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart. It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country

Lily Bart, Lawrence Selden, Gus Trenor, Bertha Dorset, Carry Fisher, Simon Rosedale—each a distinct position in Old New York's marriage market, so cast scores 92.

The light projected on the situation by Mrs. Fisher had the cheerless distinctness of a winter dawn. It outlined the facts with a cold precision unmodified by shade or colour, and refracted, as it were, from the blank walls of the surrounding limitations

Two-book society-season structure assumes a reader patient with social observation; the boarding-house endgame accelerates after dilated middle, so pace scores 84.

Why must a girl pay so dearly for her least escape from routine? Why could one never do a natural thing without having to screen it behind a structure of artifice? She had yielded to a passing impulse in going to Lawrence Selden's room

Wharton's mature social realism makes Lily's consciousness the primary action; Mrs Fisher's 'cheerless distinctness of a winter dawn' exemplifies the prose of social X-ray, so prose scores 94.

She belonged to the class of old New Yorkers who have always lived well, dressed expensively, and done little else; and to these inherited obligations Mrs. Peniston faithfully conformed. She had always been a looker-on at life

Old New York as closed circuit—Fifth Avenue, the Brys' ballroom, Monte Carlo, the boarding-house—every drawing-room carrying economic weight under the ironic title, so world scores 92.

Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart. It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country

Book One Ch.I immediately establishes the observer-observed dynamic and Lily's anomalous presence that will drive the tragedy, so hook scores 90.

It was this moment of love, this fleeting victory over themselves, which had kept them from atrophy and extinction; which, in her, had reached out to him in every struggle against the influence of her surroundings, and in him, had kept alive the faith

The marriage-market novel as economic tragedy—Lily's beauty as depreciating asset, Trenor money as unrepayable debt—Wharton's systematic exposure of female precarity, so innov scores 90.

and in the silence there passed between them the word which made all clear.

Selden at the bedside, the desk's evidence clearing Lily's honor, 'the word which made all clear'—love acknowledged after death—among the most devastating endings in American fiction, so ending scores 92.