The Custom of the Country

But under all the dazzle a tiny black cloud remained. She had learned that there was something she could never get, something that neither beauty nor influence nor millions could ever buy for her. She could never be an Ambassador's wife.

Arriviste-tragedy architecture: Undine's Apex → New York → Paris → divorce from Ralph → Moffatt → Van Degen → final triumph hollowed by the Ambassador's-wife ceiling, so plot scores 88.

"Undine Spragg--how can you?" her mother wailed, raising a prematurely-wrinkled hand heavy with rings to defend the note which a languid "bell-boy" had just brought in.

Undine Spragg the American anti-heroine, Ralph Marvell the old New York victim, Elmer Moffatt the bounder who understands her, Clare Van Degen the observer-survivor — every figure a distinct position in social climbing, so cast scores 90.

That the reckoning between himself and Undine should be settled in dollars and cents seemed the last bitterest satire on his dreams: he felt himself miserably diminished by the smallness of what had filled his world.

Long episodic transatlantic structure — hotel openings, divorce proceedings, European marriages, custody battles — with satirical set-pieces that dilate the middle before Ralph's death and Undine's final ascent, so pace scores 80.

After all, imagination WAS the eagle that devoured Prometheus!" She drew away abruptly, and the bright moonlight showed him the apprehension in her face. "You're not going to write a book HERE?"

Wharton's satirical peak — 'Undine Spragg--how can you?', the eagle that devoured Prometheus, the Ambassador's-wife closing line — social observation sharpened to blade, so prose scores 91.

"Undine Spragg--how can you?" her mother wailed, raising a prematurely-wrinkled hand heavy with rings to defend the note which a languid "bell-boy" had just brought in. But her defence was as feeble as her protest.

American new money vs European old title — the Stentorian, Apex City, the Marvell drawing-rooms, Paris and Saint Desert — every hotel and château a rung on Undine's ladder, so world scores 90.

"Undine Spragg--how can you?" her mother wailed, raising a prematurely-wrinkled hand heavy with rings to defend the note which a languid "bell-boy" had just brought in.

Ch.I — Undine seizing the bell-boy's note while Mrs Spragg and Mrs Heeny admire her form — immediately establishes the arriviste family and Undine's absolute self-interest, so hook scores 88.

She could never be an Ambassador's wife; and as she advanced to welcome her first guests she said to herself that it was the one part she was really made for.

The society novel with an amoral heroine — Undine never learns, never repents, and wins — Wharton's systematic exposure of American social climbing as a game with no interiority required, so innov scores 89.

But under all the dazzle a tiny black cloud remained. She had learned that there was something she could never get, something that neither beauty nor influence nor millions could ever buy for her. She could never be an Ambassador's wife.

Undine at her Washington salon, everything achieved except the one role she was 'really made for' — satirical triumph that is also defeat; the black cloud refuses both comeuppance and redemption, so ending scores 90.