The House of Mirth: Metaphors 7 key examples

This flashback to Lily's debut gives context to her present circumstances and attitudes towards money. A glimpse into her past like this helps the reader understand the transactional relationship between her youth and beauty and the ugly reality—having to marry for money—she now faces.

The metaphor of bills and debts mounting as being a “thundercloud”—and her successful debut as a “light” parting it—captures the duality of Lily’s situation even at this early age. Even her earliest introduction to society was somewhat overshadowed by her family’s lack of money. Their impending financial troubles literally cast a shadow over her youthful “light.” It's implied that she only made a successful debut because of her beauty: her financial troubles remain. 

The mention of the stormy weather of her parents’ finances foreshadows the many money problems that will continue to plague Lily throughout the novel. The “blow” that Wharton refers to here is the news that Lily’s father is financially “ruined,” an event that starts a domino effect of cascading debt and failure. This sets up an expectation for the reader that Lily's journey will be fraught with challenges—an expectation that quickly proves to be true.

Lily needs money. She also wants to be happy and safe. The first of those things is incompatible with continuing a relationship with Selden, but she considers the possibility anyway. The metaphor of "two beings" inside Lily illustrates this intense inner dispute. One represents her desire for “freedom and exhilaration” and the genuine happiness she might have if she married for love. Compared to the other men whose airless company she has been forced to endure, a life with Selden seems to offer her the opportunity to “breathe.” She thinks later in the same chapter that he makes her feel "a sense of buoyancy" which is in opposition to her usual restraint. 

The other, more practical “being” within Lily is confined by her fears of financial ruin and her concern with societal expectations. The “little black prison-house” of her fears of losing her life of luxury make a relationship with Selden seem impossibly unappealing, even at this early stage. This is especially true because of how often the narrator tells the reader that Lily hates “dingy” and “small” places. She can’t imagine not pursuing her dreams of marrying well. Even the idea of there being another way is intensely destabilizing for her.

This metaphor highlights the scarcity of kindness in The House Of Mirth. Like a butterfly, which is beautiful but can be easily harmed by touch, kindness is portrayed as something fragile. The world is unkind to women like Gerty, so she has learned to treat kindness and attention as scarce resources.

Gerty feels that by trying to analyze or possess Selden’s kindness, she might destroy its beauty or damage their relationship. She doesn’t want to think too hard about why he might be nice to her because that way she can enjoy it without troublesome thoughts of Lily Bart. She is extremely cautious about the dangers of “seizing on” it or drawing too much attention to herself. She believes that if she can leave her relationship with Selden unexamined and not “defined,” it will remain intact. If she addresses it or thinks too much about it, it will “fade and stiffen in her hand” like a butterfly crushed to death.

This metaphor of a “little illumination” portrays Selden’s attention as a beam of light, not focusing on Gerty but casting light on her anyway. The visual imagery of partial illumination powerfully illustrates the intensity of Selden’s feelings for Lily. It also shows the extent to which Gerty is living in her shadow. It suggests that Selden’s kindness and attention make Gerty feel special, as though she is in the spotlight even though she isn’t.

This sheds light on the younger woman's character. She’s so used to being ignored that she revels in the smallest attention, even the “light” she gets as someone associated with Lily. The metaphor gives the reader insight into her longing for recognition and appreciation. However, the other metaphors in this passage paint Gerty in a less pleasant light. The narrator acknowledges that it might seem odd to the reader that Gerty would feel “illuminated” by Selden’s love for someone else. They go on to explain that it’s because she goes through all her life looking in from the outside of things. They describe her as a “parasite,” content to eat the “crumbs” of affection and attention that come from other people’s actions and relationships. Gerty only knows how to be an outside observer who lives on the scraps of a “banquet spread” for others. The image of her “looking through the window” and her status as a “parasite” indicate her lack of emotional depth. It also points to her exclusion, as a member of a lower social class, from the world that Lily and Selden precariously inhabit.

The imagery in this passage evokes the scale and helplessness of a human body against the ocean. Describing Gerty's confusion and despair as making Selden's words as "meaningless as the boom of waves in a drowning head," Wharton allows readers to vividly imagine the sensory experience of drowning. As Selden speaks, readers feel Gerty’s disorientation and her struggle for breath. Auditory imagery of the “booming,” thunderous sound of crashing waves covers Selden’s speech. The language here is not only about what Gerty hears, but also about what she feels. The passage immerses the reader in the tactile sensation of water engulfing Gerty, allowing them to experience her struggle to comprehend this horrible news.

The motif of water appears throughout The House of Mirth and is intimately connected with the struggles of women to survive within societal constraints. Women not born into wealth "drown" under the weight of the expectations and limitations imposed upon them. They struggle to control their emotions and to maintain their individuality and personal desires against the relentless tide of societal norms and financial pressures.

The motif of rushing, powerful water appears in almost every chapter of the book. For example, in Book 1, the narrator describes Lily as a “water-plant in the flux of the tides.” By Chapter 13, Lily is subsumed by “the sea of humiliation,” and Mr. Trenor’s touch is “a shock to her drowning consciousness.” By Book 2, Chapter 13, Lily is dying and abandoned by society. Fittingly, she leans on a man’s shoulder as she is overcome by a “great wave of physical weakness.” Fighting against the current is fruitless in The House of Mirth. Wharton uses this repeated motif to enact a broader critique of the society she depicts. Gilded Age American high society might have been glittering, but it was also a place where women could be easily consumed by forces beyond their control.

The simile comparing the details of dresses to “letter[s] in the record of her past” illustrates how Lily's possessions hold memories and associations. These objects serve as tangible reminders of her history, representing her previous, more hopeful existence. With this simile, Wharton emphasizes the sentimental value attached to material objects and their power to bring the past into the present. Lily is forced to re-experience the loss of her prospects for a wealthy and secure future, as unpacking her dresses evokes memories and emotions from her catalog of failures.

The metaphor in this passage depicts Lily as a rare flower grown for exhibition. When flowers are grown for this purpose, gardeners will often clip off all the buds but one. They do this so that the remaining flower can get all the nutrients and grow strong. Lily has had all her “buds except beauty” clipped off. The metaphor summarizes how her upbringing and societal expectations deliberately stifled her potential in any area but marriageability. This is one of many moments in the novel where Wharton criticizes the social rules for women that inhibited the full development of their capacities and talents. By likening Lily to a flower grown only for its appearance, the author comments on the dehumanization faced by women in the early 1900s.

The author gives the reader a sense of Lily’s despair using simile in this passage. Lily is compared to a “stray uprooted growth” being swept away in a current. She has no support system and nothing to cling to. This emphasizes her feeling of helplessness and her total loss of control over her life. This comparison also points to Lily's feelings of detachment from her surroundings. She cannot feel at home or put down “roots” in the boarding-house when she has been used to finer things. The descriptions of a “shabby, anxious middle-age” evoke feelings of despair and bleakness, as Lily dreads the dreary life she believes she is condemned to. Her worst fear—that she will become “dingy”—has come true, and it’s accompanied by an awful feeling of loneliness. The impoverished circumstances in which Lily finds herself are echoed in the passage’s language of grayness, shadow, and shabbiness. 

As if this were not already tragic enough, Wharton closes the description of Lily’s new circumstances with a pitiful metaphor. Lily’s "self," the narrator says, is futilely attempting to grasp at “existence.” Her spirit, with its “poor little tentacles of self” fails to cling to anything before being submerged by the “awful flood” of societal decline and misfortune. Her identity, once so precious to her, has been washed away amidst the overpowering tide of societal expectations and public disgrace.