Advisory Committee Chair
Margaret Jessee
Advisory Committee Members
Daniel Siegel
Rebecca Bach
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
1-1-2025
Degree Name by School
Master of Arts (MA) College of Arts and Sciences
Abstract
This thesis considers Edith Wharton’s Summer through a Darwinian perspective. Wharton studied Darwin’s works extensively, so applying The Descent of Man to Summer’s communities has merit. Specifically, I consider Darwin’s writings on evolution as evolution may be altered by feelings of sympathy. In Summer, it is sympathy, loyalty, and ultimate benevolence for one’s people that furthers community evolution as a whole. This relationship between sympathy and community evolution seems to be one Wharton focuses on in Summer. The urban communities of Wharton’s novel pretended to be the most civil and therefore the most evolved, but it is their Mountain neighbors – supposedly rural savages – that are Wharton’s actual most evolved characters. Moreover, these “savages,” including mountain-born protagonist Charity, represent a threat to their “civil” down-the-Mountain neighbors. With the second industrial revolution doubly expanding urban communities and shrinking rural ones, Summer’s Mountain is closer to civilization than it once was. Proximity incites fear of that wild Mountain other in civilized communities like North Dormer, bringing two responses: First, reiterate the boundary. Second, if the boundary between civil and savage, order and disorder weakens, just eliminate the other by incorporation, absorption, or assimilation.
Recommended Citation
Marsh, Anna, "A Lament For The Perishing Barbarians Of Edith Wharton’S Summer" (2025). All ETDs from UAB. 6868.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/6868
Comments
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