Lily's Plight

Lily used a good image to describe her plight as a woman in her time period she says, " I have tried hard, but life is difficult and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent exsistence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else. What can one do when one finds that one only fits into one hole? One must get back into it or be thrown out into the rubbish heap-and you don't know what its like in the rubbish heap" (327). Lily was raised in a wealthy home and never had to work. She fits this image well. She was meant to be a particular cog: a wealthy house wife who would not have to provide for herself and just throw houise parties. When she did have to work, then she had problems. She was not used to the stress of working and could not handle it. She could not hold a job for a very long time. Women of her time suffered this plight because they were not expected to work and to provide for themselves and when they had to, they couldn't. Also the women of this time probably felt under valued because they didn't have many places where they could put effort into accomplishing something that felt rewarding besides throughing a good house party or catching that rich husband.

Lily and Wealth

"...she works like a slave preparing the ground and sowing her seeds, but the day she ought to be reaping the harvest, she oversleeps or goes off on a picnic" (198). This quote references to how Lily seems to avoid completing her quest in courting a wealthy hucband. Maybe she knows deep down in side that this is not what she really wants. She denies Rosedale and she doesn't finish the job on Percy Gryce. She also tries to support herself through hat weaving. Although at the end of the story she considers marrying Rosedale, she never goes through with it just like the other times she has thought of marrying and kills herself instead. Lily seems to have wanted more in life than to just play the submissive role of a wealthy house wife. She seems to have wanted something more than the superficial wealth that she would get by marrying the rich men. Lilly wanted to accomplish something herself. "... it soon became clear to Lily that she was to enjoy only the material advantages of good food and expensive clothing; and though far from underrating these, she would gladly exchange them for what Mrs. Bart had taught her to regard as oppurtunities" (38). An oppurtunity is a vague word, but she clearly wants something above all the money, fancy homes and prestige of being wealthy; she wants something more out of life.

Gus Trenor and Lily Bart

It seemed through reading various parts of this book that Gus was using the fact that he was providing Miss Bart with monetary substinence to make advances toward her from the beginnning of their close association. In one scene, "[Lily] let her eyes shine into his with a look that made up for the handclasp he would have claimed if they had not been alone..." (96). Although holding hands may seem innocent, it is awkward for a married man to do this to a attractive, young woman without romantic thoughts in mind. Repeatedlty Gus makes remarks about how his wife is demanding and unreasonable and does not understandthe value of money, so it is understandable that after becoming disillusioned with his wife, that Gus would try and find a new women to be the object of his affections.

Rich Do Not Have Priorities Straight

Miss Farish, one of the wealthy, social elite in this novel was trying to make a charity. However, this charity did not really help those in need. The organization served to help working women becasue these women are "unfortunate" because they have to work for a living. "The object of the association was to provide comfortable lodgings...where young women of the class employed in downtown offices might find a home when out of work or in need of rest..." (116). Is this really needed for working women? They have money and they can support themselves. Working women are not suffering and homeless. If Farish really wanted to be useful and do something productive, she would help people living in slums that are having trouble putting food on the table and making a living. Unfortunately, however, the rich of this class seem to look down on people like this. For example, the woman who sees Miss Bart, Mrs. Haffen is looked down apon for her appearance and she is considered dirty.

Lily

According to Selden, "The people who take society as an escape from work are putting it to its proper use; but when it becomes the thing worked for, it distorts all the relations of life (72)." Selden represents everything that Lily is not. Lily believes in money and the importance of class. On the otherhand, he says, "My idea of sucess, personal freedom...From everything-from money, from poverty...from all the material accidents" (70). Selden is different from Lily, but he is attractive to her. Lily abandons the cause of Mr. Gryce for Selden. At the same time however, she also wants the rich life. She is amibvalent in her feelings on the direction of her life. It is strange how throughout the novel Lily is indecisive in her actions.

"...The means of labor and the external conditions of labor belong to private individuals" (Marx 298). Capitalists provide a means of substinence for the proletariat because they control the means of labor. For the proletariat to live, they must use this means of substenance. Therefore, the proletariat is bound to this capitalist system. To Marx, this capitalist system is a cruel system whioch has no escape. The proletariat is not enslaved like previous peoples in that the bourgeoise own them. The proletariat can quit there job and leave anytime they want to. However, the proletariat need a substinence and this is what keeps them under the thumb of the capitalists. This freedom the factory workers and laborers appear to have exists only ijn name. They have no real freedom. The capitalists know that the laborers will stay under their contorl because they have no other means of surviving. The bourgeoise help the proletariat to just barely survive so the children will have to work. Then, these children will be uneducated and they will be only able to work factory jobs. This will go on in a continuing cycle unless something in society is radically changed. This way the factory owners have a fresh supply of workers every generation to replace the retirees and produce for the capitalists.

More Work=Less Happiness

According to Marx, "... the misery of the worker is inversley proportional to the power and volume of his production..." (58). Marx seems to be saying that a workers unhappiness is a product of his production. I see this especially in the case of demanding jobs like doctors and lawyers. It seems the more one works and the more he produces, the less happy he will become. He is ignoring his humanity and in the desire just to gain commodities and material goods. It is unatural to subject oneself to eighty hour work weeks and 12 hour work days. Although Marx is arguing in terms of the proletariat and how he does this just as a means of substinence and is not making nearly as much money as a doctor or a lawyer, the same idea resonsates with them.