『환락의 집』에서 활인화와 영혼의 공화국

Abstract

In Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, Lawrence Selden notices Lily Bart’s immobile body on three occasions and imagines that she is a disembodied aesthetic object. However, in the performance of tableaux vivants, most of the audience believe that Lily displays herself as a human merchandise to be exchanged for men’s wealth in accordance with the marriage customs of the high society. Selden’s envisioning of Lily as the ideal of the republic of the spirit is influenced by the contemporary art, particularly the Pre-Raphaelite painters who often idealized dying or unmoving women as spiritual beings. Lily struggles between her need to marry a wealthy man and her distaste for the snobbish marriage custom. While Selden wants Lily to break away from the high society, he ignores her financial troubles and distances himself from her when she is embroiled in scandals. Lily’s death is part of the conventions of art and literature that require fallen women to pay the price through death as a prerequisite for their purgation. Only when Lily becomes a tableau mort is Selden able to reconcile himself with her. However, Selden remains ignorant of the sacrifices she has made to defend his honor. For the tableau vivant, Lily chooses the portrait of Mrs. Joanna Lloyd by Joshua Reynolds. Contrary to Selden’s imagination, Lily stands proud and full of vitality in the tableau vivant and refuses to become a human merchandise traded in marriage as well as an aesthetic object idealized for Selden’s republic of the spirit.