Abstract
DESPITE THE PRESENT RENEWAL OF INTEREST IN The House of Mirth, reminiscent of the enthusiasm that greeted its publication in 1905, criticism has not yet explained the single most powerful aspect of the novel: the extraordinary appeal of its heroine, Bart. somehow exceeds the bounds of critical definition as she does the intentions of Edith Wharton's narrative structure. She is of the most compelling of the female spirits-Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Maggie Tulliver, Edna Pontellier-struggling to forge their own destinies, whom, as Diana Trilling points out, literary convention customarily destroys.1 Critics have recognized the super-added energy of The House of Mirth2 and acknowledged Lily's mysterious appeal.' 3 Lily Bart is by far the most vivid of Mrs. Wharton's heroines, writes Louis Auchincloss.4 Simply as an example of imaginative portraiture, Irving Howe proclaims, she is one of the triumphs of American writing. 5 To Edith Wharton, is an inevitable victim of destruction by social institutions' collective necessities. Wharton's declared intent was to il-
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