Kate's Hovering between Mind and Emotion

Abstract

As Edith Wharton wrote, “The visible world is a daily miracle for those who have eyes and ears” (A Backward Glance 379). In her autobiography, A Backward Glance (1934), Wharton tried always to be sincere and positive volunteering throughout World War I to help many people. This was the hardest and most difficult period for her as a highbrow. However, many critics agreed that she is not a mere optimist but also struggled with negative feelings. “Life is the saddest thing there is, next to death” (379). Cynthia Griffin Wolff says “there is still an underlying sense of pessimism, the legacy of the failed sense of trust in childhood” (97), and moreover, “this pessimism leads her to explore the plight of the unhappy women” (97). The heroine of The Mother’s Recompense (1925), Kate Clephane, is easily considered a typical unhappy woman. Though Edith Wharton was born into the privileges of New York’s, she fought against many invisible barriers in society. As a child, she loved reading books and writing novels and finally decided to be a writer as her vocation at the age of 29. She got divorced from her husband despite the fact that it was incredibly difficult in society and that it took 13 years to finish the dispute. She lost many friends and acquaintances during the ordeal of the divorce. As Gloria C. Erlich tells us, “She suffered for extended periods from eating disorders, hysteria, migraines, claustrophobia, and asthma” (xi). Wharton struggled with various kinds of illnesses which contributed to the specific descriptions of many sickly characters in her stories. She seemingly led a rosy life but undeniably, her life had thorns even until the age of 75 as she was a cultivated sentient artist. Wharton’s greatest life-long challenge came not only through her everyday life but also through her many works. She was criticized for over-using tragic endings in her works.