Wharton’s Understanding of Tragedy: A Philosophical Reflection on <i>The Age of Innocence</i> and <i>The Children</i>

Abstract This article compares Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and The Children as a means of countering the common interpretation of the former as a tragedy. By placing these novels in the context of Wharton’s own thoughts on the Great American Novel, and by adopting a more Hegelian interpretation of tragedy, this piece seeks to reinterpret Newland Archer as a character who has gracefully accepted the condition of alienation inherent to humanity rather than as a man who has allowed his individual yearnings to be scuttled by convention and society. Archer is contrasted with Martin Boyne, a character who does embody the sort of tragic figure Wharton was skilled at portraying, precisely because he refuses to become a part of society but insists on remaining at the margins, as the heroes of the Great American Novel are wont to do, in Wharton’s own reckoning.