Mothers and Daughters: A Study of Edith Wharton

Whether due to her own mother's coldness, or to the fact that she herself did not have children, or to some other factor or combination of factors, Edith Wharton seemed unable to envision a warm, satisfying mother-daughter relationship. The mothers in her fiction are often detached and/or absent, and the daughters suffer from the faulty or nonexistent relationships with their mothers. The "motherless" daughters--Lily Bart, Mattie Silver, and Charity Royall--never achieve adulthood in any real sense. They lack autonomy and remain dependent on others. Other daughters--Nona Manford and Judith Wheater--must take over the parental role when their mothers fail to nurture them adequately. Only May Welland cares across as a nurturing mother who is genuinely concerned about the welfare of her children and who cares for them consistently. However, Wharton gave us only sketchy details about May as mother. Wharton's pessimistic view of life prevented her from portraying happiness in mother-daughter relationships in her fiction.