New England (The Pretext)

New England is a region in the northeast of the United States of America. It consists of six states which are Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts (Harris, 1985, p. 15 - 31). To the north, New England shares a border with Canada, to the east it borders the Atlantic Ocean, to the south Long Island Sound and to the west New York State (New England Quick Facts, 2021).

New England offers a diverse landscape ranging from mountain ranges over large forests to river and lakes, a rocky coastline but also sandy beaches (New England Quick Facts, 2021). The estimated population of all six states of New England is around 14.85 million (QuickFacts, 2019) and has been and still is shaped by many immigrants from Europe and other continents around the world (New England Quick Facts, 2021). New England has a rich historical and cultural background (Forbes, 1985, p. 39). It was one of the first regions of the continent settled by English people and it played an important role in the abolition of slavery. Furthermore, Boston, the capital of Massachusetts and the city with the largest population in New England is the location where the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party took place (New England Quick Facts, 2021). New England also houses two of the best and most famous universities of the world which are Harvard (Boston, Massachusetts) and Yale (New Haven, Connecticut) (Harpprecht. 1985, p. 52 - 58).

Edith Wharton often used New England as a setting of her literary work, in short stories as well as in novels. “The Fruit of the Tree”, “All Souls’”, “Bewitched”, “The Angel of the Night” for example, are some of them. Her probably most famous novel with a New England setting is “Ethan Frome” (Wright, 1998, p. 179) though it was criticized as “an interesting example of a successful New England story written by some one who knew nothing of New England!” (Wharton, 1964, p. 296). To defend herself from being described as someone who knew nothing of the subject she wrote about, Edith Wharton stated in her autobiography “A Backward Glance” (1964) that she “had come to know well the aspect, dialect, and mental and moral attitude” (p. 296) of the New England people while spending ten years there. Because of using New England as a setting, she is often mentioned together with Nathaniel Hawthorne because he is famous for writing about New England as well (Beer, 2005, p. 121). In Edith Wharton’s ghost stories, in which she mostly used New England as a setting, the region usually functions or is described as “a deadening, even dead, location.” (Beer, 2005, p. 123). Furthermore, she relates to her New England as a place with just a few freedoms caused by class and sexuality (Beer, 2005, p. 118 - 43). The latter description of New England is also fitting for the New England, or rather the “rigid New England ancestry” (Lewis, 1968, p. 633) described in the short story “The Pretext”.

Sources:

Beer, J. (2005). Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Studies in Short Fiction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Forbes, S. (1985, June 6). Boston - Europäischer Charme, amerikanisch gefärbt. Merian. USA: Neuengland, 6/38, p. 38 - 47.

Harpprecht, K. (1985, June 6). Der Zauber bleibt wirksam: Harvard. Merian. USA: Neuengland, 6/38, p. 52 - 58.

Harris, B. (1985, June 6). Land des Yankee Doodle. Merian. USA: Neuengland, 6/38, p. 6 - 32.

Lewis, R. W. B. (1968). The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Wharton, E. (1964). A Backward Glance. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Wright, S. B. (1998). Edith Wharton A to Z: The Essential Guide to the Life and Work. New York: Facts on File.

“New England Quick Facts”. Discover New England, 2021, https://discovernewengland.org/new-england-quick-facts/. Accessed April 10, 2021.

“QuickFacts”. United States Census Bureau, 2019, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/VT,RI,NH,ME,MA,CT/PST045219. Accessed April 24, 2021.