Architectural Metaphor

Edith Wharton often uses analogies of people and homes in her stories (Sauter 235). “The best-known example of architectural metaphors for human experience among Wharton’s fiction is found in “The Fullness of Life” […]” (Benstock 31). In this metaphor the main character compares a woman’s nature with a house, while talking to the Spirit of Life about the fact that she never experienced “the fullness of life” in her marriage, and that her marriage “was a very incomplete affair” (Lewis 14).

“But I have sometimes thought that a woman's nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing-room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, where the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to them, no one knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes.” (Lewis 14)

This metaphor is most referred to in research. The woman is equated to a house with different rooms, some of them having limited access that may never be entered by anyone. The main character imagines a woman’s soul in the “innermost room” of the house, which is also the most hidden one, so it is never actually reached because no one can find access to it (Sauter 235). This explains that her husband never found access to her soul either and, even worse, he never tried to. Her husband “never got beyond the family sitting-room” (Lewis 14), therefore he was never able to fulfill her wishes and understand her inner life. The woman was very frustrated about that situation while she was still alive, and tells the Spirit that sometimes she “felt like crying out to him: ‘Fool, will you never guess that close at hand are rooms full of treasures and wonders, such as the eye of man hath not seen, rooms that no step has crossed, but that might be yours to live in, could you but find the handle of the door?’” (Lewis 14). It can also be assumed that the comparison between a woman’s nature and a house might have some sexual connotations (Kornetta 225).

The story “The Fullness of Life” and the metaphor especially, is often linked to Edith Wharton’s life and marriage to her husband, Teddy. Shari Benstock says in her essay in A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton that the metaphor “reveals more of Edith Wharton’s personal situation in these years than she wanted the public to know” (31).

Joseph Griffin also connects the story with Edith Wharton’s marriage, quoting that it “treated in thinly disguised manner her problematic relationship with her husband, Teddy” (7). Edith Wharton wrote the “Fullness of Life” in 1891, after a trip to Europe, in which she visited Paris, the French Riviera, and Florence, with her husband (Lewis, Edith Wharton 65). She sent the story to the editor of the Scribner’s Magazine, Burlingame, who found it “a capital conception,” but wanted her to revise some parts (Griffin 7). She, however, chose not to revise it, and it was published in Scribner’s in 1893 in its original version (7). Furthermore, Edith Wharton rejected to publish the story in a collection of her works called The Greater Inclination, after Burlingame asked her to publish it there again (8). She wrote him a letter and described the story as “one long shriek.”

As to the old stories of which you speak so kindly, I regard them as the excesses of youth. They were all written 'at the top of my voice,' & The Fulness of Life is one long shriek. […] I fear that the voice of those early tales will drown all the others: it is for that reason that I prefer not to publish them (Lewis R.W.B and Lewis N. 36).

Ultimately, the story was left out of the collection, and according to White, Edith Wharton “did not want the public to identify her as a dissatisfied wife” (qtd. in. Wright 93).

Bibliography:

Benstock, Shari. “Edith Wharton, 1862-1937: A Brief Biography.” A historical guide to Edith Wharton. 19–51. Print.

Griffin, Joseph. America's social classes in the writings of Edith Wharton: An analysis of her short stories. Lewiston, N.Y: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009. Print.

Kornetta, Reiner. Das Korsett im Kopf: Ehe und Ökonomie in den Kurzgeschichten Edith Whartons. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996. Print. Düsseldorfer Beiträge aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Bd. 4.

Lewis, R.W.B, ed. The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton. Volume 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968. Print

Lewis, R. W. B. Edith Wharton: A Biography. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Print.

Lewis, R. W. B and Lewis, Nancy, ed. The Letters of Edith Wharton. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988. Print.

Sauter, Irene B. New York City, "gilt cage" or "promised land"? Representations of urban space in Edith Wharton and Anzia Yezierska. Bern: Peter Lang, 2011. Print. European university studies. Series XIV, Anglo-Saxon language and literature v. 465.

Wright, Sarah B. Edith Wharton A to Z: The essential guide to the life and work. New York: Facts on File, 1998. Print.