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Allusions
Key Examples in The Custom of the Country
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—They Ain't In It:
Throughout the novel, Wharton uses various dialects to help depict the differing social classes and personal backgrounds of various characters. The first instance of this is in the case of Mrs. Heeny, the Spraggs' masseuse and a sort of surrogate mother to Undine. Mrs. Heeny loves to keep up with the happenings of high society, as she says to the family in Chapter 1:
"I should say I did. I manicured him for his first society portrait—a full-length of Mrs. Harmon B. Driscoll." Mrs. Heeny smiled indulgently on her hearers. "I know everybody. If they don't know me they ain't in it, and Claud Walsingham Popple's in it. But he ain't nearly as in it," she continued judicially, "as Ralph Marvell—the little fellow, as you call him."
Related Themes:
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Queer Go:
Peter van Degen, a talkative womanizer, sits down next to Undine at the opera in Chapter 5. Peter has a very distinctive way of speaking that identifies his character as a rebellious member of the upper crust. He speaks in a multitude of short phrases without rest, talking at Undine :
Unlock with LitCharts A+Queer go—I happened to see your friend there waving to old Popp across the house. So I bolted over and collared him: told him he'd got to introduce me before he was a minute older. I tried to find out who you were the other day at the Motor Show—no, where was it? Oh, those pictures at Goldmark's. What d'you think of them, by the way? You ought to be painted yourself—no, I mean it, you know––you ought to get old Popp to do you. He'd do your hair rippingly.
