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Dialect
Book 1: Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Debt and Debut:
Lily reminisces about her debut in society and how it was clouded by financial troubles. During this flashback, Wharton uses a metaphor of stormy weather to describe the effect of financial insecurity on Lily's youth, ultimately foreshadowing her troubles to come:
Lily was nineteen when circumstances caused her to revise her view of the universe. The previous year she had made a dazzling debut fringed by a heavy thunder-cloud of bills. The light of the debut still lingered on the horizon, but the cloud had thickened; and suddenly it broke. The suddenness added to the horror; and there were still times when Lily relived with painful vividness every detail of the day on which the blow fell.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Live Like a Pig:
In a flashback, Lily recalls her mother's extravagant spending habits and her parents’ fraught marriage. In this passage, Wharton foreshadows similar financial and moral issues in Lily’s own future:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Mrs. Bart's worst reproach to her husband was to ask him if he expected her to 'live like a pig'; and his replying in the negative was always regarded as a justification for cabling to Paris for an extra dress or two, and telephoning to the jeweler that he might, after all, send home the turquoise bracelet which Mrs. Bart had looked at that morning.
Related Themes:
