The House of Mirth: Book 1: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

At Bellomont, after playing bridge until early morning, Lily walks up to her room but takes a moment to look around her, because she does not yet want to face the solitude of her room. On the stairwell, she finds delight in admiring the beauty of the Trenors’ house (instead of a sense of inequality, which she sometimes experiences). She then sees Bertha Dorset talking intimately with Percy Gryce. Although Lily knows that Mr. Gryce, whose boring stories she has had to hear all afternoon, is taken with Lily, she feels jealous of Mrs. Dorset’s married status, which allows her to amuse herself with men without actually needing them in the way Lily does.

Lily realizes that she will not be able to escape her fate of marrying a rich, probably boring husband. While Lily could live independently like Gerty Farish, she feels too much pleasure at living in luxury to conceive of a lower life. At the same time, Lily knows that her gambling habits are bad for her, and she regrets deciding to play once again. She recalls the example of Ned Silverton, an innocent, beautiful boy who fell in love with divorcée Carry Fisher and with bridge, which made him become addicted to gambling. Over time, Lily’s hostesses have expected her to play bridge with them as an implicit exchange for the clothes and accessories they sometimes buy for her, and Lily has discovered some of the same traces of addiction in her own life.

When Lily returns to her room, she realizes that she has lost three hundred dollars at bridge, whereas women who do not need it, such as Bertha Dorset and Judy Trenor, left the bridge table with hundreds of dollars. Lily finds this situation unfair and compares her life to the maid’s, arguing that she, too, is “in bondage,” but that the maid at least gets paid regularly. Lily looks in the mirror and notices lines by her mouth. She concludes that her frequent worrying is making her look old—which in turn causes her to worry more, since beauty is so important to her social advancement.

Lily then reflects on Percy Gryce and concludes that he is clearly interested in marrying her. Imagining being married to Mr. Gryce, Lily remembers her mother’s vengeful tone when she foreshadowed Lily getting all their money back thanks to the young girl’s beauty. Lily recalls her family life, in which she and her mother would spend extravagant sums of money and live lavish lives, while being in constant need of more money.

When Lily and her mother lacked money to sustain their expensive lifestyle, Lily’s father, whom she almost never saw and whom she barely knew, was always blamed. Mrs. Bart became famous for creating elegance out of moderate means. She considered her life heroic, since it involved such a mix of nobility and risk. Lily agrees with her mother in this regard and feels disdain for people who “live like pigs”—that is, who do not respect conventions of manner and elegance.

At the age of nineteen, Lily’s life changed dramatically when her father announced that he was bankrupt. This confession led to his slow death and, while Lily felt sorry for him, Mrs. Bart was angry at her husband’s failure. The two women were forced to live in a state of poverty. They carefully avoided their previous acquaintances, considering their situation a disgrace.

Despite their dire situation, Mrs. Bart trusted in Lily’s beauty and the consequent ease with which she would one day find a husband. She expressed these ideas so forcefully that Lily began to feel entitled to a world of elegance and luxury. Early on, Lily realized that she would have to use her beauty in strategic ways to become part of the upper-class society that so fascinated her. At the same time, though, Lily does not share all of her mother’s beliefs, as she feels repulsed by the idea of marrying a man for the sake of money alone. Secretly, Lily dreams of noble princes and romantic adventures.

Reflecting on these earlier dreams of adventure, Lily concludes that they were childish. Two years after Lily’s father’s death, her mother died, telling her daughter that she must escape the “dinginess” they lived in, otherwise she would never find a husband. After Mrs. Bart’s death, Lily’s relatives, who probably knew what Mrs. Bart thought of their lives spent “living like pigs,” are uninterested in taking care of Lily. Only one of Lily’s aunts, Mrs. Peniston, accepts to take her in, feeling pride in this act of public self-sacrifice.

Despite being part of New York’s upper class, Mrs. Peniston has always lived at the margins of high-society activity, and she takes pleasure in the material aspects of upper-class life more than the social circle itself. Therefore, Lily was forced to adapt to her aunt’s unexciting, secluded habits, but also benefited from Mrs. Peniston’s belief that young people should wear elegant clothes. Instead of giving Lily a regular allowance, though, Mrs. Peniston buys her presents, which keeps the young woman in a state of dependence.

Apart from this, Mrs. Peniston has failed to intervene in Lily’s life, and Lily feels frustrated that she is still unmarried at the age of twenty-nine. At the same time, Lily longs for independence, but soon realizes that her desire for luxury is too strong and would keep her from straying away from her quest for money, power, and success.