Mrs. Bart Character Analysis in The House of Mirth

Lily Bart’s mother dies when Lily is in her early twenties. Mrs. Bart has a strong influence on Lily’s attitude toward life, as she convinces her daughter that she will succeed in becoming rich by using her beauty to find a rich husband. Mrs. Bart’s ideology and spending habits instill in Lily a conviction that she belongs to no other class than the upper class, that money brings happiness and moral worth, and that it is also an inherently unstable possession, meant to bring alternate feelings of elation and worry. However, Lily differs from her mother in a crucial respect: her aversion to marrying a rich man for the sake of money alone.

Mrs. Bart Quotes in The House of Mirth

The The House of Mirth quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Bart or refer to Mrs. Bart. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

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She knew that she hated dinginess as much as her mother had hated it, and to her last breath she meant to fight against it, dragging herself up again and again above its flood till she gained the bright pinnacles of success which presented such a slippery surface to her clutch.

Related Characters: Lily Bart, Mrs. Bart

Page Number and Citation: 30

Explanation and Analysis: