Marital Conflict and Jealousy
“The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” is a story about a haunting—and from the beginning of the story, it is clear that the gloomy, supernatural presence that haunts and hangs over the Brymptons’ house is connected to their ill-fated marriage. When Hartley, the lady’s maid who narrates the story, arrives at the house where she has been taken on as a servant, she immediately notices how different the Brymptons are: Mr. Brympton is crude, brusque, and…
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Class and Hierarchy
While “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” is primarily the story of the disintegration of a marriage, it is also a story about class and what servants owed their masters in the rigid social hierarchy of the Victorian era. The pull of class as a social force is evident from the beginning of the story: Hartley, the lady’s maid who narrates the story, is forced to take work at the gloomy, remote Brympton house because, due…
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Mystery and Ambiguity
While Edith Wharton’s “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” seems to offer closure to its readers in most respects—by the story’s end, Mrs. Brympton is dead, Mr. Brympton has fled to a distant land, and the ghost has vanished—it is also a fundamentally ambiguous story that refuses to pull back the veil on the mystery at its center. In this respect, Wharton suggests that there are some things in life that are simply beyond rational knowledge, and…
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Illness, Isolation, and Loneliness
Brympton, the estate where Edith Wharton’s ghost story “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” is set, is a gloomy, lonely place. It is also a place oppressed by illness and alienation—where people keep secrets from each other and, as readers soon learn, a ghost has taken up residence. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the appearance of the ghost is connected to the illness and loneliness of the story’s characters; in fact, readers cannot be…
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