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By Root 6724 0

illusions of self-importance, upper-class New York occupies a ‘‘disconcertingly small’’ place in the scheme of things. Late in the novel, Archer draws effectively on a famous moment of archaeological discovery to define Ellen’s illuminating presence in his life. His memories of her, repressed for a year and a half after his marriage to May, emerge suddenly and unexpectedly into conscious awareness, like long-hidden cave paintings suddenly rediscovered: ‘‘he thought of a story he had read, of some peasant children in Tuscany lighting a bunch of straw in a wayside cavern and revealing old silent images in their painted tomb . . .’’ This analogy further emphasizes Ellen’s role in opening his eyes to ignored or unacknowledged facts.

Ellen’s foreignness disturbs New Yorkers’ complacent resistance to things outside their own milieu, but her presence is tolerated until it threatens Archer’s marriage. The essential brutishness of his supposedly civilized community is illustrated with uncomfortable clarity at the farewell party hosted by his wife. Despite elegant decorations, fine dishes, and surface cordiality, Archer cannot help but perceive that the occasion marks ‘‘the tribal rally around a kinswoman about to be eliminated from the tribe.’’ He is ‘‘a prisoner in the center of an armed camp’’ just as effectively as if he had fallen into the hands of half-naked nomads wielding spears; the beautifully dressed, outwardly polite dinner guests are, in fact, ‘‘his captors.’’ In this scene Archer invokes ethnographic vocabulary to expose the primitive impulses guiding the behavior of people who regard themselves as progressive and enlightened. He thus confirms the contention of theoretical anthropologists that differences between preindustrial and modern cultures are mainly superficial. For all its genteel trappings (and despite the absence of flint hatchets), this dinner party is an ominous, even barbaric, event. The collective power to squelch or banish rebellious individuals is conspicuously displayed. Anthropology provides Archer with terminology to expose the ferocity and, more important, the hypocrisy characterizing his prosperous, upper-class social community. Its self-image is distinctly at odds with Archer’s metaphoric descriptions of it, and this disparity in viewpoints is the source of piercing irony.

As the pivotal figure in the love triangle dominating the novel, Archer vacillates protractedly in his choice, considering and reconsidering the attractions of two women whose differences render them diametric opposites.If Ellen Olenska poses an appealingly cosmopolitan alternative to New York provincialism, May Welland offers him the security of trusted familiarity. May is firmly entrenched, and contentedly so, in the social world unable to accommodate Ellen’s distressing otherness. Ellen represents a risky, possibly dangerous choice, no matter how exciting; May represents a safe, dependable choice, no matter how bland. ‘‘Her point of view,’’ Archer reminds himself, is ‘‘that of all the people he had grown up among.’’ Caught up in the social intricacies of her community of origin, May is unable to see beyond its boundaries; indeed, she resists doing so. She is ill at ease abroad, critical of alien customs and ideas, as her reaction to Mrs. Carfry’s dinner party or M. Revière’s passion for ‘‘good conversation’’ illustrates: ‘‘ ‘Oh, Newland, how funny!’ ’’ When he proposes that they break with ‘‘stencilled’’ social ‘‘patterns’’ calling for long engagements (‘‘ ‘Can’t you and I strike out for ourselves, May?’ ’’), she supports established proprieties, dismissing his suggestion as ‘‘vulgar.’’ In sum, May epitomizes the ‘‘sameness’’ and ‘‘deadly monotony’ ’’ threatening to suffocate him. In his need to escape a ‘‘stifling’’ environment, he keeps opening windows, while she keeps asking him to shut them: ‘‘ ‘You’ll catch your death.’ ’’ Here a simple domestic exchange points toward the couple’s divergent attitudes to their homogeneous, tightly knit social community. May regards everything outside that community as dangerous, perhaps