"The Custom of the Country" by Edith Wharton is a scathing social critique and a compelling exploration of the Gilded Age's high society in early twentieth-century America. The novel revolves round Undine Spragg, a charming and formidable female from the Midwest who ascends the social ladder through a chain of marriages. Undine's relentless pursuit of wealth and status takes her thru the glamorous world of New York and European aristocracy. Edith Wharton's incisive narrative dissects the ethical and moral dimensions of society, exposing the vacancy of a subculture driven by way of materialism and social mountaineering. Undine, a complex and frequently unsympathetic individual, turns into a image of the unfavourable consequences of unchecked ambition. The novel's brilliance lies in Wharton's ability to satirize the customs and values of the time while offering a nuanced portrayal of her characters. "The Custom of the Country" remains a timeless exploration of societal aspirations and the rate one will pay for chasing the elusive dream of upward mobility in a global ruled by using social conventions.
Edith Wharton was an American author and designer. Wharton used her personal knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to convincingly depict the lives and morality of the Gilded Age. Her novel The Age of Innocence earned her the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1921, making her the first woman to receive it. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Her other well-known works include The House of Mirth, the novella Ethan Frome, and other renowned ghost stories. On January 24, 1862, George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander gave birth to Edith Newbold Jones at their brownstone at 14 West Twenty-third Street in New York City. Her friends and family referred to her as "Pussy Jones". She has two older brothers: Frederic Rhinelander and Henry Edward. Frederic married Mary Cadwalader Rawle, and their daughter was landscape architect Beatrix Farrand. Edith was christened on April 20, 1862, Easter Sunday, at Grace Church.
