The Age of Innocence Gender Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

And he contemplated her absorbed young face with a thrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculine initiation was mingled with a tender reverence for her abysmal purity. (1.11)

At the beginning of the novel, Archer's attitude toward his fiancé, May, is pretty typical of his class. He views May as a precious and pure object that enhances his own reputation.

Quote #2

He stopped and turned away angrily to light his cigar. "Women ought to be free— as free as we are," he declared, making a discovery of which he was too irritated to measure the terrific consequences. (5.53-4)

Archer's passion for Madame Olenska is beginning to develop here, although he isn't really aware of it yet. But one symptom is that he's starting to be much more liberal-minded when it comes to women's sexuality.

Quote #3

And he felt oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow. (6.6)

Contrast Archer's changed attitude here to his pride in Quote #1, when he is tickled by possessing May.