¶ … Souls Belated, by Edith Wharton [...] Wharton's use of infidelity/divorce and its social consequences in the work. SOULS BELATED

Edith Wharton's novels and short stories are often based on love, tragedy, or a combination of the two. Many critics noticed Wharton's use of infidelity and divorce in her works. One noted, "Divorce, to which she gave particular attention, can in her stories never be quite complete" (Van Doren 275).

In "Souls Belated," the reader learns the two main characters, Lydia and Gannett are "sorry to be alone" at the very beginning of the story, which sets the tone for their relationship, and the remainder of the tale, so it is no surprise when Lydia receives a divorce notice in the mail. "Divorce. There it stood, an impassable barrier, between her husband's name and hers" (Wharton). The surprise is she is not traveling with her husband, so her relationship with her lover is as bad as her relationship with her husband, or so the reader presumes. She thinks to herself that she made her marriage "do," and even though this story was written in 1899, it could be just as relevant today, when so...

She writes, "I begin to see what marriage is for. It's to keep people away from each other" (Wharton).
She loves Gannett, but she is afraid he loves her because he "has" to, and she is afraid to jump into another relationship so quickly. Divorce to her means "freedom," and life with Gannett means much of the same she suffered with her husband. In an amusing twist, Lydia reluctantly befriends another "fallen" woman who is attempting to obtain a divorce, and has run away with her lover. While Lydia does not want to be judged by others about her divorce, she judges Mrs. Cope, falling into the same societal trap. Divorce and infidelity are almost the norm in this story, which Wharton seems determined to make normal, no matter what society thinks. She portrays the divorced women as real - living, breathing characters. They are not evil; they are just like the woman next door. By making them sympathetic, it seems she hopes to make the entire act of divorce more sympathetic and so more acceptable to stuffy Victorian society.

Socially, divorce was extremely scandalous when Wharton…