July 31 Blog

In this text, I found many passages interesting throughout. In the first part Charity is described as "blind and insensible to many things, and dimly knew it; but to all that was light and air, perfume and colour, every drop in her responded." All during the text Wharton uses the phrase, "Charity was not thinking.." Why was she not thinking?? I asked myself this question many times during the reading. We know she fell in love with Harney and was wrapped up in him..even eventually losing her independence and the ideal of herself in him. She wasn't thinking many times because it seems as though to me that love overwhelmed her and her independence was then forced to the side. However, I don't think that her independence was completely lost...but maybe lingering because even at the end she wrote a letter to Harney pretty much letting him go. She was also independent in the fact that she decided not to have an abortion and marry Mr. Royall because she wanted to put her baby's best interest first over her own.