The plot of The Reef is nucleated around the complexity of relationship between three leading characters: George Darrow, Sophy Viner, and Anna Leath. Darrow enters into a brief liaison with the young and pretty Sophy. His engagement with the wealthy widow, Anna, then suffers in more than one way, especially when Anna's stepson, Owen, proposes to Sophy. The emotional turmoil that results from this complex situation is the main focus of the novel.
In her novels, Wharton has always been a critical observer of social manners, expressed often in comparisons of two similar ways of observable behavior: natural (instinctual) and social (learned, which can be bettered by social modeling). As an observer, Wharton draws parallels between eating and talk. After all, the mouth is the passage of pleasurable sensations, but that passage can also be marred by its venomous outpourings.
The Failure of Emotions: The Reef
A characteristic quality of Edith Wharton's novels is the failure of bottled-up emotions that are not in conformity with callous social manners. None of the main characters in The Reef are able to adequately express their emotions. Wharton relates this fact, causally, to the indifference of society toward those who behaved differently: "In the well-regulated, well-fed Summers world the unusual was regarded as either immoral or ill-bred, and people with emotions were not visited."
The Failure of Emotions: The Reef
A characteristic quality of Edith Wharton's novels is the failure of bottled-up emotions that are not in conformity with callous social manners. None of the main characters in The Reef are able to adequately express their emotions. Wharton relates this fact, causally, to the indifference of society toward those who behaved differently: "In the well-regulated, well-fed Summers world the unusual was regarded as either immoral or ill-bred, and people with emotions were not visited."
The novel thus captures the essence of a hard-shelled society, where emotions are treated with "No Entry." Wharton tells of Anna Summers that she would someday find the "magic bridge" between West Fifty-Fifth Street and life. And she does find the bridge--one of emotional sensitivity--when her knowledge of Darrow and Sophy's past places her in front of life and away from West Fifty-Fifth Street.
Wharton's main characters are never callous. Darrow, who is an emotionally stable figure, also interacts with Sophy in emotional terms. Whether he feels it as closely as the reader, however, is open to interpretation.
Philosophy of The Reef
The Reef stands as the most philosophical of Wharton's novels, probing the reality of an individual's evolving existence in relation to centuries of calcified consciousness. In a semantically rich passage, Wharton illustrates the philosophy of this relation by comparing Sophy to a child playing with a tiger's cub (standing for life). Some day the child would grow up, and so would the tiger.
Wharton's main characters are never callous. Darrow, who is an emotionally stable figure, also interacts with Sophy in emotional terms. Whether he feels it as closely as the reader, however, is open to interpretation.
Philosophy of The Reef
The Reef stands as the most philosophical of Wharton's novels, probing the reality of an individual's evolving existence in relation to centuries of calcified consciousness. In a semantically rich passage, Wharton illustrates the philosophy of this relation by comparing Sophy to a child playing with a tiger's cub (standing for life). Some day the child would grow up, and so would the tiger.
What the author shows, however, is a more terrible possibility: that against the fierce-growing tiger, the child fails to grow and become strong enough to prevent the wounds that are real. Sophy's tenderness of being is in pathetic contrast with Darrow's calcified self. While Sophy's self never gets a chance to attain the calcification that characterizes a reef, she is ever exposed to the antagonistic waves that crash against the shell debris and break it bit-by-bit.
Paradoxically, it is this exact impact of waves that develops the cement required for hardening the rock. Whether or not Sophy will attain this calcification is a question left open by Wharton at the end of the novel. However, the process of breaking Anna's reef does set in and proceeds as the woman's assurance of a secure would-be marital relationship with Darrow is shaken by knowledge of his past with Sophy. Wharton cuts the reader's consciousness with a double-edged sword. Failing to grow into a reef or breaking after years of calcification means the same thing: a scattered self that is prone to an eternal lack of inner peace.
Paradoxically, it is this exact impact of waves that develops the cement required for hardening the rock. Whether or not Sophy will attain this calcification is a question left open by Wharton at the end of the novel. However, the process of breaking Anna's reef does set in and proceeds as the woman's assurance of a secure would-be marital relationship with Darrow is shaken by knowledge of his past with Sophy. Wharton cuts the reader's consciousness with a double-edged sword. Failing to grow into a reef or breaking after years of calcification means the same thing: a scattered self that is prone to an eternal lack of inner peace.
