Introduction 1
Ⅰ．Edith Wharton's Life and Works 1
Ⅱ．Critical Reception of Edith Wharton 2
Ⅲ．Edith Wharton Rediscovered 5
Ⅳ．The Layout of the Book 8
Chapter One Challenging Traditional Religious Values 10
Ⅰ．Questioning Christian Values 10
1．The Prosaic and the Ideal 12
2．Railroads and Pilgrims 15
3．Lilies of Love 19
4．Salvific Death 23
5．The Heart of Wisdom 27
Ⅱ．Transcending Calvinist Sensibilities 29
1．New England Revisited 32
2．Lost Eden 37
3．Inscrutable Powers 40
4．A Usable Past 44
Chapter Two Challenging Traditional Social Conventions 49
Ⅰ．Rejecting the Stagnant Social Conventions of Old New York 49
1．Puritan Hellenism 50
2．Higher Reality 53
3．Truth or Taste? 58
4．Arrested Ascent 62
Ⅱ．Subverting the Norm of Marriage 68
1．The Divorce Novel 69
2．Sweet Hotel 70
3．Turn West,Turn East 76
4．Becoming Town Talk 82
Chapter Three Challenging Traditional Patriarchal Values 89
Ⅰ．Subversively Conforming to the Law of the Father 89
1．Critical Background 91
2．The Resistance 93
3．The Subversive Conformation 100
4．The Significance of the Novel 108
Ⅱ．Seeking Feminine Powers 108
1．Seeking Sophia 108
2．Delicate Deceptions 114
3．Perilously Aground 117
4．Charting New Courses 121
Conclusion 127
Bibliography 130