SOURCE: Dixon, Roslyn. “Reflecting Vision in The House of Mirth.” Twentieth Century Literature 33, no. 2 (summer 1987): 211-22.

In the following essay, Dixon discusses how Wharton's use of “contrasting angles of vision” as a literary technique reflects her ideological perspective concerning the role of the individual within society, and uses this technique to evaluate the underlying ethical and social framework of American society in her novel The House of Mirth.

When Edith Wharton outlines her theory on point of view in The Writing of Fiction, she also provides the key to the narrative structure in her novels:

In the interest of … unity it is best to … let the tale work itself out from not more than two (or at most three) angles of vision, choosing as reflecting consciousnesses persons either in close mental or moral relation to each other, or discerning enough to estimate each other's parts in the drama...