Why does Charlotte get a gravestone, and not Lily?
Charlotte Temple is one of the first true novels that attained bestseller status on the American scene. It is plausible that much of the popularity of the novel can be attributed to the pity that it evoked in the reader. The novel closes with Montraville's penance and performance of sympathy at Charlotte's gravesite:
This passage is a prime example of how Rowson tries to get the audience to pity the character of Charlotte Temple, by reminding them that she was “lovely” and she met an “untimely fate” and also the fact that Montraville wastes away crying at her grave. It is interesting to note that Charlotte evoked so much pity from real readers that they “memorialized Charlotte through pilgrimages to her [fake] gravesite” (Coats, pg. 329)“[W]hile he remained at New York [he] frequently retired to the church-yard, where he would weep over the grave and regret the untimely fate of the lovely Charlotte temple” (Rowson, pg. 89)
This kind of sentimentality however, is not seen in The House of Mirth. In this novel, the focus shifts away from Lily and onto Selden and his love for her after her death- the aspect of pity shifts from her to him. This is first echoed in him coming to terms with the realization that
"[t]his was her real self, [though] every pulse in him ardently denied... What had he to do with this estranged and tranquil face which, for the first time, neither paled not brightened at his coming?" (Wharton, pg. 325).
The novel finishes by reminding the reader that "he had loved her- had been willing to stake his future on his faith in her" (Wharton, pg. 329) thereby completely diverting the reader's sympathy from Lily Bart's unfortunate death to Lawrence Selden's loss.
When all is said and done though, it is important to keep in mind that in these instances it is the men who are engaging in overt displays of sympathy and regret, which can be seen as a way of shifting the attention away from the actual issues at hand--including the victimization of women and societal double-standards--and focuses instead on the act of pity.
References:
Rowson, S. (2011). Charlotte Temple. W. W. Norton & Company. New York
Wharton, E. 1985). The House of Mirth. Penguin Group. Hudson street, New York.
