The Modernist movement championed art that revealed the workings within the mind rather than simply recreating the shallow physical world. Wharton clearly demonstrates this change in her work. Her writing explores the minds of many of her characters, seamlessly entering one mind and switching to the next. She chooses to “record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall” (Virginia Woolf: “Modern Fiction”). Wharton’s characters themselves also embody the spirit of modernism. Specifically Lily Bart and Lawrence Selden, not coincidentally the two characters whose inner thoughts and judgements are most represented in the novel, repeatedly evaluate and analyze the people and things that inhabit their lives. Lily, while strictly stuck within the compounds of her societal expectations, constantly expresses thoughts and ideas that explore beyond the limitations her upbringing would have suggested (“She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her”). She is removed far enough from the society to be able to meticulously calculate the amount of charm and warmth necessary to soothe her fellow citizens and somehow maneuver them into giving her what she wants. Her entire interactions with Percy Gryce demonstrate these skills, and although she was unsuccessful in her mission to become his bride, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind (character or reader) that had she not hesitated she would have succeeded.

               Her hesitation also stems from her removal, or more appropriately, her distance from the societal bubble. As a result of Selden’s presence, Lily begins evaluating the future she had always strived to achieve. In chapter five during the Trenor’s dinner, Lily “saw that her sudden preoccupation with Selden was due to the fact that his presence shed a new light on her surroundings”. She compares their world to a cage, in which all the people were “like flies in a bottle, and having once flown in, could never regain their freedom.” But Selden was different, “he had never forgotten the way out”. Throughout that dinner Lily sees every person through the eyes of Selden and she begins to notice their shallow dullness. This in turn causes her to begin doubting her future goals. “She closed her eyes an instant, and the vacuous routine of the life she had chosen stretched before her like a long white road without dip or turning”. This instinctual desire for more in her life, more than the “glitter” offered by her society is  the reason for her multiple hesitations that prevent her from her possible marriages that would have guaranteed her the financial stability she longed for.  Both Selden and Lily are “strangers” in their society because of their ability to see beyond the physical. They are “strangers” because they are modernists. It was an interesting decision on Wharton’s part to have these smart individuals both end in tragedy, with one’s death and the other’s heartbreak, considering the title. They were destined for the House of Mirth.