“That Last Shadow of Reality”: Archer's Final Reasoning in the Age of Innocence

In the final scene of Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, which occurs twenty-six years after Ellen Olenska’s final departure from New York, Newland Archer is presented the chance to see Ellen, the woman who represents every aspiration and every regret of his youth, for the first time in three decades.   Wharton explains that since Ellen had left New York, Archer had focused his life on his family, including his children, and on society.   She also explains that May had died a few years ago and that Archer has continued to live his life without any other woman.   In the scene, Archer and his first-born son, Dallas, travel to France, where Ellen lives.   In Paris, Archer and Dallas go to Ellen’s apartment to visit her.   Outside her home, Archer hesitates whether to see her.   Sitting on a bench outside Ellen’s apartment, he decides what to do; after an unspecified amount of time of contemplating, Archer decides to leave without seeing her. (Wharton never adequately explains why Archer decides not to see Ellen; thus, much of this essay is speculation).   Archer decides not to go to see her for reasons that partially contradict each other:   his age has brought wisdom that helps him view Ellen more rationally, he has developed a lifestyle to which he is accustomed, one that Ellen would destroy, he regrets becoming whom he has become, Ellen’s rich European lifestyle intimidates him, he becomes understanding of his dilettante nature, and he chooses to uphold the ideal vision he had created of Ellen.
In order to understand the dynamics behind Archer’s final judgment, the reader needs to be familiar with Archer’s conflicting inner desires between Ellen and May.   Throughout the novel, Archer is torn between two women who are opposites that, to him, represent opposing values, which parallel his opposing desires:   May, the woman whom Archer marries, is as Archer describes as “primitive and pure” (115), and she represents society and tradition.   Ellen, whom Archer has a pseudo-affair...