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An economy of beauty: the beauty system in Edith Wharton's "The Looking Glass" and "Permanent Wave."

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From: Studies in Short Fiction
Date: 19930322
Author:Inness, Sherrie A.

The fiction of Edith Wharton explores the relationship between women and beauty and the ways in which this beauty influences their role in a given society. A study of the women in 'Permanent Wave' and 'The Looking Glass' reveals the different perceptions of beauty held by women, and how these perceptions are shaped. The feminist critique that Wharton's work is too strictly based on the 'beauty system' fails to recognize the ways in which many of her characters manipulate these aesthetic expectations to gain personal agency in a world designed to deny them such influence.

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