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False Dawn

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When Lewis Raycie, at age twenty-one, is sent abroad for two years to "form his taste [and] fortify his judgment," his father gives him five thousand dollars to purchase fine art on his father's behalf. His father's tastes are those of his upperclass friends, unformed by personal interest or study, and he especially hopes that Lewis will acquire a Raphael, since Raphaels are in vogue among his friends. In Italy, however, Lewis purchases Italian "primitives" by Giotto, Piero Della Francesca, Mantegna, and Carpaccio, paintings he loves and which he believes will form a stunning foundation for his father's gallery.

Though Lewis has, in fact, "formed his taste and fortified his judgment," exactly what he was expected to do in his tour of Europe, his father is outraged when he sees these paintings, all by artists he considers inferior--he has never heard of them and none of his friends collect them--and Lewis is disinherited. The novella follows Lewis and his wife Treeshy as they deal with the personal and social consequences of Lewis's art purchases.

The first of Wharton's four "Old New York" novellas, set in ten-year intervals between 1840 and 1870, False Dawn is as careful in its depiction of the New York society of the 1840s as Wharton's more famous novels are of their (later) periods. The artificiality of society, its reliance on stultifying social conventions, and the penchant for social competition are vividly illustrated here, and these themes combine with Wharton's vivid descriptions of places and people to give a liveliness to her depiction of this pre-Civil War era.

Lewis's ineffectual mother has inherited most of the family's resources, but she has turned them over to her husband, typical behavior of women of the era, and his sisters with their concern for their own reputations in the face of Lewis's ostracism show the degree to which social acceptance may be more important than family love. Only Lewis's wife Treeshy, who is both a social outcast and a homely, unfashionable woman, illustrates love and family values.

Though this is not as long as other Wharton novels, Wharton tells a compelling story, keeping her focus on Lewis and his family, rather than on the broader swath of society. In this sense this novel is more intimate and personal than some of Wharton's other novels. On the other hand, its narrower focus, however representative of the times, leads to a less expansive interpretation of familiar themes. As Wharton brings the resolution of the novella up to date by tracing the paintings to the present, the struggles of Lewis and Treeshy for social and intellectual independence achieve even greater poignancy. n Mary Whipple