Lily Bart is Growing Up

Throughout Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, Lily Bart has acted as a spoiled woman who never has and doesn't intend to work a day in her life.  Through her fall from social grace and her inheritance not being as large as expected, she finds herself relegated to the working class.  Her privileged life has not at all prepared her for such a task, and she struggles greatly with it.  Her work with hats wears on her nerves greatly, and her superior is constantly trying to get more productivity out of her.  She found herself immersed in "that mounting tide of dinginess against which her mother had so passionately warned her," (Wharton, 240).  She had trouble affording a respectable home, and she was again relegated to sharing a group home with many other working women.  Her worries eventually become too much, and she was forced to consume sleeping drugs to get a peaceful nights sleep.  This represents the first time in Lily's life that she actually been tired.  She spends most of her time in a trace like state that does not allow her to pick up on certain idiosyncrasies she use to be able to.  She even considered again committing herself to Rosedale just to escape the horrible life.  This current way of life is taking all the life out of Lily, and surely she will attempt to find some way out.