Lily Bart's Loneliness: A Self-Realization Loneliness is a prevalent theme throughout Edith Wharton's novel, The House of Mirth. The following passage relates to the theme of loneliness and dramatizes Lily Bart's dilemma of poverty: "All she looked on was the same and yet changed. There was a great gulf fixed between today and yesterday. Everything in the past seemed simple, natural, full of daylight-and she was alone in a place of darkness and pollution.-Alone! …showed first 75 words of 983 total…

…showed last 75 words of 983 total…and lonely lead her to realize that her life had passed quickly with nearly no purpose or reason. But Nettie Struther's child, a symbol of perseverance offers a glimmer of hope and eternal peace. The novel ends dramatically when Lily dies still feeling Nettie's child beside her, with all her debts paid, and all the loneliness vanished; yet Lily Bart is still "something rootless and ephemeral, mere spindrift of the whirling surface of existence." (p. 306)