ABSTRACT
This chapter opens door to the correspondences and common themes between the novels of the 1920s on the one hand and the earlier The House of Mirth published in 1905 on the other. Such themes include rootlessness, social ostracism, homelessness, the unbridled desire for showy material goods and the dislike, if not hatred, of newcomers. Furthermore, this chapter examines different patterns of identity, particularly collective identity in terms of clannishness and capitalism and it also demonstrates how changing some basic tenets of such class known as the vieux riches triggers its annihilation. Therefore, the survival of this class serving as home and harboring a specific group of people is probated by maintaining the rules concerning capital and lineage, otherwise it will be consumed by the less prestigious and newly emerging class: the nouveaux riches.
