Victorian Men are “aristocrats [that] move in their gilded circles from opera to dinner to drawing room, with a costume for every role and every time of day.” (Ebert 3) Newland Archer was one of these men who always had to do and/or wear what was “the thing.”
“[I]n the first place, New York was a metropolis, and perfectly aware that in metropolises it was ‘not the thing’ to arrive early at the opera; and it what was or was not ‘the thing’ played a part as important in Newland Archer’s New York…” (Wharton 4)
The descendants of an aristocratic family were taught “the mannerisms and rituals expected of well bred young women [and men] in those days. (Shidler 1) Edith Wharton, creator of Newland A
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