Lily Bart, the central character in Edith Wharton’s novel, The House of Mirth , was born into the fringes of high society in late nineteenth century New York. She developed a, “lively taste for splendour”(page 30) and a fear of, ”dinginess”.(page 35). Everything within this social circle is measured in monetary value, people and things alike are treated as commodities. This is the only way of life Lily knows, and without the financial means to sustain herself, Lily is destined to be a victim of this commodification of people and objects. Victim is defined in the Oxford Concise Dictionary , as a, “p