Characters in The Age of Innocence
Major Characters
* Newland Archer: The story's protagonist is a young, popular, successful lawyer living with his mother and sister in an elegant New York City house. Since childhood, his life has been shaped by the customs and expectations of upper class New York City society. His engagement to May Welland is one in a string of accomplishments. At story's start, he is proud and content to dream about a traditional marriage in which he will be the husband-teacher and she the wife-student. His life changes when he meets Countess Ellen Olenska. Through his relationship with her — first friendship, then love — he begins questioning the values on which he was raised. He sees the sexual inequality of New York society and the shallowness of its customs, and struggles to balance social commitment to May with love for Ellen.
* Mrs. Manson Mingott: The fat, feisty matriarch of the powerful Mingott family, and grandmother to Ellen and May. She controls her family: at Newland's request, she has May and Mrs. Welland agree to an earlier wedding date; she controls the money — withholding Ellen's living allowance (when the family is angry with Ellen), and having niece Regina Beaufort ask for money when in financial trouble. Mrs. Mingott is a maverick in the polite world of New York society, at times pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior; receiving guests in her house's ground floor, though society associates that practice with prostitutes. Her welcoming Ellen is viewed skeptically, and insists the rest of the family support Ellen.
* Mrs. Welland: May's mother, has raised her daughter to be a proper society lady. May's dullness, lack of imagination, and rigid views of appropriate and inappropriate behavior are consequence of her influence. Mrs. Welland is the driving force behind May's commitment to a long engagement. Without her mother's influence, May might have agreed earlier to Newland's request for an earlier wedding date. After few years of marriage, Newland Archer perceives in his mother-in-law what May will become — stolid, unimaginative, and dull.
* May Welland: Newland Archer's fiancée, then wife. Raised to be a perfect wife and mother, she follows and obeys all of society's customs, perfectly. Mostly, she is the shallow, uninterested and uninteresting young woman that New York society requires.
* Ellen Olenska: She is May's cousin and Mrs. Manson Mingott's granddaughter. She became a Countess by marrying Polish Count Olenski, a European nobleman who never appears in the story. When the story begins, Ellen has fled her unhappy marriage, lived in Venice with her husband's secretary, and has returned to her family in New York City, in America. She is a free spirit who helps Newland Archer see beyond narrow New York society.
* New York City Society: Composed of powerful, wealthy families. These people follow and impose a strict, rigid code of social custom and behavior, and judge as unacceptable and disposable the people who do not follow their rules. Ellen has difficulty adapting to the behavior that such a society thinks appropriate for a woman separated from her husband. New York society's judgement is clear; almost everyone refuses to attend the dinner party honoring Ellen's return.