Societal customs and personal morals/desires clash within Edith Wharton’s works of troubled decision-making. In the novels The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, both written by Wharton herself, troubled protagonists struggle to satisfy their own desires while attempting to abide by their own respective moral codes present in Old New York, where Mr. Frome, of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, vies for the same, but in snowy, fictional Starkfield. Their personal wishes are sadly unfulfilled, ideally representing the effect of society's critical eye - each heart-struck character experiences the pain of unachievable ardor in an already outlined world. Wharton portrays the familiar obstacles that deter the achievement of desire and wear down a man’s spirit. Within this struggle, Wharton displays the true lifestyle and demands of upper-class society. She delineates society and personal morality as manacles, hindering the fulfillment of personal desires by use of pecuniary symbolism, extended metaphors for the “elite”, situational conflicts, and an ongoing theme regarding appearance vs. reality. She ultimately states that a rigid, albeit implicit, social code acts as an impermeable wall to any respectable gentleman/lady seeking happiness through love.