Edith Wharton

Tales of Men and Ghosts Edith Wharton

The plots of the "tales of men" are slight, often turning on some ironic moral or social insight gained by the protagonist. For instance, "The Debt" features the protege of a renowned biologist who eventually succeeds to his mentor's endowed university chair. The title of the protege's master work, "The Arrival of the Fittest," which disproves his mentor's own theory, announces perhaps ironically the inevitability and desirability of progress. When Ronald Grew learns that ordinary Brooklyn businessman Mason Grew, not glamorous European pianist Fortune Dolbrowski, is his real father, his disappointment proves all the more that he is indeed "His Father's Son."