All throughout the novel, The House Of Mirth, by Edith Wharton there is an essential conflict between what we, ourselves, wish to be and what society insists that we become. There are often times in which we feel ourselves having “social determinism”, that drive that one must live up to a certain social position, and is essentially fated to fulfill a certain social role. In the findings of the novel, exhibited is that she is only equipped for one, and only one outcome that meets what society created for her. “But now it woke only a motion of indignant contempt. This was the world she lived in, these were the standards by which she was fated to be measured!” Society has put in place that when a young lady is at a certain age you must marry and if everyone else does it, then you must too. “Although Lily desires the material comfort society provides to its members, her deeper individuality…show more content… Lily puts the pressure, and places herself into situations and existence of people that don’t shine light on who she is. Lily has yet to show her individuality; she hasn’t lived the life she desires all because of who she feels society must have her be like. “She had always hated her room at Mrs. Peniston’s- its ugliness, its impersonality, the fact that nothing in it was really hers.”(page 156) This views that although she hated every aspect of her own room, she never took the steps to change anything to what she liked and that in itself is a comparison to the way she lives her life. “Lily would be happy to refashion herself to create and expose her individuality, but she cannot think beyond the society in