Twenty-nine-year-old Lily Bart is the protagonist of The House of Mirth. Shaped by her upbringing to expect a luxurious lifestyle and taught by her mother to gain wealth through marriage, Lily seeks to maintain her position in high society by means that inwardly conflict with her moral sense. Exquisitely beautiful with matchless appeal, Lily is highly specialized in her ability to charm and ornament a gathering. Initially, Lily’s sensitivity to the creation of effects and her skillful method of manipulation enables her to captivate rich men, such as Percy Gryce, but she sabotages her opportunities through some ambivalence about her goal.

Lily’s failure to marry and the necessary expenditures to keep up society appearances lead to her debt. The combination of Lily’s desperate choices and the treatment of a vulnerable, single woman in a harshly materialistic society result in a downward spiral of false accusations, social ostracism, and impoverishment. Eventually, Lily learns to love Lawrence Selden, the man she rejected as a husband for not being rich, and she demonstrates her integrity by settling her debts at great cost to herself.