The Rise of Silas Lapham

Penelope Lapham is Silas’s eldest daughter. In contrast to her sister, Irene, she is not interested in the social etiquette of the elite Boston society. Instead, she is interested in literature and dry humor. She reads often and, as her father notes, she can talk at length on many subjects. Her droll, often sarcastic comments are a unique style of humor in her community, one that endears her to Tom, but that is not appreciated by many other characters. Another point of contrast to Irene is the way in which Penelope is not at all practical. While her sister can organize a house and dedicate herself to all manner of practical enterprises, Penelope deals in the abstract and dreamy matters of the mind. Penelope is very much set in her ways, and, over the course of the novel, she hardly changes her personality. While her father endures a chastening experience that humbles him, Penelope’s travails only serve to solidify her personality. Even after her drawn out affair with Tom, she remains the aloof, sarcastic, and pensive character that she was at the beginning of the novel. Tom does not change Penelope, and neither do circumstances. Instead, Penelope succeeds in changing the world around her.

One of Penelope’s primary purposes in the novel is to address the conflict between Sentimentality and Realism. The Rise of Silas Lapham is a Realist novel that serves as a critique of Sentimental literature. Penelope offers her own critique of the in-world Sentimental novel, Tears, Idle Tears. She offers her insight on this Sentimental text to Tom, criticizing the female characters in the novel for not acting in a sensible and practical manner. Despite her critique, Penelope reveals a streak of hypocrisy in her character. When Tom announces that he loves her, rather than Irene, Penelope is horrified. Her response is a sentimental one, sending Tom away and refusing to see him. As Sewell suggests, her decision makes three people miserable instead of just one. Though she criticizes sentimental heroines, Penelope acts in much the same way when she finds herself in a similar position. In this way, the novel shows the extent to which sentimentality permeates the culture. Self-sacrifice is the literary expectation of a woman in a novel, so Penelope acts out her part. Eventually, however, she comes to recognize that her criticism of the literary heroines is a reflection on her own attitudes. When Tom stays with her, comforting her during her father’s plight, she comes to recognize the way in which he can help her. They can be together, especially in a world where Irene has become more mature and sensible. Penelope gradually allows herself to live a practical life, putting the sentimentality of her past behind her, just as she has moved away from the Sentimental novels she once read. She agrees to marry Tom.

Penelope’s marriage to Tom is not necessarily a happy ending. Their union is not universally acclaimed. Before they depart for Mexico, for example, Penelope spends a short time in the Corey household. Though Tom is very much in love with Penelope, her particular personality is not accepted by his mother, his father, or his sisters, at least not immediately. The family does not immediately love her, but they discover ways in which they can be affectionate toward her. This lack of affection, coupled with Penelope and Tom’s traveling to Mexico, means that the marriage does not serve the purpose for which Silas had originally intended it. He had hoped that marrying a daughter into the Corey family would be a way to advance the Lapham family in society. Instead, Penelope ostracizes herself from the Corey family and removes herself from Boston. In this way, however, she demonstrates that the true purpose of her marriage is love. 

Tom Corey is a hardworking, enterprising young man from a wealthy family. His attitude immediately impresses Silas Lapham, who takes him under his wing. In a subtle way, Tom fills the hole left by the son of Persis and Silas who died while he was still young. From the very beginning, Silas views Tom not just as a prospective employee but as a potential son-in-law. In this way, he plans to make a man of Tom. To achieve Silas’s ambitions, however, Tom’s background is vital. Silas comes from a modest background, but then he becomes rich, meaning that his daughters are recent entrants into high society. Tom is from old money. His family has been wealthy for a long time, to the point where his father does not work and simply lives off the family fortune. Tom is the rich scion who is searching for a place in the world through hard work. Silas is the hardworking man who is searching for a way into society. A marriage between Tom and Irene, Silas believes, is the perfect synthesis of both their ambitions, creating a new dynasty that can thrive in the social circles of the Boston elite, as well as the business world.

Tom is driven and hardworking but not necessarily intelligent. On numerous occasions, his parents comment on his lack of insight or self-awareness. This lack of self-awareness, in particular, causes a big problem when he reveals his love for Penelope. Everyone, including Penelope, assumed that Tom was in love with Irene. By declaring his love for Penelope, he has created an awkward situation. Social convention, as preached by Sentimental literature, demands that Penelope reject Tom for her sister’s sake. Tom did not even comprehend the possibility that he might be in love with Irene, whom he views as a pretty but insipid figure. Instead, he is intrigued by Penelope’s unique character. He is fascinated by her, as she is fascinated by him. They complement each other, providing a more substantive match than that which might have been provided by a marriage between Irene and Tom. By failing to recognize the way in which his actions might be construed, Tom demonstrates that social etiquette is not as simple as his family would have him believe. He has been born and raised in the elite; the attitudes and behaviors are supposedly second nature to him, especially compared to the naïve and unrefined Lapham family. Through his actions, however, Tom shows that he is closer to the Laphams than his family might have expected. In this sense, he is a disruptive figure, someone who is prepared to defy social expectation due to the strength of his emotion and indicates that the biases of upper classes are not innate, but learned and cultivated.

At the end of the novel, Tom gets everything he wants. He refuses his family’s offer to live a life of leisure and dedicates himself to industry. His attitude not only impresses Silas, but also the young men who operate the West Virginia paint company. Among these men, Tom finds his equals. They see the potential in him, providing an industrial counterpart to his marriage to Penelope. Tom uses his language skills to travel south, leaving behind the comfortable, cossetted world of the Bostonian elite to discover something new and meaningful. He does this in a new business partnership and a new romantic partnership. In this way, Tom evidently leaves the old world behind. His life becomes a living rejection of the expectations placed on him. He leaves the wealth, the comfort, and the luxuries of his hometown to find something more personal and more meaningful.