Flight · Chapter
Chapter XXI: The Gilded Cage explained
Mimi, now married to Jimmie Forrester for over a year, enjoys the comforts of their Washington Square home but begins to feel a growing discontent with her idle, affluent life.
What happens
Mimi, now married to Jimmie Forrester for over a year, enjoys the comforts of their Washington Square home but begins to feel a growing discontent with her idle, affluent life. She observes the frantic pursuit of pleasure and the mechanical nature of modern society, feeling like a cog in a machine. Her attempts to discuss these thoughts with Jimmie are dismissed, and a minor argument over a dinner invitation reveals the widening gap between her intellectual curiosity and his materialistic worldview.
Themes in this chapter
Class and Materialism
Mimi's discontent with her luxurious but empty life highlights the emptiness of material wealth and social status.
Resilience and Self-Reinvention
Mimi's past struggles and her current restlessness suggest a desire to reinvent herself beyond the role of a housewife.
Gender and Sexual Double Standards
Mimi's intellectual curiosity is dismissed by Jimmie, reflecting the limited roles available to women in marriage.
Characters to notice
- Mimi Daquin
Now Mimi Forrester, she is married and living a life of luxury, but begins to feel restless and intellectually unfulfilled.
- Jimmie Forrester
Mimi's husband, a successful broker who is content with material comforts and dismissive of Mimi's growing concerns.
- Henry Meekins
A young professor who dines with the Forresters and shares his perspective on China, sparking Mimi's interest in broader views.
- Mrs. Horace Crosby
Invites the Forresters to dinner, representing the social circle Mimi is growing tired of.
Key passages
“They are working at pleasure and happiness just as though it were a trade.”
Mimi observes that people at the nightclub are laboring at having fun as if it were a job.
This observation marks the beginning of Mimi's critical view of her social circle.
“Like cogs in a machine, she said of them one day, and thereafter she always thought of them as cogs.”
Mimi compares the frantic people around her to parts of a machine, a metaphor she continues to use.
This metaphor reflects her growing sense of alienation from modern society.
“You cannot serve Rolls-Royce and Mammon!”
Jimmie jokes that one cannot be both wealthy and spiritual, dismissing Mimi's concerns.
This phrase encapsulates Jimmie's materialistic worldview and his inability to understand Mimi's discontent.