Running Head: The Fuck Boy

The Fuck Boy

Traci Muldoon
California State University Fullerton
English 355
Dr. Susan Jacobson
May 10, 2016

Running Head: The Fuck Boy

Edith Whartons Summer, published in 1917, recounts the release of a female

protagonists sexuality in a fugacious relationship with a lover from the upper class and stresses
the life-affirming joy of sex, as well as the pain and consequences that come along with it. The
way in which heterosexual relationships are corrupted by a homo social economy and patriarchal
power structure (Romagnolo, 2015, p. 18) is seen primarily through the passionate, yet turbulent
relationship of Charity Royall and Lucius Harney. Their relationship becomes the stereotypical
romance of patriarchy; Harney, the superior guide, dominating over his mistress who has sold all
sense of her identity in exchange for his company (Wershoven, 1985, p. 7). With several
similarities of this relationship pertaining to those seen in modern cultural, specifically the
current millennial period, it can be argued that through this patriarchy, the relationship between
the two lovers in Edith Whartons work can be compared with relationships in the modern day
period with how there has been little change in how women are treated today in regards of
relationships.
Summer tells the story of Charity Royall, a young woman raised by Lawyer Royall in a
small New England town called North Dormer. A few years after his wife passes away, Mr.
Royall finds himself physically attracted to Charity and proposes to marry her. Charity turns him
down, seeing him as solely a father figure, and later develops an infatuation with Lucius Harney.
Harney is an educated man from the city, a place she is in awe of, an architect, and the nephew of
another one of New Dormers finest citizens. At first, their relationship is strictly platonic, but
after the two share their first kiss on a trip to Nettleton for a Fourth of July celebration, the two
begin a sexual affair. Mr. Royall impedes, and Harney offers to marry Charity when he returns
from a work trip to New York. However, while he away, Charity finds out that he is engaged to
someone else and releases him of his promise to her, before finding out that she is pregnant

Running Head: The Fuck Boy

(Haytock 2008 p. 47). In the end, Lawyer Royall marries Charity in order to keep her name good
amongst society, and Charity submits for the sake of being able to survive without refuge. The
novel closes with Charity once again entering the red house with lawyer Royall, resigning to her
fate (Kerkove, 1998, p. 30).
Wharton is all too aware of the forces that drive lovers apart: personal betrayal, social and
moral rigidity, weakness in the face of convention (Ott 2005). She too was no stranger to the
activities of forbidden passion. In 1908, Wharton began an affair with a married man named
Morton Fullerton, a cosmopolitan journalist who had multiple mistresses. The affair only lasted a
short time and like Charity Royall, Wharton was far more attached to her lover than he was to
her and the briefness of her romantic encounter only heightened its intensity (Ott 2005).
One of the many ways this relationship is similar to modern day relationships is that it
was openly sexual, like all too many modern day relationships. Sexuality is more accepted in
contemporary time periods, so this aspect of Harney and Charitys relationship makes it well
ahead of its time, especially considering sexual activity was not accepted in society during that
time period. Wharton even exemplifies the time periods social standards, when she tells us that
Charity had always kept to herself, contemptuously aloof from village love-making, without
exactly knowing whether her fierce pride was due to the sense of her tainted origin, or whether
she was reserving herself for a more brilliant fate (Wharton, 2015, p. 31).
Another way Harney and Charitys relationship is a representation of modern day
relationships is how their relationship fits the stereotypical romance of patriarchy: a naive young
girl, playing the heroine, who succumbs to the charm of the heartless seducer (Walker, 1983, p.
107). In this stereotype, the women are referred to as naive and innocent like and their intentions
are driven by romance, where their goal in the end is to eventually obtain that commitment. The

Running Head: The Fuck Boy

evening after Charity meets Harney, she stands in front of her mirror, imagining herself as the
heroine of a fairytale, in which here she appeared as a bride in low necked satin, walking down
an aisle with Lucius Harney. He would kiss her as they left the church, (Wharton, 2015, p.
20). Charity fits the stereotype of this feminine role perfectly with her yearn for being with
Harney and clich dream of the wedding and marriage. While she goes through this sexual
awakening, deep down, she seeks the ideal, romantic, happy ending that is often held by the
young naive female figure in the stereotypical romance of patriarchy. Significantly, Charitys
fantasy is defined by the conventional marriage narrative and a kind of fairytale gesture of the
female heroine (Chambers 2009).
The other part to this stereotypical romance of patriarchy is the males role: the heartless
seducer who ultimately leaves the woman in heartbreak and regret. Even in modern age, this
can be referred to by one of the two terms that have become a colloquial term: the fuck boy
and the bad boy. Yes, a fuck boy. Fuck boy is a term that was first introduced by rapper,
Camron and is not in a traditional dictionary, but according to Urban Dictionary (the epitome
of unreliable sources, yet the only source with the published definition during this time,
nonetheless), in December 2004, was originally defined as a person who is a weak ass pussy
that aint bout shit. Ten years later, the term has been changed to describe a (usually straight and
white) male embodying something akin to the man whore label, mashing up with basic
(bitch) qualities and a light-to-heavy sprinkling of misogyny, (Boboltz 2015). In other words, a
fuck boy is a young man who sleeps with women without any intentions of having a
relationship with them... Hes a womanizer, an especially callous one, as well as kind of a loser,
(Sales 2015). In essence, a fuck boy is one who plays girls in order to use them for sex and
disrespects women. If you mess with a fuck boy, you will get played.

Running Head: The Fuck Boy

One of the defining qualities that make Harney and Charitys relationship a representation
of a modern day relationship is with how Harney embodies the modern day fuck boy. Besides
breaking hearts, fuck boys have several other oh so admirable qualities. For instance, these
men rely on their mothers, yet dont respect women and are slightly misogynistic. Just like a fuck
boy, to get what he wants, Harney asserts the role of the more dominant and dishonest figure in
the relationship, where he disrespects, degrades, and in the end, hurts Charity.
Before Harney leaves for New York, he promises to propose to her when he returns.
While he is away, Charity learns that he has become engaged to someone else. He made her a
promise, yet he unapologetically hurt her and played her. Here, Harney is clearly an example of a
fuck boy, as he demonstrates the act of leading a girl on and then betraying her behind her back.
A characteristic of this stereotypical romance of patriarchy that is often seen in a fuck
boy is dominance and superiority. According to Tannen (1987, 1990), the traditional masculine
gender role is a social orientation that emphasizes power and status, (Tannen, 1987, 1990).
This consists of acting superior in order to make women submissive. To obtain this social status,
women are often degraded by men in order to establish themselves a spot of superiority over
women.
Harney does not take it upon himself to degrade Charity personally, but he cannot help
but be affected when she is degraded before his eyes (Kerkove 1998 p. 33). This form of
degradation is created the night of Harney and Charitys first kiss as they are leaving. Mr. Royall,
who was upset seeing them together, shames Charity in front of the crowd: "You whore-you
damn-bare-headed whore, you!" (Wharton, 2015, p. 78). Grafton (1995), notes that it can be
argued that this particular scene of degradation encourages Harney to progress his physical
relationship with Charity, as the next time he saw her is the first time they elope to the house in

Running Head: The Fuck Boy

woods and start their sexual relationship (p. 353).

Supporting this, Sigmund Freud (1912) states, as soon as the sexual object fulfills the condition
of being degraded, sensual feeling can have free play, considerable sexual capacity and a high
degree of pleasure can be developed, (p. 208).
As Charity reveals more about herself as their relationship progresses, she becomes
increasingly more degraded in Harneys eyes. Each time the two reach a new milestone in their
relationship, his faith and ability to see her as something worthwhile decreases, until she
becomes just a sexual object. One example of this increasing change is when Harney questions
her about why she is traveling home to the Mountain in a particular direction, she replies she is
going to her home up yonder: to the Mountain (Wharton, 2015, p. 85). With this remark,
she became aware of a change in his face. He was no longer listening to her, he was only looking
at her, with the passionate absorbed expression she had seen in his eyes after they had kissed on
the stand at Nettleton," (Wharton, 2015, p. 85). Harney does not verbally respond to Charity,
however, he clasps her hands, and kisses her, and leads her up to the house that was their
hideaway. Though Charity interprets Harneys response as a romantic one, it is obvious that
Harneys response comes from a sexually awakened urge resulting from his new decision of
degradation, in which he cannot take her seriously, but will still view her as an object of pleasure.
As an additional framework execution of degradation, Harney also gives Charity no
voice. When Harney gives the wrong information to Charity about what Miss Hatchard said
about her, Charity confronts him on his incorrect speech. Harney, however, silences her by
shouting, Look here - you dont mean what you said, (Wharton, 2015, p. 25). It is evident here
that Charity is not allowed to have a voice or mind of her own because even when she is given
the chance to speak, she is told that she cannot mean what she says.

Running Head: The Fuck Boy

While women are not mistreated and underestimated as much today, they are still
sometimes given no voice, especially in relationships. This is because we have objectified
woman and dont see them as the person they are. Instead, we look at them as item of pleasure or
something that we own. For a woman with little self-respect, it is hard to break out of this form
of treatment, especially during Whartons time.
However, despite these bad traits, Charity still pursued a relationship with Harney. One
reason for this desire for him was the attraction of something forbidden and unattainable.
Harneys inability to fully commit portrays the modern day bad boy persona, where a boy acts
like a jerk, but really isnt. What makes these men seems like jerks is that they are emotionally
unavailable. While women dont love jerks, they do love bad boys. Shaw (2012) claims this is
because everyone likes a challenge and that challenge is him being emotionally unavailable.
Girls are often seduced and charmed into the interest of the boy, and the male figure not wanting
to fully give them everything draws them to winning the heart of this bad boy.
For Charity, Harney has been an unattainable object throughout the novel and becomes
even more unattainable as the novel progresses. From the first time she saw him walking down
North Dormers single street, she was drawn to him. Knowing that he was physically far away
immediately made him alluring enough to get her attention. But once she learns that he is from
the big city, she is drawn to him in a very insistent way (Kerkove, 1998, p. 33-34). This
represents the stereotype often seen in short-lived relationships of wanting what we cant have.
The unhealthy manipulation in these kind of relationships cause women to often become
oblivious and blinded by their charm and in turn, allow themselves to be controlled by the other
party. Charity demonstrates this in her affair with Harney in which she is drawn to Lucius
Harney because of his learning and his way with words. Harneys endearing words offer

Running Head: The Fuck Boy

Charity an identity opposed to North Dormers harsh judgement of her (Wharton, 2015 p. 46).
Charity believes that through Harney, she has met a person who makes it worthwhile to
endure a sense of inadequacy (Wharton, 2015, p. 31). She has become blinded by his words so
much that she has let it become a form of her identity. She was blind and insensible to many
things, and dimly knew it (Wharton, 2015, p. 10). With this, she allowed Harney to define
her, which in turn, allows herself to be used like an object and eventually blindsided and played.
Harney feels free to recognize Charity as a sexual object because he no longer sees her as
an equal, worthy of his full respect (Grafton, 1995, p. 353). In the same way that men think they
own us because we are a sexual slave or object to them, Harney also thought he owned Charity.
However, the difference in social classes cause Harney to not only view Charity as an object for
sexual desires, but to view her as a commodity or object in general. Harney giving Charity the
brooch marks a defining moment not just in their relationship, but in the divergence of two
different economic classes. For Harney, the purchase of this gift is to instill the practice of
commerce and mutual exchange in his friendship with her. Because the brooch is a commodity,
Charity too becomes a commodity when Harney gives her the gift. After she receives the brooch,
Charity gives herself to Harney because through the lens of the symbolic gift economy, this
brooch marks a mutual personal commitment to each other. However, for Harney, the brooch
symbolizes Charity and he has now purchased her.
Another character trait of a fuck boy is the belief that it is easier for men to pick a
woman with lower standards in order to satisfy their needs. Grafton (1995) states that
Harney may have pursued a sexual relationship with Charity because she wasnt as hard for him
to get as Anabel Balch, since she is from a higher class than Charity. Charity, as we learn, is from
"the Mountain and has no real family besides her guardian Mr. Royall. She is aware that the

Running Head: The Fuck Boy

Mountain is a bad place, and a shame to have come from and her place in society is
ambiguous, but clearly not as high as Anabels position (Wharton, 2015, p. 5). Harney, on the
other hand, was the nephew of Miss Hatchard- the social matriarch and protector of culture in
North Dormer and its richest inhabitant (Chambers, 2009, p. 101) Harney comes from the same
social class as Annabel and the difference between the backgrounds and social class of the two
women influences his consciousness and actions more than he realizes.
Freud (1912) states that the most prevalent way in which the male then copes with his
divided feelings is to create two love objects-one to love, the other to desire (p. 207). By Harney
choosing Charity as his objects to desire, like Freud's ideal male, exhibits his "need for a less
exalted sexual object, a woman ethically inferior, to whom he need ascribe no aesthetic
misgivings, and who does not know the rest of his life and cannot criticize him" (Freud, 1912, p.
210). This demonstrates Freuds model in that the person he chooses for this sexual relationship
is someone in a lower class, thus someone inferior to him. These actions demonstrate the
historic, as well as present male actions of a fuck boy, where they take the vulnerability of a
woman who is inferior to them in order to get what they want, when in reality, we shouldnt be
doing this to woman at all.
Lastly, this relationship is a representation of modern day relationships with its concept of
the double standard in regards to sex. In the millennial time period, the term double standard
refers to different norms of sexual morality for women than for men. Mens sexual activity is
viewed positively as natural, right and normal, whereas women are seen as diminished in social
status if they engage in free sexual relationships outside marriage (Sociology Index).
Eric Kerkoves study The Limits of Charity: Motherhood, Feminine Roles, and
Autobiography in Edith Wharton's Summer (1998) states, For a woman to make the object of

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10

her sexual desire forbidden does not in any way reflect negatively upon that object. For a man to
degrade his own sexual target, however, is obviously a negative and harmful act, (p. 36).
Charity and Harneys relationship is a reflection of how in society, sexual consequences burden
women, but not men (Kerkove, 1998, p. 36). In Summer, Wharton makes a point of
demonstrating just how damaging the central romance was to Charity, and how little effect it had
upon Harney. Not only does Charity have to hide all evidence of her expressing her sexual
desires, but she must bear the burden of a pregnancy while Harney gets to progress through life
and be a successful architect and husband as he had planned, without worrying what society has
to say about his decision to express his sexual desires. This is a representation of the modern
double standard concept where women are affected and men generally arent.
In this novel, Charity Royall is stuck in a judgmental, and invisibly class-structured,
society. This society keeps her trapped in her role as a woman by doing era-appropriate
womanly tasks, and as a daughter by shaming her into being obedient to her adopted father;
but this society never allowed her freedom as a human, nor the choice to be an adult. That is, not
until Lucius Harney comes along, a man who fills her with passionate emotion, and a desire to
no longer adhere to the role of a good girl.
Throughout this paper, it has been shown that Harney takes the responsibility of a
woman that Charity is used to; a role of being obedient and loving, and twists it to satisfy his
own desires. It has also been shown how the pure and virtuous Charity is cheapened and
corrupted by the fervent, but ultimately destructive, relationship that emerges from her seemingly
innocent relationship with Harney. But most importantly, it has been shown how this dangerous
precedent for destructive and domineering relationships still exists in modern society, with little
to no change in what is considered morally, or socially, acceptable. The evidence provided has

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11

shown the outline and some of the major connections, between the action of Harney, who
represents the stereotypical higher class male of the era Wharton lived in, and the action of
modern teens and men typically profiled as fuck boys within the current century.
It can be argued that the novel comes less from Charitys sexual growth and more from
Whartons personal issues on how women were treated in such patriarchy (Haytock, 2008, p. 47).
The ability to play or betray and break a promise still exists today as much as it did before.
And while being open about sexuality is more of a characteristic for the modern day time period,
and not much of the late 1800s and early 1900s, ones ability to use another human as an object
for sexual desires was as surprisingly commonplace back then as it is today. The major male
characteristics portrayed in this novel by Harney, and Lawyer Royall, still exist today. But more
importantly, these connections presented show that we as a society are doing something to
provide positive value to the behaviors of fuck boys, (although they can be females as well)
and, as a society, we are allowing them to feel that their choice in behavior is somehow okay,
because it is masculine. The reality being, in fact, that it isnt healthy or contributing to society
at all. Instead degrading what should be a forward progressing social standard, something we as
humans should not settle for.

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12

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