The end of the novel finds Newland Archer nearly thirty years older. He's had a good life, done some good in the world, and is still living the life of a New York gentleman. Bo-ring. He's the New York society equivalent of the polo-shirt-wearing suburban dad who has a "Golf or Die" t-shirt.
So here's the scene: he arrives in Paris on a trip with his son, Dallas. Madame Olenska has invited them over, but just as they arrive at her building, Newland decides not to go up to see her.
Why not?
This ending seems to take the whole sexual repression thing too far. Neither Newland nor Madame Olenska is attached to anyone anymore. Times have become much more liberal and free, as Dallas's engagement to Fanny Beaufort indicates. Why not finally enjoy the happiness that was denied them for so many years?
Newland still hearts Countess Olenska, hard. He associates her with her Parisian neighborhood, with its "golden light" and "pervading illumination," a "rich atmosphere that he already felt to be too dense and yet too stimulating for his lungs" (34.67). Yeah, we’re pretty sure if you associate someone with “pervading illumination,” you still have the hots for them.
Perhaps in his old age, Newland has become far too set in his Americanness and can't handle Madame Olenska's foreignness anymore, or her vitality? Has Madame Olenska become his Gorgon, the reality of experience and suffering that, as she said years ago, doesn't so much blind as make you unable to close your eyes to it? Or is Newland just being a giant weenie?
But then, on sitting outside her building, Archer says aloud, "It's more real to me here than if I went up," and he lingers over this mental "shadow of reality" (34.92). Archer is preserving the ideal image of Ellen that he has carried in his heart for decades— d'aww. He's also, you know, denying himself happiness in his Golden Years is order to preserve that ideal image. Is there something to be said for having such a passion? Is the only true romance that which is doomed from the start?
Jeepers. That's a truly depressing thought.