Newland archer biography for kids

Character Profile

Newland Archer:  The protagonist, from whose point of view much of the story is told.

Newland Archer is a wealthy lawyer from a respected New York society family. He marries the conventional society beauty, May Welland, though he is in love with her unconventional cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, who shows him a world beyond the stifling mores of fashionable society.

Age of innocence family tree

Despite his contempt for many of the conventional values, he remains a faithful husband to May and a dutiful father to their children. By the novel's end, he also becomes a respected civic figure and philanthropist.
May Welland:  The beautiful young society girl from the influential Mingott family who marries Archer.

May is innocent in the sense that she is conventional, unimaginative, and does not think for herself, wanting only to conform to society's and her family's expectations. Archer comes to see her embodying everything