Abstract
Using the lens of liminal theory, this thesis investigates the status of Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence and Dick Diver in Tender is the Night in their respective “tribes,” or societies. It aims to demonstrate that the “either/or” model many critics employ in their analyses of these two characters is insufficient to explain their complexities, and that it is more effective to view them both as unmistakably liminal. Further, the following examination of the cultural continuities between a text set in New York in the 1870s and a text set in expatriate Europe in the 1920s is also an exploration of the relationship between society and the individual, and is at its heart an attempt to understand how this relationship changes according to the choices of individuals, who are often under the delusion that they are acting alone, but who are actually always in concert with each other, with history, and with the social systems that structure their existence and give meaning to their lives.