The House of Mirth: Book 2 V-VI

Through these next sections of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton Lily is slowly escaping her troubles.  This occurs when Carry Fisher invites Lily to the Gormers' party.  The party was successful for Lily because the Gormers invited her to go to Alaska with them.  Carry suggests that Lily marry as quickly as possible to secure her financial situation.  Finally, Lily decides to marry Rosedale but when she sees him she still has moments where she isn't fond of the idea.  I am frustrated why Edith Wharton would portray Lily bart in such a way that would make the reader resent Lily and have pity for her.  In the following passage Edith Wharton evokes pity from the reader for Lily.

"She too needed friends--she had tasted the pang of lonliness; and her resentment of Berth Dorset's cruelty softened her heart to the poor wretch who was after all the chief of Bertha's victims," (Wharton, 196).

Wharton evokes pity and resent from this scene with Dorset, Lily, and Mrs. Gormer.  Pity because Lily was struggling and no one wanted to be her friend, except the one who caused the final blow in the first place, and resentment because Lily caused her troubles by herself.