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Fifth Avenue
Apex City (which is usually just called “Apex”) is a fictional town in the Midwestern United States that represents how the middle of the country differs from the coasts. As the hometown of Undine Spragg and many other characters in the novel, it ironically doesn’t represent the “apex” of their social climbing but in fact is only the first rung of the ladder. Mr. Spragg is one of the richest men in Apex, but after moving to New York City, he finds that his wealth doesn’t take him nearly as far as it did in the Midwest. Many characters, such as Undine and Elmer Moffatt, try to shed their connections to Apex, using their move to New York as an opportunity for rebirth, highlighting the Midwest’s supposed undesirability.
Undine, however, sometimes finds that New York doesn’t live up to its grand reputation and that the Fifth Avenue elites of the big city are not as far above their counterparts in Apex as they might like to think. Apex represents a smaller, more insular way of living than the cosmopolitan New York, although the novel constantly returns to the question of whether the upper-class residents of New York are really as worldly and sophisticated as they’d like to believe they are.
Apex Quotes in The Custom of the Country
The The Custom of the Country quotes below all refer to the symbol of Apex. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
“Undine Spragg—how can you?” her mother wailed, raising a prematurely-wrinkled hand heavy with rings to defend the note which a languid “bell-boy” had just brought in.
But her defence was as feeble as her protest, and she continued to smile on her visitor while Miss Spragg, with a turn of her quick young fingers, possessed herself of the missive and withdrew to the window to read it.
“I guess it’s meant for me,” she merely threw over her shoulder at her mother.
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Chapter 3
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The dinner too was disappointing. Undine was too young to take note of culinary details, but she had expected to view the company through a bower of orchids and eat pretty-coloured entrees in ruffled papers. Instead, there was only a low centre-dish of ferns, and plain roasted and broiled meat that one could recognize—as if they’d been dyspeptics on a diet! With all the hints in the Sunday papers, she thought it dull of Mrs. Fairford not to have picked up something newer; and as the evening progressed she began to suspect that it wasn’t a real “dinner party,” and that they had just asked her in to share what they had when they were alone.
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Chapter 18
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Moffatt’s social gifts were hardly of a kind to please the two ladies: he would have shone more brightly in Peter Van Degen’s set than in his wife’s. But neither Clare nor Mrs. Fairford had expected a man of conventional cut, and Moffatt’s loud easiness was obviously less disturbing to them than to their hostess. Undine felt only his crudeness, and the tacit criticism passed on it by the mere presence of such men as her husband and Bowen; but Mrs. Fairford seemed to enjoy provoking him to fresh excesses of slang and hyperbole.
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Chapter 24
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“If you’d only had the sense to come straight to me, Undine Spragg!
There isn’t a tip I couldn’t have given you—not one!”
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Chapter 41
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It was of no consequence that the details and the technicalities escaped her: she knew their meaningless syllables stood for success, and what that meant was as clear as day to her. Every Wall Street term had its equivalent in the language of Fifth Avenue, and while he talked of building up railways she was building up palaces, and picturing all the multiple lives he would lead in them. To have things had always seemed to her the first essential of existence, and as she listened to him the vision of the things he could have unrolled itself before her like the long triumph of an Asiatic conqueror.
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Get the entire The Custom of the Country LitChart as a printable PDF.
Apex Symbol Timeline in The Custom of the Country
The timeline below shows where the symbol Apex appears in The Custom of the Country. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
As a child in Apex (a town in the Midwestern U.S.), Undine was never very interested in playing with other...
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Chapter 3
...mustache. Although Laura Fairford talks well at the party, Undine feels that the people of Apex talk even more, with a larger vocabulary too. Everyone joins in the conversation, and they...
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Chapter 4
...an opera box. Her mother tries to explain that while Mr. Spragg was rich for Apex, he’s not quite so rich in New York. Undine asks why they ever left, but...
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...parents before. Her first big goal was to find a way to get out of Apex in the summers. Initially, when she was home from boarding school, she went to a...
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Chapter 6
...about Undine’s background. He learned that Mr. Spragg was poor when he first came to Apex, but eventually, he managed to take over some land from a bad debt and build...
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Chapter 7
...say that Undine had better think twice before divorcing him. Undine jokes that back in Apex, people consider it a good thing if a woman leaves a man who doesn’t meet...
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Chapter 9
...felt as afraid of Elmer as her father does. Elmer brings up how back in Apex, Undine was engaged to marry a notable local man; she was still so young that...
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...to learn that Elmer is living in New York. Elmer had to get out of Apex after some “unpleasantness” between him and Undine made Mr. Spragg and Mrs. Spragg turn against...
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Undine begs Elmer not to mention anything about their history together in Apex to anyone in New York. She says on the East Coast, people don’t even like...
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Chapter 10
When Mr. Spragg first arrived on Wall Street, he kept many of his qualities from Apex, but there was something different behind his eyes. Now, Mr. Spragg is shocked to learn...
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...become Harmon B. Driscoll’s secretary due to his inside information about underhanded business dealings in Apex. Mr. Spragg himself was involved in these dealing but got out—but Representative James J. Rolliver...
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Chapter 14
...her current marriage is as bad as some of the mistakes she made back in Apex. She really feels this way when Claud Popple invites several of her acquaintances to come...
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...(as in, a ball and chain) because of what he knows about crooked dealings in Apex. The mention of Elmer causes Undine to go pale.
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Chapter 18
...that she owes her trip all to Elmer. They walk more, and Elmer mentions some Apex gossip about how Indiana Frusk got Representative James J. Rolliver to abandon his family for...
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Chapter 34
...seems that Elmer has some connection to Representative James J. Rolliver, who runs things in Apex. Clare doesn’t care about the details—she’ll give him money regardless. Ralph has already raised some...
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Chapter 35
Ralph reads the papers for news from Apex that Elmer’s scheme has gone through. But the news doesn’t come, and when Ralph tries...
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...Elmer’s deal doesn’t go through. Finally, Ralph happens to hear from Henley Fairford that the Apex deal actually fell through. Ralph tries to get ahold of Elmer for a few days...
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Elmer confirms for Ralph that the Apex deal hasn’t gone through. He says not all hope is lost—perhaps it’ll go through next...
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...stay quiet so that Undine’s past wouldn’t offend Ralph’s family. Elmer explains that back in Apex, he and Undine eloped, although they only had about two weeks before Mr. Spragg stepped...
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Chapter 37
...death, Undine got news from her lawyers that Marvell’s estate had received $100,000 from the Apex Consolidation Company. The money goes to Undine because she never formally surrendered her custody over...
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Chapter 41
...gives some details about how he and Representative James J. Rolliver finally pulled off the Apex deal. Undine asks what he has planned next, other than business. Elmer says he’d like...
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Chapter 43
...be doing just that if she had only remained his wife. She thinks back to Apex and how when Elmer first arrived, no one knew anything about him. He started making...
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Elmer’s speech for the Apex Temperance Society went over wonderfully. Afterward, there was an ice cream supper in a church...
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In Apex, Undine judged people’s worth based on how good they were at getting what they wanted....
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On the day of their walk in Apex, Elmer told Undine that he was down on his luck. Undine said that based on...
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Chapter 45
...wrong in her life. She asks him if he remembers strolling down Main Street in Apex with her. Elmer seems nostalgic but insists he really must get back home.
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...He knows what it’s like to be an outcast from back when he lived in Apex, which is how he’d end up again if news of their affair got out. If...
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