Captive Still Life is the fictional story of Marcus Penikett, a seventeen year old celebrity trapped in a scary, suburbanite housing community called Morningside. Marcus Penikett will never escape the childhood incident at the Zoo that made him and the Penikett family famous —the infamous TIME cover of his bleeding face hangs outside of his room, forever documenting and haunting Marcus with the past. Now, Marcus is determined to leave the housing community of Morningside, Georgia to get away from his control freak mother Elise, his absent professor father Otto and a menagerie of other Morningside residents. This plan is complicated by his love for fellow neighbor Olivia, sexual relationship with the maid Sue and Morningside's uncanny 'power' to thwart Marcus' goals.

The House of Mirth's main character, Lily Bart, is charaterized a fated character, incapable of exerting free will. With the help of Lawrence Selden and Gerty Farish, she realizes that, for the most part, she has lived and acted according to what others expect of her.