SILENCED VOICES:

FEMALE IDENTITY

IN HENRY JAMES AND GREGORIOS XENOPOULOS

by

Maria Basli

A Dissertation Submitted

to the Department of American Literature and Culture,

School of English, Faculty of Philosophy,

in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI

GREECE

2007

SILENCED VOICES:

FEMALE IDENTITY

IN HENRY JAMES AND GREGORIOS XENOPOULOS

by

Maria Basli

has been approved

May 2007

Dissertation Committee: APPROVED:

Youli Theodosiadou, Supervisor

Georgia Farinou - Malamatari, Co-Adviser

Yiorgos Kalogeras, Co-Adviser

Department Chairperson: ACCEPTED:

Yiorgos Kalogeras

To my family: my husband, Thanassis, and my son, Nikolas

Works Cited

Primary sources

James, Henry. The Bostonians. London: Penguin, 2000.

. The Portrait of a Lady. London: Penguin, 1984.

. The Tragic Muse. London: Penguin, 1995.

Xenopoulos, Gregorios. Mistiki Arravones [Secret Engagements]. Athens: Vlassi,

1984.

. I Trimorfi Gineka [The Three-Sided Woman]. Athens: Vlassi, 1984.

. The Three-Sided Woman. Trans. Barbara Kent. Athens: Vlassi, 1992.

. O Sizigos tis Theatrinas [The Actress’s Husband]. Athens: Vlassi, 1984.

Secondary sources

Agras, Tellos. Critica. Tomos 3. Morfes kai kimena tis pezografias [Criticism Texts.

Vol. 3. Personalities and Texts of Fiction]. Athens: Ermis, 1984.

Amilitou, Eftihia. “Isagogi.” Nikolas Sogalos [“Introduction” Nikolas Sigalos]

Athens: Ε.Λ.Ι.Α. [National Literature and History Archive], 2002. 11-93.

. “Apospasmata Criticou kai Autocriticou Logou sta Mithistorimata tou

Grigoriou Xenopoulou.” Grigorios Xenopoulos, Peninta Chronia apo to

Thanato Enos Athanatou. (1951-2001) [“Excerpts of Critique and Self-

Critique in Gregorios Xenopoulos’s Novels.” Conference Proceedings,

November 28-29, 2001: Gregorios Xenopoulos. Fifty Years since the Death of

an Immortal. (1951-2001)]. Athens: Ε.Λ.Ι.Α. [National Literature and History

Archive], 2003. 217-246. 323

Anamnistico Teuhos gia tin Theatriki Triakontaethrida tou Grigoriou Xenopoulou

(1895 –1925) [Commemorative issue for the Thirtieth Theatrical Anniversary

of Gregorios Xenopoulos (1895 – 1925)]. Athens: Greek Dramatists’

Association, 1925.

Andres, Sophia. “Narrative Instability in The Portrait of a Lady: Isabel on the Edge of

the Social.” The Journal of Narrative Technique 24. 1 (1994): 43-54.

Ardis, Ann L. New Women, New Novels. Feminism and Early Modernism. New

Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990.

Ash, Beth Sharon. “Frail Vessels and Vast Designs: A Psychoanalytic Portrait of

Isabel Archer.” New Essays on the Portrait of a Lady. Ed. Joel Porte.

Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. 123-162.

Asimakopoulos, Costas. “Adikimenos kai Adikaiotos” [“Wronged and not

Vindicated”]. Theatro 59-60 (1977): 122 – 123.

Auchincloss, Louis. “The International Situation: The Portrait of a Lady.” The

Portrait of a Lady. Henry James. Ed. Robert D. Bamberg. A Norton Critical

Edition, 1975. 720-728.

Auerbach, Nina. Romantic Imprisonment. New York : Columbia UP, 1985.

. Private Theatricals: The Lives of the Victorians. Harvard UP, 1990.

Avdela, Efi and Angelica Psara. “Isagogi.” O Feminismos stin Ellada tou

Mesopolemou. Mia Anthologia [“Introduction” Feminism in Mid-War

Greece. An Anthology]. Athens: Gnosi, 1985. 2 – 97.

Bakalaki, Alexandra and Eleni Elegmitou. I Ekpedeysi “is ta tou Ikou” kai ta Ginekia

Kathikonta [The Housework Education and the Women’s Duties]. Athens:

Historical Archive of the Greek Youth. General Secretariat of the New 324

Generation, 1987.

Baker, Michael. The Rise of the Victorian Actor. London: Croom Helm, 1978.

Baloumis, Epaminondas. Ithografico Diegima. Kinoniko-istoriki Prosegissi

[Ithografico Deigima. A Socio-Historical Approach]. Athens: Bouras, 1985.

Baym, Nina. “Melodramas of Beset Manhood: How Theories of American

Fiction Exclude Women Authors.” The New Feminist Criticism.

Ed.Elaine Showalter. New York: Pantheon, 1985. 63-80.

. “Revision and Thematic Change in The Portrait of a Lady.” The

Portrait of a Lady. Henry James. Ed.Robert D. Bamberg. A Norton Critical

Edition, 1975. 620-634.

. Woman’s Fiction. A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America

1820-70. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1993.

Beaton, Roderick. An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature. Oxford:: Oxford UP,

1994.

Bell, Michael Davitt. The Problem of American Realism. Studies in the Cultural

History of a Literary Idea. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1993.

Bell, Millicent. “Isabel Archer and the Affronting of Plot.” The Portrait of a

Lady. Henry James. Ed.Robert D. Bamberg. A Norton Critical Edition, 1975.

748-783.

. “Woman in the Jamesian Eye.” The Mercantile Library’s Lecture

Series and Publications. The Center for World Literature at the Mercantile

Library of New York.

Bender, Bert. The Descent of Love. Darwin and the Theory of Sexual Selection in

American Fiction, 1871-1926. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1996.

Benhabib, Seyla and Drucilla Cornell. “Introduction.” Praxis International 5. 4 325

(1986): 365.

Blackmur, R. P. “Introduction.” Henry James: The Tragic Muse. New York: Dell,

1961. 5-15.

. “The Portrait of a Lady.” Perspectives on James’s The Portrait of a Lady. A

Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. William T. Stafford. New York: New York

UP, 1967. 247-255.

Blair, Sara. Henry James and the Writing of Race and Nation. Cambridge: Cambridge

UP, 1996.

Blau DuPlessis, Rachel. “For the Etruscans.” The New Feminist Criticism. Ed. Elaine

Showalter. New York: Pantheon, 1985. 271-291.

Boorstin, Daniel J. “Introduction.” Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville.

New York: Vintage Classics, 1990. vii-xi.

Bradley, John R.,ed. Henry James and Homo-Erotic Desire. Basingstoke: Macmillan,

1999.

“British Quarterly Review 83 (April 1886), 480-81.” Henry James. The

Contemporary Reviews. Ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,

1996. 160.

Brondé, Charlotte. Shirley. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1979.

Brook, Thomas. American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of Contract.

Berkeley: U of California P, 1998.

Budd, Louis J. “The American Background.” The Cambridge Companion to

American Realism and Naturalism: Howells to London. Ed. Donald

Pizer. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 21-46.

Budick, Emily Miller. “James’s Portrait of Female Skepticism.” The Henry

James Review 12. 2 (1991): 154-58. 326

Cady, Edwin H. “ ‘Realism’: Toward a Definition.” Documents of American Realism

And Naturalism. Ed. Donald Pizer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1988.

324-335.

“Californian 5 (January 1882), 86-87.” Henry James. The Contemporary

Reviews. Ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.

138-140.

Chambers-Schiller, Lee Virginia. Liberty, A Better Husband. Yale UP, 1984.

Chandler, Katherine. “Purchase of Power: The Conclusion of The Bostonians.”

English Language Notes 32.3 (March 1995): 46-54.

Chase, Richard. “The Lesson of the Master.” Perspectives on James’s The

Portrait of a Lady. A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. William

T. Stafford. New York: New York UP, 1967. 148-165.

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. Broomall, PA: Chelsea, 1999.

“Chronologio, Grigorios Xenopoulos (1867 – 1951)” [“Agenda, Gregorios

Xenopoulos (1867 – 1951)]. Theatrica Tetradia [Theatrical Notebooks] 21

(1991): 3 – 4.

Cixous, Hélène. “Sorties” Feminisms. Eds. Sandra Kemp and Judith Squires.

Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997.

Cogan, Frances B. All-American Girl: The Ideal of Real Womanhood in Mid-

Nineteenth-Century America. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1989.

Coward, Rosalind. Patriarchal Precedents. London: Routledge, 1983.

Corbett, Mary Jean. Representing Femininity. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.

Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman’s Sphere” in New England,

1780-1835. New Haven: Yale UP, 1977.

Daniel, Robert L. American Women in the 20th Century. The Festival of Life. San 327

Diego: Harcourt, 1987.

Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man. New York: Prometheus, 1997.

Daugherty, Sarah B. “ James and the Ethics of Control: Aspiring Architects and

Their Floating Creatures” Enacting History in Henry James: Narrative,

Power, and Ethics. Ed. Gert Buelens. Cambridge: Cambridge

UP, 1997. 61-74.

Davidson, Cathy N. Revolution and the Word. The Rise of the Novel in America.

New York: Oxford UP, 1986.

Degler, Carl. At Odds: Women and the Family in America. New York: Oxford UP,

1980.

D’Emilio, John and Freedman, Estelle B. Intimate Matters: A History of

Sexuality in America. New York: Harper, 1988.

Delveroudi, Eliza-Anna. “O Xenopoulos ston kinimatografo: O Kokkinos Vrahos

(1949) tou Grigori Grigoriou.” Conference Proceedings, November 28-29,

2001: Gregorios Xenopoulos. Fifty Years since the Death of an Immortal.

(1951-2001)]. Athens: Ε.Λ.Ι.Α. [National Literature and History Archive],

2003. 189 – 203.

Dickenson, Donna. “Introduction” Margaret Fuller: Woman in the Nineteenth

Century and Other Writings. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994. vii- xxix.

Dijkstra Bram. Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-

Siècle Culture. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986.

Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Knopf, 1977.

Dimaras, C. The Modern Greek Literature. Trans. Mary P. Gianos. Albany, New

York: State U of New York P, 1972.

. Istoria tis Neoellinikis Logotehnias [History of Modern Greek Literature]. 328

Athens: Ikaros, 1975.

Edel, Leon, ed. Literary Criticism, I: Essays on Literature, American Writers;

English Writers. New York: Library of America, 1984.

, ed. The Selected Letters of Henry James. New York: Farrar, 1955.

. “ Introduction.” Henry James: The Tragic Muse. New York: Harper, 1960.

Farinou - Malamatari, Georgia. “To para-kimeno tis Pezographias tou Xenopoulou”

[“The Para-text of Xenopoulos’ fiction”]. Nea Estia 150. 1738 (2001): 372-

402.

. “Anagnostes Mithistorimaton sta Mithistorimata tou Xenopoulou” [“Readers

of Novels in Xenopoulos’ Novels”] Ellinika 46 (1996): 347-362.

. “O Theoritikos kai Critikos Xenopoulos” Grigorios Xenopoulos: Epilogi

Critikon Kimenon [“Xenopoulos as a Theoretic and as a Critic.” Gregorios

Xenopoulos: A Selection of Criticism Texts]. Athens: Vlassi, 2002. 9-79.

. “I Prologi ton Pezon Ergon tou Gr. Xenopoulou” [“The Prologs of G.

Xenopoulos’s Fictional Work”] Philologos 14. 60 & 61 (1990): 94-118 &

190-200.

. “Grigorios Xenopoulos” I PaleoteriPpezografia mas, Tomos 9 [“Gregorios

Xenopoulos” Our Older Fiction, vol. 9]. Athens: Sokolis, 1997. 288-333.

Felski, Rita. Beyond Feminist Aesthetics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP,

1989.

Fetterley, Judith. The Resisting Reader. A Feminist Approach to American Fiction.

Bloomington: Indianna UP, 1978.

Frangoglou, Yiorgos. “To Laiko Esthimatiko Mithistorima tou Grigoriou Xenopoulou

(1912-1945).” [“Gregorios Xenopoulos’ Popular Novel (1912-1945)”] MA

thesis Aristotle U, 1985. 329

. “I Theatriki Prosfora tou Grigoriou Xenopoulou i Deka mithi gia ton

Grigorio Xenopoulo (kai mia – pithanon- krimeni istoria)” [Gregorios

Xenopoulos’s Theatrical Contribution or Ten myths (and a –possibly-

concealed story)”]. Conference Proceedings, November 28-29, 2001:

Gregorios Xenopoulos. Fifty Years since the Death of an Immortal. (1951-

2001)]. Athens: Ε.Λ.Ι.Α. [National Literature and History Archive], 2003.

123 – 142.

. “Ta Erga tou Xenopoulou sti Skini” [“Xenopoulos’s Works on Stage”].

Theatrica Tetradia [Theatrical Notebooks] 21 (1991): 36 – 41.

. “O Eklectos tou Ellinikou Theatrikou Kinou” [“The Chosen of the Greek

Drama Audience”]. Nea Estia 805 (1961): 117 - 132.

. “Ta Ellinika erga. I parousia tous sti Nea Skini” [Greek Works. Their

presence at the New Stage”]. Theatro 2 (1962): 15 - 25.

Frankel, Boris. The Post-Industrial Utopians. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987.

Freedman, Jonathan (editor). The Cambridge Companion to Henry James.

Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.

Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Norton

Reprint, 1971.

Fulton, Valerie. “Rewriting the Necessary Woman. Marriage and Professionalism in

James, Jewett, and Phelps.” The Henry James Review 15.3 (Fall 1994): 242-

56.

Furst, Lillian R. Realism. (Modern Literatures in Perspective). London: Longman,

1992.

. All Is True. The Claims and Strategies of Realist Fiction. Durham, N.C.:

Duke UP, 1995. 330

Gard, Roger. Henry James. The Portrait of a Lady. New York: Penguin, 1986.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South. Middlesex: Penguin, 1970.

Gass, William H. “The High Brutality of Good Intentions.” Perspectives on

James’s The Portrait of a Lady. A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. William

T. Stafford. New York: New York UP, 1967. 206-216.

Georgousopoulos, Costas. “O Theatricos Xenopoulos: O Diaskevastis tou Eautou

tou.” Grigorios Xenopoulos, Peninta Chronia apo to Thanato Enos

Athanatou. (1951-2001) [The Theatrical Xenopoulos: the Adaptor of

Himself.” Conference Proceedings, November 28-29, 2001: Gregorios

Xenopoulos. Fifty Years since the Death of an Immortal. (1951-2001)].

Athens: Ε.Λ.Ι.Α. [National Literature and History Archive], 2003. 73 – 83.

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic. New Haven, CT.:

Yale UP, 1979.

Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s

Development. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard UP, 1982.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation

Between Women and Men. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1994.

. The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: an Autobiography. Madison, WI.:

U of Wisconsin P., 1991.

“Godey’s Lady’s Book 121 (August 1890), 172.” Henry James. The Contemporary

Reviews. Ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 228-

229.

Goetz, William R. “ The Allegory of Representation in The Tragic Muse.” The

Journal of Narrative Technique 8 (1978): 151-64.

Gooder, R. G. Henry James: The Bostonians. New York: Oxford UP, 1984. 331

Gooder, Jean. “Henry James’s Bostonians: The Voices of Democracy.” The

Cambridge Quarterly 30.2 (2001): 97-115.

Gordon, D. J. and Stokes, John. “The Reference of The Tragic Muse.” The Air of

Reality: New Essays on Henry James. Ed. John Goode. London: Methuen,

1972. 81-167.

Gotsi, Georgia. “Experiencing the Urban: Athens in Greek Prose Fiction1880-1912.”

MA thesis U of London, Kings College, 1996.

Graham, Wendy. Henry James’s Thwarted Love. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1999.

Griffin, Susan. M., ed. Henry James Goes to the Movies. Lexington: The UP of

Kentucky, 2002.

Griffiths, Morwenna. Feminisms and the Self. The Web of Identity. London:

Routledge, 1995.

Grigorios Xenopoulos, 1867 – 1951: “Den Agapo ta Sinnefa kai ta Skotadia”

[Gregorios Xenopoulos, 1867 – 1951: “I Am not Fond of the Clouds and the

Darkness”]. Spec. issue of the Organizational Committee for the 50-year

anniversary for Gregorios Xenopoulos’s death. Athens: Cultural Ministry,

National Book Center, 2002.

“Grigorios Xenopoulos – Liga Louloudia ston Tafo tou” [“Gregorios Xenopoulos –

Some Flowers on his Grave”]. Spec. issue of Νέα Εστία 556 (1951): 190 –

201.

Grigorios Xenopoulos [Gregorios Xenopoulos]. Spec.issue of Epta Imeres (I

Kathimerini) 4 July 1999.

Gubar, Susan. “‘The Blank Page’ and the Issues of Female Creativity.” The New

Feminist Criticism. Edited by Elaine Showalter. New York: Pantheon,

1985. 292-313. 332

Gunter, Susan E. ed. Dear Munificent Friends. Henry James’s Letters to Four

Women. Ann Arbor: The U of Michigan P, 1999.

Habegger, Alfred. The Father: A Life of Henry James, Sr. New York: Farrar,

1994.

______. Gender, Fantasy, and Realism in American Literature. New York: Columbia

UP, 1982.

. Henry James and the “Woman Business.” Cambridge[England]: Cambridge

UP, 1989.

______. “Realism.” Documents of American Realism and Naturalism. Ed. Donald

Pizer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1988. 355-365.

Hadella, Paul M. “Rewriting Misogyny: The Portrait of a Lady and the Popular

Fiction Debate.” American Literary Realism, 26. 3, (1994). 1- 11.

Hanos, Dimitris. “To Esthimatiko Laiko Mithistorima mesa apo ton Periodiko Tipo”

[“The Sentimental Popular Novel Through the Periodical Press”]. Diavazo

100 (1984): 17-23.

Haris, Petros. Ellines Pezographi. Tomos 1. [Greek Novelists, vol. 1]. Athens: Estia,

1953.

. “Grigorios Xenopoulos” [“ Gregorios Xenopoulos”]. Periplous 30-31 (1991):

112-118.

. “Egrafe to Ergo se 2-3 Vdomades” [“He Wrote the Play in 2-3 Weeks”].

Theatro 59 – 60 (1977): 119 – 120.

Hatzis, Yiannis. “Sta Hnaria tou Ntopiou Esthimatikou Mithistorimatos” [“ Detecting

the Traces of the Local Sentimental Novel”]. Diavazo 100 (1984): 24-29.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and

Fields, 1980. 333

Herron, Bonnie L. “Substantive Sexuality: Henry James Constructs Isabel

Archer as a Complete Woman in His Revised Version of The Portrait

of a Lady.” The Henry James Review, 16. 2, (1995). 131-41.

Hochman. Barbara. Getting at the Author: Reimagining Books and Reading in the Age

of American Realism. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 2001.

Hoekstra, Ellen. “The Pedestal Myth Reinforced: Women’s Magazine Fiction, 1900-

1920.” New Dimensions in Popular Culture. Ed. Russel B. Nye. Ohio:

Bowling Green U Popular P., 1972. 43-58.

Holland, Laurence B. “The Marriage” The Portrait of a Lady. Henry James.

Ed. Robert D. Bamberg. A Norton Critical Edition, 1975. 700- 711.

Horne, Philip. “Introduction.” Henry James: The Tragic Muse. Ed. Philip

Horne. London: Penguin, 1995. vii-xxix.

Ingelbien, Raphael. “Reversed Positions: Henry James, Realism, and Sexual

Passion.” The Henry James Review 21. 1 (2000): 63-71.

Irigaray, Luce. “The Other: Woman.” Feminisms. Ed. Sandra Kemp and Judith

Squires. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. 308-315.

Izzo, Donatella. “The Portrait of a Lady and Modern Narrative.” New Essays on the

Portrait of a Lady. Ed. Joel Porte. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. 33-48.

Jacobson, Marcia. Henry James and the Mass Market. Alabama: The U of Alabama

P, 1983.

James, Henry. “The Art of Fiction.” Documents of American Realism and Naturalism.

Ed. Donald Pizer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1988. 45-59.

. The Art of the Novel: Critical Prefaces by Henry James. Ed. Richard P.

Blackmur. New York: Scribner’s, 1934.

. A Life in Letters. Ed. Philip Horne. London: Allen Lane, 1999. 334

______. The Notebooks of Henry James. Eds. F. O. Matthiessen and Kenneth B.

Murdock. New York: Oxford UP, 1961.

. “Preface” Henry James. The Portrait of a Lady. Ed. Geoffrey Moore.

London: Penguin, 1984. 41-55.

James, Henry, Sr. “Mr. Henry James on Marriage.” Nation 10 9 June 1870.

Jobe, Steven H. “Representation and Performance in The Tragic Muse.” American

Literary Realism 26.2 (1994): 32-42.

Jolly, Roslyn. Henry James: History, Narrative, Fiction. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1993.

Kazin, Alfred. An American Procession. New York: Knopf, 1984.

Kearns, Michael. “Narrative Discourse and the Imperative of Sympathy in The

Bostonians.” The Henry James Review 17.2 (Spring 1996): 162-81.

Kelley- Pulsifer, Cornelia. “From The Early Development of Henry James.”

Perspectives on James’s The Portrait of a Lady. A Collection of Critical

Essays. Ed. William T. Stafford. New York: New York UP, 1967. 51-61.

Kent, Christopher. “Image and Reality: The Actress and Society.” A Widening

Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women. Ed. Martha Vicinus.

Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1977. 94-116.

Kettle, Arnold. “From An Introduction to the English Novel.” Perspectives on

James’s The Portrait of a Lady. A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. William

T. Stafford. New York: New York UP, 1967. 91-112.

Kolodny, Anette. “Dancing Through the Minefield: Some Observations on the

Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism.” The New

Feminist Criticism. Ed. Elaine Showalter. New York: Pantheon, 1985. 144-

168.

Kriaras, Emmanouel. “O Grigorios Xenopoulos Diafotistis – Glossophilologika” 335

Epilogi apo to Ergo tou [“ Gregorios Xenopoulos as a Representative of the

Enlightenment.” A Selection from his Work]. Thessaloniki: Zitros, 2000. 107-

118.

Krook, Dorothea. The Ordeal of Consciousness in Henry James. Cambridge

UP, 1967.

Lansdown, Richard. “Introduction.” Henry James-The Bostonians. Ed. Richard

Lansdown. London: Penguin, 2000. vii- xxviii.

Leavis, F. R. The Great Tradition. London: Chatto, 1948.

Ledger, Sally. “The New Woman and the crisis of Victorianism” Cultural Politics at

the Fin de Siècle. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. 22-44.

Lee, Brian. The Novels of Henry James: A Study of Culture and Consciousness.

London: Arnold, 1978.

Lianopoulou, Eleni. “I Ellinides Pezographi tou Mesopolemou (1921 – 1944)”

[“Greek Women Fiction Writers in the Mid-War Period (1921-1944)”].

Diss. Aristotle U, 1993.

Litvak, Joseph. “ Actress, Monster, Novelist: The Tragic Muse as a Novel of

Theatricality.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 29. 2 (1987): 141-

168.

Logan, Annie R. M. From Nation 51 (25 December 1890), 505-6. Henry James. The

Contemporary Reviews. Edited by Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge: Cambridge

UP, P, 1996. 239-240.

Lukacs, Gyorgy. Meletes gia ton Evropaiko Realismo. [Studies in European Realism].

Athens: Publication Institute, 1957.

Macnaughton, William R. “The New York Edition of Henry James’s The Tragic

Muse” The Henry James Review 13.1 (1992): 19-26. 336

. “In Defense of James’s The Tragic Muse.” The Henry James Review 7.1

(1985): 5-12.

Mastrodimitris, P. D. Prologi Ellinikon Mithistorimaton (1830-1930) [Prologs to

Greek Novels. (1830-1930)]. Thessaloniki: Konstandinidis, 1974.

. Isagogi sti Neoelliniki Philologia [Introduction to Modern Greek Philology].

Athens: Domos, 1996.

. I Parousia ton Kimenon [The Presence of Texts]. Athens: Kastaniotis, 2002.

Matthiessen, F. O. “The Painter’s Sponge and Varnish Bottle.” Perspectives

on James’s The Portrait of a Lady. A Collection of Critical Essays.

Ed. William T. Stafford. New York: New York UP, 1967.63-88.

Mavromoustakos, Platon. “O Xenopoulos ton Ithopion” [“The Actors’ Xenopoulos”].

Periplous 30 – 31 (1991): 145-149.

Mazzella, Anthony J. “The New Isabel” The Portrait of a Lady. Henry James.

Edited by Robert D. Bamberg. A Norton Critical Edition, 1975. 597-

619.

McCall, Dan. Citizens of Somewhere Else: Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James.

Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP, 1999.

McFadden, George. “On Rediscovering Henry James.” Triquarterly 107/108

(Winter 2000): 243-267.

McMurray, William. “Pragmatic Realism in The Bostonians.” Henry James: Modern

Judgments. Ed. Tony Tanner. London: Macmillan, 1968. 160-65.

McWhirter, David. “Restaging the Hurt: Henry James and the Artist as Masochist.”

Texas Studies in Literature and Language 33.4 (1991): 464-491.

Meissner, Collin. Henry James and the Language of Experience. Cambridge:

Cambridge UP, 1999. 337

Melas, Spiros. Neoelliniki logotechnia [Modern Greek Literature]. Athens: Fexis,

1962.

Milioni – Tsaliki, Tatiana. “To Natouralistiko Mithistorima i to Mithistorima tis

Gnosis” [“The Naturalistic Novel or the Novel of Knowledge”] Diavazo 97

(1984): 16-20.

Mitchell, Clark Lee. Determined Fictions. American Literary Naturalism. New York:

Columbia UP, 1989.

Mitchell, Lee Clark. “Beyond the Frame of The Portrait of a Lady.” Raritan 17.3

(1998): 90-109.

Mitchell, Sally. The Fallen Angel: Chastity, Class, and Women’s Reading, 1835-

1880. Ohio: Bowling Green UP, 1981.

Mizruchi, Susan L. The Power of Historical Knowledge. Narrating the Past in

Hawthorne, James, and Dreiser. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1988.

Moore, Geoffrey. “Introduction.” Henry James .The Portrait of a Lady. Ed. Geoffrey

Moore. London: Penguin, 1984. 7-37.

Moses, George Higgins. “Greece Today.” National Geographic Society Oct. 1915: 3-

35. [distributed by the Vima Journal, (May 14, 2003)]

Mousmoutis, Dionisis. Grigorios Xenopoulos 1867 – 1951: Chronologio kai Lefkoma

[Gregorios Xenopoulos 1867 – 1951: Agenda and Album ]. Athens: Periplous,

2001.

. To Theatro stin Poli tis Zakinthou (1901 – 1915) [Theater in the City of

Zakynthos (1901 – 1915)]. Athens: Basta, 1999.

. “Grigorios Xenopoulos, Peninta Chronia apo ton Thanato tou” [“Gregorios

Xenopoulos, Fifty Years from his Death”]. Spec.issue of Epilogos (2000):

141 – 147. 338

Myers, William. The Presence of Persons. Essays on Literature, Science and

Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1998.

Paganos, Yiorgos. I Neoelliniki Pezographia [The Modern Greek Fiction]. Athens:

Kodicas, 1983.

Papandreou, Nikiphoros. O Ibsen stin Ellada (1890 – 1960) [Ibsen in Greece (1890 –

1960)]. Athens: Kedros, 1983.

Parren, Kallirroe. “I Nea Gineka” [“The New Woman”]. The Ladies’ Journal 30 Sept.

1907: 4 - 8.

Parsons-Lathrop, George. “The Novel and its Future.” Documents of American

Realism and Naturalism. Ed. Donald Pizer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois

UP, 1988. 18-32.

Pearson, John H. The Prefaces of Henry James. Framing the Modern Reader.

University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1997.

Pefanes, Yiorgos. “Idologikes Diastavrosis sto Ergo tou Grigoriou Xenopoulou”

[“Intersections of Literary Genres in the Work of Gregorios Xenopoulos”].

Spec. issue of Eptanisiaka Filla KA. 3-4 (2001): 316-373.

Phinney-Conrad, Susan. Perish the Thought: Intellectual Women in Romantic

America 1830-1860. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.

Pfitzer, Gregory M. “Sins of Omission: What Henry James Left Out of the Preface to

The Tragic Muse and Why” American Literary Realism 25.1 (1992): 38-53.

Pippin, Robert B. Henry James and the Modern Moral Life. Cambridge: Cambridge

UP, 2000.

Pizer, Donald. Realism and Naturalism in Nineteenth Century American Literature.

Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1984.

. “Introduction.” The Cambridge Companion to American Realism and 339

Naturalism: Howells to London. Ed. Donald Pizer. Cambridge:

Cambridge UP, 1995. 1-18.

Politi, Gina. Critika Simiomata [Criticism Notes]. Athens: Ε.Λ.Ι.Α. [National

Literature and History Archive], 1979.

Politis, Linos. Istoria tis Neoellinikis Logotechnias [History of Modern Greek

Literature]. Athens: Educational Institute of the National Bank,1991.

Poovey, Mary. The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer. Chicago: The U of Chicago

P, 1985.

Porte, Joel. “Introduction: The Portrait of a Lady and ‘Felt Life’.” New Essays

on the Portrait of a Lady. Ed. Joel Porte. Cambridge: Cambridge

UP, 1990. 1-31.

Puhner, Walter. “Ta Prota Dramatika Erga tou Grigoriou Xenopoulou.” Nea Estia

150. 1738 (2001): 446 – 487.

Putt, S. Gorley. Henry James. A Reader’s Guide. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP,

1967.

Riley, Glenda. Inventing the American Woman. A Perspective on Women’s History.

1607-1877. Arlington Heights, Ill. : Davidson, 1986.

Robins, Elizabeth. Theatre and Friendship. Some Henry James

Letters. New York: Books for Library, 1932.

Rosenberg, Rosalind. Beyond Separate Spheres: Intellectual Roots of Modern

Feminism. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1982.

Rowe, John Carlos. The Other Henry James. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1998.

Rowe, Joyce A. “‘Murder, what a lovely voice!’: Sex, Speech, and the Public/Private

Problem in The Bostonians.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 40.2

(Summer 1998): 158-183. 340

Rubinow-Gorsky, Susan. Femininity to Feminism. Women and Literature in the

Nineteenth Century. New York: Twayne, 1992.

Ryan, Mary P. Cradle of the Middle Class. The Family of Oneida County,

New York, 1790-1865. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981.

Sachines, Apostolos. To Neoelliniko Mithistorima [The Modern Greek Novel].

Athens: Galaxias, 1969.

. I Pezographia tou Esthitismou [The Aesthetic Fiction]. Athens: Estia, 1981.

Salmon, Richard. Henry James and the Culture of Publicity. Cambridge: Cambridge

U P, 1997.

Schacht, Steven P, and Doris W Ewing. “Introduction.” Feminism and Men.

Reconstructing Gender Relations. Eds. Steven Schacht and Doris Ewing.

New York: New York UP, 1998. 1-17.

Scheiber, Andrew J. “Eros, Art, and Ideology in The Bostonians.” The Henry James

Review 13.3 (Fall 1992): 235-52.

Schneider, Daniel J. “The Theme of Freedom in James’s The Tragic Muse.”

Connecticut Review 7.2 (1974): 5-15.

Scrupskelis, Ignas K, and Elizabeth M Berkeley, eds. The Correspondence of

William James. Charlottesville, VA: UP of Virginia, 2001.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet. London: Harvester , 1991.

Showalter, Elaine. “Toward a Feminist Poetics.” The New Feminist Criticism. Ed.

Elaine Showalter. New York: Pantheon, 1985. 125-143.

Sideris, Yiannis. Istoria tou Neou Ellinikou Theatrou [History of Modern Greek

Theater]. Vols A, B, C. Athens: Kastaniotis, 1990, 1999, 2000.

Smith, Stephanie A. Conceived by Liberty. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994. 341

Smith, G. Barnett. Rev. of The Bostonians, by Henry James. Academy [England] 6

March 1886: 162. Henry James. The Contemporary Reviews. Ed. Kevin J.

Hayes. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. 153-4.

Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian

America. New York: Oxford UP, 1985.

Spacks-Meyer, Patricia. The Female Imagination: A Literary and Psychological

Investigation of Women’s Writing. London: Allen, 1976.

Spiller, Robert E. The Cycle of American Literature. An Essay in Historical

Criticism. New York: Macmillan, 1955.

Stein, William Bysshe. “The Portrait of a Lady: Vis Inertiae.” Perspectives on

James’s The Portrait of a Lady. A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. William

T. Stafford. New York: New York UP, 1967. 166-183.

Storm, William. “ Henry James’s Conscious Muse: Design for a ‘Theatrical Case’ in

The Tragic Muse.” The Henry James Review 21. 2 (2000): 133-50.

Svolou, Maria. “O agonas tis ginekas” O Feminismos stin Ellada tou Mesopolemou.

Mia Anthologia [“The Woman’s Struggle.” The Feminism in Mid-War

Greece. An Anthology]. Athens: Gnosi, 1985. 100-171.

Swindells, Julia. Victorian Writing and Working Women. Oxford: Polity Press, 1985.

Tanner, Tony. “Introduction.” Henry James. Modern Judgments. Edited by Tony

Tanner. London: Macmillan, 1968. 11-41.

. “The Fearful Self: Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady (1965).” Henry

James. Modern Judgements. Ed. Tony Tanner. London: Macmillan, 1968.

143-159.

Thrilos, Alkis. [Eleni Ourani]. “G. Xenopoulou ‘I Trimorfi Gineka’ ” [“Gregorios

Xenopoulos’s ‘The Three-Sided Woman’ ” Dimocratia 20 Sept.1924: 1-2. 342

Trovas, Dionisios. Gr. D. Xenopoulos, I Zoi kai to Ergo tou [Gr.D. Xenopoulos, His

Life and Work]. Athens: Vasiliou, 1984.

Tuttleton, James W. The Novel of Manners in America. Chapell Hill: The U of North

Carolina P, 1972.

Valetas, Georgios. I Genia tou ’80: O Neoellinikos Natouralismos kai i Arches tis

Ithographias [The Generation of the Eighties: The Modern Greek Naturalism

and the Beginnings of Ithografia]. Athens: Center of Grammatology, 1981.

Van Ghent, Dorothy. “From The English Novel: Form and Function.”

Perspectives on James’s The Portrait of a Lady. A Collection of

Critical Essays. Ed. William T. Stafford. New York: New York

UP, 1967. 113-131.

Varika, Eleni. I Exegersi ton Kirion. I Genesi mias Feministikis Sinidisis stin Ellada

(1833 – 1907) [The Revolution of the Ladies: the Birth of a Feminist

Consciousness in Greece, 1833-1907]. Athens: Katarti, 1996.

Veeder, William. Henry James. The Lessons of the Master: Popular Fiction and

Personal Style in the Nineteenth-Century. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1975.

Veloudis, Yiorgos. “To Sinhrono Laiko Mithistorima” [“The Contemporary Popular

Novel”]. Anti 86 (1977): 40-46.

. “Apopsis gia to Sinhrono Laiko Mithistorima” [“ Views on the

Contemporary Popular Sentimental Novel”]. Diavazo, 100, (1984). 14-16.

Vernardou, Evanna. “O Grigorios Xenopoulos kai i Nea Skini tou Konstantinou

Christomanou” [“Gregorios Xenopoulos and Constantinos Christomanos’s

New Stage”]. Periplous 42 (1996): 48 – 70.

Vitti, Mario. Ideologiki litourgia tis Ellinikis Ithographias [Ideological Function of

Greek Ithografia]. Athens: Kedros, 1991. 343

Vopat, Carole. “Becoming a Lady: The Origins and Development of Isabel

Archer’s Ideal Self.” Literature and Psychology 38. 1-2 (1992): 38-

56.

Voutieridis, Ilias. Sintomi Istoria tis Neoellinikis Logotechnias (1000 – 1930) [Short

History of Modern Greek Literature (1000-1930)]. Athens: Papadimas, 1966.

Walcutt, Charles C. “New Ideas in the Novel.” Documents of American Realism and

Naturalism. Ed. Donald Pizer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1988. 277-

295.

Walker, Nancy A. “Forward.” Femininity to Feminism. Women and Literature in the

Nineteenth Century, by Susan Rubinow-Gorsky. New York: Twayne, 1992.

vii-xi.

Warner, Charles Dudley. “Modern Fiction.” Documents of American Realism and

Naturalism. Ed. Donald Pizer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1988. 33-44.

Warner, Susan. [Elizabeth Wetherell]. The Wide, Wide World. New York: Putnam,

1851.

Warren, Jonathan. “Imminence and Immanence: Isabel Archer’s Temporal

Predicament in The Portrait of a Lady.” The Henry James Review 14.

1 (1993): 2-16.

Weinstein, Philip M. Henry James and the Requirements of the Imagination.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1971.

Wellek, René. “The Concept of Realism in Literary Scholarship.” Concepts of

Criticism. Ed. Stephen G. Nichols, Jr. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1963. 222-

255.

Wiesenfarth, Joseph F. S. C. Henry James and the Dramatic Analogy. New York:

Fordham UP, 1963. 344

Welter, Barbara. Dimity Convictions: The American Woman in the Nineteenth

Century. Athens, Ohio: Ohio UP, 1976.

Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. Oxford [England]: Oxford UP, 1999.

Witte, W. “The Sociological Approach to Literature.” Modern Language Review 36

(1951): 87-88.

Woolf, Virginia. “Professions for Women.” Collected Essays II. Ed. Leonard

Woolf. London: Chatto, 1966. 284-89.

Xenopoulos, Gregorios. “Autoviographia” Apanta, Tomos 1 [“Autobiography.” The

Collected Works, vol. 1] Athens: Biris, 1969 – 1972. 57 – 363.

______. “Isagogi” I Trimorfi Gineka [“Introduction.” The Three-Sided Woman” A

Novel]. Athens: Vlassis, 1992. 7 – 9.

______. “ I Timi tou Andros” [“The Man’s Honor”]. Newspaper 3 May 1914:1 – 2.

. Theatro [Theater]. Athens: Vlassi, 1991.

. “Kalitechnis” (dialogos) [“Artist” (dialogue)]. Theatrica Tetradia 21 (1991):

31 – 35.

Yiakos, Dimitris. Morfes tis Ellinikis Logotehnias [Personages of Greek Literature].

Athens: Filippotis, 1982.

Young, Iris Marion. “Impartiality and the Civic Public: Some Implications of

Feminist Critiques of Moral and Political Theory.” Praxis International 5. 4

(1986): 365.

Ziogou-Karastergiou, Sidiroula. I Mesi Ekpedefsi ton Korotsion stin Ellada (1830 –

1893) [The High-School Education of Girls in Greece: 1830-1893]. Athens:

Historical Archive of the Greek Youth. General Secretariat of the New

Generation, 1986. Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ...... v

Abstract ...... vi

Introduction ...... 1

Notes ...... 72

Chapter One The Bostonians and Secret Engagements: Passive Identity within Marriage – the Possession of the Prize ...... 84 Notes ...... 152

Chapter Two The Portrait of a Lady and The Three-Sided Woman: A Responsible Freedom – Following the Very Straight Path ...... 164 Notes ...... 224

Chapter Three The Tragic Muse and The Actress’s Husband: The Capture and Objectification of the Female Artist ...... 236 Notes ...... 297

Conclusion ...... 308

Works Cited ...... 322

Biographical Note ...... 345

v

Acknowledgments

Over half of this book was written during a pregnancy and then a child-raising

period. I am grateful to many individuals who helped me and facilitated my writing:

My supervisor, Yiouli Theodosiadou, was once more great in being a tough critic and

a fervent support, as well as a scrutinizing editor of my work. She has generously

offered criticism, encouragement and support throughout the whole process. I am

grateful. I also want to express my gratitude to my teachers Yiorgos Kalogeras,

Michalis Kokkonis, Smatie Yemenetzi, Savas Patsalidis, and Nikos Kontos, who,

throughout all of my university years, have provided me with support, academic

freedom, and intellectual community so essential for my work. The process has been

long yet I wish to lose no names along the way, so my gratitude also to Fotini Stavrou

and Kleoniki Skoularika at the Library, to Chrissoula Papiopoulou at 308A, and to

many friends and colleagues, - Vassilis and Alexandra Kokka, Eleftheria Arapoglou,

Valandis Bartzokas, Fotini Apostolou, and Despina Platia, for their love, help, and

encouragement.

I owe a great debt to my parents, who, as always, are there for me all the way;

to my sister, Elena, who allowed no distance to influence our precious sister-bond;

and of course, to my husband, Thanassis, a loving source of strength and self-

assurance for me as a student, wife, and mother. I also wish to thank my three-year

old son, Nikolas, who, unintentionally, has been my inspiration and power to always

keep on, despite the difficulties, because I wanted him to be proud of what his mom

has accomplished.

Abstract

This dissertation has attempted to trace the development of a feminist ideology in America and in Greece, during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, within the framework of specific literary texts. The focal point of this thesis has been the discussion of two novelists: Henry James and Gregorios Xenopoulos. Centering on The Bostonians, The Portrait of a Lady, and The Tragic Muse by Henry James,

and Secret Engagements, The Three-Sided Woman, and The Actress’s Husband by

Gregorios Xenopoulos, the present work presents not only the dominant thoughts and

ideas in the two countries’ societies, but also the stereotypes that directed the

behavioral norms, and thus validate the place given to the novels’ female protagonists

by the authors. When confronted with each country’s society, the heroines surrender

to the dominant ideas and standards, even though they have demonstrated the inner

force and the ability to fight for their independence and individuality. Their strong

voice is clearly heard, yet young women in late nineteenth-century America and

Greece hesitate to demonstrate their forcefulness.

Under the perspective of realism, and on the basis of parallel themes, the six

novels have been studied in pairs; I have therefore focused attention on the issue of

marriage and the impact of this institution on the heroines’ lives in The Bostonians

and Secret Engagements, on independence as an expression of the female autonomous

will and as a threat to the established societal tradition in The Portrait of a Lady and

The Three-Sided Woman, and on the female artist’s conflict between personal

fulfillment and moral / marital commitment in The Tragic Muse and The Actress’s

Husband. vii

In these works the authors present independent female protagonists, yet through the novel’s turn they negate this autonomy by directing the heroines to either reject their primary liberty, or be punished for their sovereignty. The present dissertation sets out to question the argument that authors who deal with female characters are in favor of women; the way James and Xenopoulos treat their heroines in the novels examined here, verifies a patriarchal, male-oriented and conservative perspective. I have simply outlined some significant feminist treatments and conducted a realist demarcation of the works’ period, so as to center on a number of critical perspectives that I consider relevant, and, mainly, to express my personal reading of the novels and the authors’ position.

What I present as the fundamental argument for the comparison of these two authors is that Henry James and Gregorios Xenopoulos portray heroines with independent and forceful spirit that challenges the status quo of society’s standards; it is the same authors that allowed for this spirit to express itself, then, that reverse the plot and silence the voice whose strength annoyed the male-oriented social order.

Therefore, they both express a conservative approach to women, even an anti-feminist spirit, by stating the predominance of male power over women, and the control of the patriarchal model of domesticity over personal ambitions and autonomy. The issue of power takes the form of man’s command over a woman’s free spirit, the supremacy of male hegemony that, by tradition, overwhelms anything female: independence, work, talent, success. The strength of mind that characterized the heroines in the beginning of the novels evaporates under the authors’ intention to ultimately silence the assertive protagonist who proved to be more powerful that they intended. James and

Xenopoulos, then, eliminate the elements of feminist thought in these dynamic personas, verifying the patriarchal modus operandi of silencing the female voice. Introduction

In the Fiction of today, women are

continually taking a larger place in the

action of the story [. . .] They are no

longer content simply to be; they do.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman Women and

Economics 1898

One can speak best from one’s own taste,

and I may therefore venture to say that

the air of reality (solidity of

specification) seems to me to be the

supreme virtue of a novel – the merit on

which all its other merits [. . .] depend

Henry James The Art of Fiction 1884

Η τέχνη είναι πάντοτε κοινωνικήּ κάθε

τεχνίτης είναι και φιλόσοφος, κάθε

καλλιτέχνηµα είναι εµπνευσµένο από τη

ζωή και εκφράζει αισθητικώς την

κοινωνική ιδέα του καλλιτέχνη

Γρηγόριος Ξενόπουλος Ο Μέγας Τολστόι

Εφ. Αθήναι 7.11.1910

2

Feminism

The following discussion approaches works of literature that tackle the issue of feminism—yet are by no means typical examples of “feminist literature.” Even

though the term “feminist literature” embraces feminist ideas, the pluralistic nature of

feminist ideology and its varied political and cultural manifestations constitute a

concept of “feminism” difficult to define. Feminism is not outlined in any primary

text, nor does it lie in a definite theoretical source; its political roots are located in the

struggle for equal civil and political rights for women in the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries, and in the continuing, contemporary efforts concerning improved social

status for women. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, the demands for equal rights conveyed a different notion of liberation; Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell point out the disparities between liberal and radical feminism, by admitting that the latter tradition had its origins in the anarchist, utopian-socialist, and communitarian movements of the previous century, and that, unlike the bourgeois democratic and workers’ movements of industrial capitalism, this type of feminism passed judgment on industrialism, modernization, urbanization, and economic growth. These movements shifted the focus from the extension of universal rights to all, to the need for meaningful relations between the self, nature, and others (365).

Radical feminists such as Susan Griffin and Mary Daly have proclaimed the urgent need for developing alternative forms of community, centering on the personal and psychological dimensions of women’s oppression. Moreover, the development of feminism as a theoretical discourse and the incorporation of women’s studies as an academic field in the 1970s and 1980s prompted women to investigate a range of different intellectual traditions and theoretical patterns, thus engaging sources such as

3

Marxism, psychoanalysis, and semiotics. Consequently, in order to give a general

definition of feminism, I adopt Alison Jaggar’s formulation, as cited by Rita Felski, in

which feminism is defined as all those forms of theory and practice that seek, no

matter on what grounds and by what means, to end the subordination of women (13).

The emergence of subjectivity —the woman as subject, that is— as a

fundamental category of feminist discourse is in direct relation to the development of

the women’s movement; the major concern of the first wave of feminist action was to

extend male rights and freedoms to women as well, a concern rooted in the fight for

worldwide independence. The second wave of feminism, however, which emerged in

the late 1960s and early 1970s, called attention to the distinctive social, political,

economic, and cultural experiences of women. Thus, the existing political patterns appeared incapable of handling “the varied constitution of human subjects and the oppressive consequences of the suppression of difference” (Felski 72); Liberalism and

Marxism no longer appeared as the all-inclusive, definitive political theories, and, especially in the 1970s, the political activity defied the clear-cut distinctions between public and private, personal and political spheres: the political action took economic exploitation and all forms of isolation and deprivation as its starting point. Young underlines that movements of oppressed groups asserted the right to cultivate their individual civilization and traditions, and the women’s movement also aimed at supporting women’s needs and culture in a male-dominated society. The women’s movement, along with other movements of racially oppressed groups, has produced

“an image of public life in which persons stand forth in their difference, and make public claims to have specific ends met” (381-401).

4

Feminist Literature

The increasing influence of feminism as a major political and cultural movement resulted in the publication of large numbers of texts describing female frustration in male society, in the forms of autobiographical texts and/or feminist manifestos, texts of woman-centered literature reporting women’s disillusionment in stifling, middle-class marriages, as well as the narratives of the female passage to self- knowledge. Although not all woman-centered texts are feminist, the majority of feminist literary contents have centered on a female protagonist, a tendency resulting from second-wave feminism, in which the notion of female experience has been of primary importance. One defining feature of the women’s movement has been, then, the study of the intimate rudiments of personal experience, which often become the very point of the feminist narrative. To define feminist literature, then, I agree with

Felski in asserting that one should take account of all those texts that reveal a critical awareness of women’s subordinate position and of gender as a challenging and tricky territory (14).

Feminist Criticism

Feminist criticism was instigated as the (female) readers’ response to the content of literary texts, when sexual stereotyping took place. Consequently, feminist criticism rendered readers perceptive of and insightful to the issue of gender, and urged them to monitor the patriarchically oriented political critique. Through the expanded argumentation and critique conducted by feminist criticism, feminism now also encompasses aspects of social and personal life that were previously stifled— emotion, desire, the body, personal relations—aspects that are included in female

5

identity and experience. Boris Frankel admits that feminism is preoccupied with the

politics of difference, yet many of the social issues involve both sexes and rise above gender questions: problems such as war, economic power, public administration,

religion, education, poverty, legal rights and other public concerns call for a reconciliation of plural identities with public identities and rights (281-290).

The separation of public and private spheres, however, acquires political implications for Felski, who considers this to be a central focus of feminism, taking

into account that the exclusion of women from the public field and their containment

within the private domestic realm has been considered a prerequisite for the

emergence of a public sphere. Female enclosure in the private domain guarantees,

Felski continues, the unity and cohesion of the rational discursive public and contains

desires and emotional needs within the realm of the family, which provides an

emotional refuge for the male worker while, at the same time, it (the family)

constitutes the place for women’s subordination and exploitation. Felski cites the

slogan “the personal is the political” that connects the supposedly “personal”

problems that have affected women—rape, abortion, child care, sexual division of

labor—and affirms that these problems are actually political issues that involve

fundamental questions of power and highlight important aspects of social

organization. The feminist critique, however, has ventured to illustrate the personal

dimensions of the political, and examine the ways in which the rational public

discourse has depended upon an exclusion and objectification of a female other which

is associated with the realm of the body and which inspires deep-seated anxieties and

subsequent defense mechanisms. (72-73).

A revival of cultural and ideological conflicts in the 1970s and 1980s,

conflicts that were rooted in the student and civil rights movements of the 1960s and

6

were accentuated by the women’s movement in the 1970s, expanded the influence of

feminist ideology. Although economic and class interests are still of major importance

in determining social development, Felski reports that the forms of radical opposition

have emerged from groups which perceive their interests and political significance to

be in direct conflict with prevailing cultural values. As far as oppression in social and

personal life is concerned, movements such as feminism have distinguished forms of

discrimination and inequality that involve more than simply economics. No longer is

it possible, Felski continues, to perceive the working class as a privileged historical

subject or to assume that the emancipation of the proletariat would wipe out all forms of exploitation (74). The numerous types and stages of oppression characterize a contemporary society whose ideological complications and conflicts disturb the self- reproduction of capitalism.

The ultimate element of feminism, however, is the movement’s dedication to gradually reforming and ameliorating the position of women. Contemporary feminism also undertakes the burden of exploring the current problems of being a woman.

Under no circumstance would feminist thinking justify women’s subordinate position; on the contrary, the ultimate goal in exploring these structures is to eventually change them. Rosalind Coward believes this pledge involves a “double movement” that combines the desire to understand how the female sex is subordinated with the need to challenge the very idea of natural sex roles (3). “The problem is,” Coward says, “that of understanding the position of women as a sex without presuming that being a sex entails forms of natural behavior and position” (3, italics mine). The contradiction entailed in trying to understand women as a sex and the sexual categories as manufactured implies a separate female history and experiences, thus drastically differentiating women from men, and admitting major disparities between the sexes.

7

This suggestion, however, Coward states, erases the possibility that sexual division is

socially constructed, whereas this exact contradiction—women treated as sex, but

sexual categories being social constructions—forms the bottom line of the feminist

quest: to explore between explanations and thus expose dominant ways of

conceptualizing sexuality and social relations (3, italics in the text). Feminism, then,

challenges theories of sexuality by revealing the dilemmas between natural forces and

social determination, concerns that lead to an unresolved dispute between forms of

explanation of sexual relations.

Nevertheless, it is not the task of the present study to answer the problems,

questions, and doubts posed by the feminist movement. Feminism, in relation to

realism and other forms of literature, constitutes a general framework for the deeper

analysis of the literary works that follow.

Realism

To begin with, the rich and diverse lineage of the term “realism” has created a

number of variations and notions leading to a multiplicity of explications and

definitions. Realism, in practice, denotes a historical literary tendency of the second

half of the nineteenth century, linked to the emergence of the novel as well as to the

formation of a middle-class reading public. René Wellek classifies the period of

realism as “the objective representation of contemporary social reality,” acknowledging the imprecision of the terms “objective” and “reality.” The critical elucidations he applies to the theory and practice of realism include an instructive and moralistic style, the use of social types, and narrative impersonality that seeks to reproduce the truth, all of which aim at encapsulating the entirety of social reality.

8

Additionally, Furst perceives realism as an artistic movement that is “the product and

expression of the dominant mood of its time: a pervasive rationalist epistemology that

turned its back on the fantasies of Romanticism and was shaped instead by the impact

of the political and social changes as well as the scientific and industrial advances of

its day” (1). The term “realism”, then, is used freely to describe a supposed mode or

kind of literature, and quite often, according to Michael Davitt Bell, to “organize or

periodize our literary history” (1). It can be detected in an explicit mode of fiction that

includes a detailed, plain, direct, and vernacular language, with a plausible subject matter that usually focuses on the life and psychology of ordinary individuals that depend greatly on society’s demands.

During the 1880s and 1890s realism dominated American letters as a secure, standard value, giving birth to a literary generation that included William Dean

Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James.1 Generalizations, however, do not apply in

the case of American realism, since neither Howells, Twain, and James, nor their

successors, such as Sarah Orne Jewett, Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, and Theodore

Dreiser, constituted a specific and single literary tradition. No consistent definition of

realism can be derived from their novels and declarations as a definite literary

representation.2 Bell comments that to characterize American realism through

classification of books and authors according to theme and form is a tiring and

ultimately futile endeavor, since one is surrounded by immaterial differentiations and

insignificant details (1-2).

However, in Realism and Naturalism in 19th-century American Literature,

Donald Pizer accepts some criteria that offer a more specific definition of realism, yet even these vary and change within the literary production from one century to the other: one criterion of the realistic mode is verisimilitude of detail derived from

9

observation and documentation; the second is based on a reliance upon the

representative rather than the exceptional in plot, setting, and character, including,

however, and a great diversity in subject matter; a final criterion is an (artistically)

objective, rather than a subjective or idealistic view of human nature and experience, with, however, an ethically idealistic aspect, applied also at times (1-2). Cathy

Davidson defines realism according to its application on various levels, thus referring to the verisimilitude of the fictional dialogues, the “when” and “where” in the novel,

and the construction of the characters’ personalities. She claims that

there is also a hard core of formal realism in the novel [. . .] realism

operates on numerous levels: linguistic (characters sound as if they are

talking to one another), situational (in Bakhtin’s term, “chronotropic,”

or within the time/space of fiction), and personal (characters are

viewed as individuals—not types—by the reader). (52)

In the criticism of late nineteenth-century realism produced between the two

World Wars, a paradox appears: on the one hand, the depiction in the writing of the

period of the new actualities of post-Civil War America was widely approved of;

while on the other hand, with an analogous rigor, critics objected to the restraints in choice of subject matter imposed by the literary and social conventions of the late

Victorian American life. Thus, the terms “Puritanism” and “genteel tradition” were assigned, emphasizing an inconsistency that Pizer in The Cambridge Companion to

American Realism and Naturalism summarizes in one phrase: “Writers of the time, in short, were described as seeking to be free but as still largely bound” (9). In other

words, there were new-fangled conditions that emerged in American society after the

Civil-War period and these principles and conditions enabled a fresh spirit in the

literary production of the time; nevertheless, this attempt at novelty did not eliminate

10

the controlling Victorian mindset, dominant not only in the social state of affairs, but

in literary production as well. Thus, no matter how fresh and “free,” the inspiration,

topics and themes in the realistic fiction of the period were, they had to be restrained,

“bound,” within the limits of the Victorian frame of standards.

In Documents of American Realism and Naturalism, Pizer acknowledges that

even in a more conventional debate over realism, different poles of perception still existed, one emphasizing the writer’s need to be reactive and sensitive to the conditions of his time by stressing the character, plot, social life and moral values; to others, however, this analytical method produced “dull novels of a debased society and ethical character”(11). G. Lathrop, one of those who appreciates eloquent representation because it “supplies the visual distinctiveness which is one great charm

of the stage” (28), supports the first viewpoint. Considering the difference between

realism and merely literalism,3 Lathrop believes that the novelist examines the

characters’ feelings and reactions in such a detailed manner because these are the

forces that dominate the characters. He contends:

The novelist will investigate the functions of all those complicated

impulses, emotions, and impressions which we experience from hour

to hour, from day to day, and by which our actions and characters are

continually controlled, modified, or explained. With his investigation

of psychological phenomena, or insight into the mysteries of spiritual

being, he must unite the study of all that accompany these in the

individual; as corporeality, with that curious net-work of appearances,

habits, opinions, in which each human person is enveloped. (28)

In contrast, there is an anti-romantic attitude from the realists, who are not

concerned with the ideal or the superhuman, like the romanticists were, but neither are

11

they interested in—naturalistically oriented—vast forces, heredity, ultimate reduction

and the subhuman. Their vision focusing upon spiritual significance, essence and

human life in the world becomes in fact their humanism, with important technical and

ethical effects: realists focus more on the character as a person than on the plot, and eliminate the elaborated element in action and emotion. “In realistic hands,” Edwin

Cady notes, “the tools of the novelist would be devoted to the main end of bodying

forth characters in their habits as they lived” (327).

This new vision of the common man in his world engendered the realists’

favored technique known as the “dramatic method.” As the playwright was set aside

from all drama, so the author was excluded from the scenes in the novel. This

technique required “translucent” narrators, who never interfered between the reader

and his/her perception of the characters, and who employed a “middle voice” in the

scenes that could not be presented otherwise. Thus the novel involves the reader in the

process of its creation, effacing the distance between text and reader, author and

reader: the reader is present at the conversation, and he/she feels privileged and

welcomed in a relationship to the text.

Naturalism

A generation after the realists, the naturalists4 sharply rejected the view that supports responsibility and moral worth in the face of the demands of everyday life; instead, they introduced a rejection of this ethic, and explored the dominance of the instincts (what the realists would call “amorality”), in order to liberate fiction and the general mentality of the times from outmoded Victorian ethics. Charles Walcutt cites three main patterns of ideas that constitute naturalism: reason is worshiped as an ultimate principle; the values of the past are attacked as unscientific; and an awe/fear

12 of natural forces is cultivated in the realization that man might study them, but could never control them. Walcutt labels the major themes and motifs of naturalism as determinism, survival, violence, and taboo. The first and basic theme of determinism maintains that natural law and socioeconomic influences are more powerful than human will and intention. The theme of survival applies the ideology of determinism to biological competition, perceiving survival to be the decisive motive in animal life, thus connecting man to his physical roots. The theme of violence moves the focus and even the worship from the supernatural tradition to the lower nature of man, in other words, the survival of one force over another, as a matter of violence. Finally, naturalism rejects taboo and refuses to ignore—it rather promotes—topics that had been considered improper, such as sex, disease, bodily functions, and obscenity (288-

289).

Conflict arises in contemporary theoretical criticism about the “optimistic” or

“pessimistic” nature of naturalism. Walcutt talks of “pessimistic determinism,” but also of a celebration of man’s progress via scientific mastery. He argues:

Some critics insist that the essence of naturalism is “pessimistic

determinism,” expressing resignation or even despair at the spectacle

of man’s impotence in a mechanistic universe; others claim that the

naturalistic novel is informed with a bright, cheerful, and vigorous

affirmation of progress—of man’s ability through science to control

his environment and achieve Utopia. (291)

The naturalists, then, dared to go a step further than the realists and explored issues such as the animal within man, and the influence of psychology in explaining the battle between instinct and conscious will. They broadened tabooed attitudes by accepting working class people and the fallen woman, even if this was accomplished

13

in an atmosphere of pessimism rather than redemption. Louis Budd believes that,

“Within the protean genre of the novel, a sympathetic reader easily distinguishes a

naturalistic from a realistic work, and either, through method as well as attitude, from

any other mode” (43). In fact, realism differs from naturalism in the movement’s

assumptions of the individual: in the former, the individuals are responsible for their

lives,5 whereas in the latter there seems to be no realization of the self as far as duty and obligation are concerned. Clark Lee Mitchell6 finds that a more flexible approach exists in the way that each conceives a person. He contends that

Realist characters [. . .] were provided with as full an illusion of

selfhood as possible, having been granted the powers to choose and to

act in contexts readily familiar to readers. When naturalists

occasionally placed their characters in contexts similarly familiar, it

was always to deny them recognizable capacities, with the effect of

making their circumstances seem themselves somehow alien. (3)

No strictly cut boundaries exist, however, between the literary movements, especially when one succeeds or reaches the other in definition, chronology, properties and literary productions. Walcutt states that when the same authors and novels are considered naturalistic in philosophy, romantic in effect, and realistic in style, these three terms become mutually inclusive. No one of them can define a novel

by expelling the other two (290).

Greek Realism

Meanwhile,7 nineteenth-century Greek fiction seemed unable to find a specific

reading audience and a distinguishing artistic ranking within the social system of the

time: unlike the rest of Europe, (typified by France’s Balzac and England’s Dickens),

14

in Greece there was no definite novelistic genre to be studied and criticized. Only

towards the end of the century8 does the need for a fictional tradition develop, a

tradition that would bring past realities together with Greek intellectual creation, and

introduce it to the broader European culture.

The characteristic traits of Greek realism are deeply rooted in the analogous

route of the rest of Europe, the goal being “the objective representation of contemporary social reality,” (147) as Mario Vitti remarks in Ideological Function of

Greek Ithografia, where he also indicates that the elements of the fantastic, mythic, accidental and incredible are all rejected by realism. Vitti also depicts the movement’s didactic mission, which is to render judgment on any kind of misbehavior and/or flaw of character, in order to impose the proper mores; to do so, realism has to locate the related, inferior aspects of life, and hence adopt a lower or simplistic style of writing

(149). Consequently, realists used direct speech repeatedly, to augment the energy of their narrative, and thus their literary production employed dialogue as a means of theatricality in the narration.

Realism was what most people asked for and what could bridge the gap between an extended reading audience and the new – still shapeless– Greek prose with its hesitant supporters and dangerous enemies, all those who were stimulated by its preference of the language of the common people. In realistic writing the author maintains an objective stance towards the facts that he relates. His intention is to expose them; to present them with persuasiveness. For this reason his feelings are excluded from the narration, the judgment and the personal interpretation of the events. He gives the reader the impression that he himself participates in the events and observes them unfold randomly before him.

15

The basic characteristics of realism are a) objectivity b) events that speak for

themselves c) selection of common themes d) presentation of common experiences.

Since, though, the author, as a human being is a carrier of certain influences, the

depiction of reality by the realist does not exclude subjectivity.

The first realists aim at depicting reality through simplicity and honesty. The role of imagination is restricted and it does not pursue the photographic portrayal of

life, but instead it presents a certain aspect with completeness, vivacity and

persuasiveness. The adventures of the characters and the situations they describe

testify to the personal and common experiences of the author and his/her time.

Consequently, through the hero of a realist work we can distinguish the characteristics

that differentiate a civilization. In their effort to realistically reproduce certain

situations in life and conduct, novelists often do not hesitate to depict elaborate details

as far as love affairs, violence and sexual perversions are concerned. The request for

“readability” (lisibilité) is considered a condition for the existence of literary realism.

Realism and Xenopoulos

Realism, however, was also a true need for Gregorios Xenopoulos. Thus he

presented his emotions and thoughts in a more complete manner. Xenopoulos was

highly convinced that only expressive methods that declare, reveal, and are not

restrained by anything, could serve and genuinely depict realism. He was a conscious

realist who believed that he had found the briefest and safest way to get to the extreme objectives of the study of the soul. He was a realist both in ithografia and the short

story as well as in the novel and the theater.

16

In the history of Modern Greek literature Xenopoulos is the first and only one

up to this day who organically, systematically and in an inspired way built his work

on this first sense of social life. In Xenopoulos’ work real life interlaces steadily with

its fictional processing:

Among my works there is material based on my experiences – that is, I

relate in them things that have happened to me – (like in “Petries ston

Ilio”) and there are others that have happened before me (Kokkinos

Vrahos, Eros Estavromenos), others that have been narrated to me,

after I met their heroes […] and finally very few that I have made up

with my imagination resting of course on some ‘data.’ (Kathimerini,

10)

Palamas in particular refers to Xenopoulos’ contribution to the realist novel, which he claims that he broadened as he included human passions, morals and characters. Palamas also discovers and underlines the existence of psychological and social problems both in the area of the novel, as in that of the theater. He gloats over the fact that Art through the works of Xenopoulos ‘fulfils its social goal, beneficially, without resorting to means foreign and intruding and of a political and moral or other nature’ (Periplous, 122).

However, realism is the basis, and, as such Xenopoulos saw it in a somewhat different way, like a more direct and easier contact with a greater reading audience.

The most important and purely literary virtue of realist novelists, along with the observation that is concentrated by the formless, first material, is the narrative ease.

With this and with the dialogue that is not photographic but has to be natural, the realist novelist ensures his first profits. And not only does Xenopoulos have this ability but he also uses it more than is needed. He was a great narrator and a conscious

17

realist in ithografia, in the psychological prose piece, the short story, the novel and the

social narrative.

For Yiorgos Paganos, the term “realism” has acquired multiple meanings, all

of which derive from the Latin word res (the actual thing), yet an aesthetic

identification of the movement would perceive realism as a) a close and detailed

reproduction of the world within the limits of an imaginary narration, thus producing

the local-color effect, and the depiction of common-life experiences. b) a movement

based on the belief that reality can be accessible in literature, using the senses in order

to reveal the true substance of things. The realist artist maintains an objectivity

towards the narrated facts, attempting to illustrate them in the most convincing

manner, therefore proscribing the narrator’s/author’s demonstration of feelings and opinions. The artist then, emerges as a mere observer of situations occurring around him/her. Finally, Paganos considers realism as c) a mimetic technique in the novel- writing domain that was initiated by Flaubert towards the end of the nineteenth century in France (18).

The development of the realistic method, however, is to some extent equivalent to that of the romantic; realist authors such as Balzac or Chekhov display romantic features, whereas the romantics Scott and Stendhal are partly realistically

outlined. In the language of criticism, terms such as “romantic realism” or

“psychological realism” are frequently encountered. The focal differential point

between the two approaches is that in Romanticism the subjective element is

underscored, and the romantic artist shelters the disappointment from the social,

economic, political and cultural realities in a fantastic world,9 in opposition to the realists’ sincere simplicity in reporting and understanding the world, constraining thus

the role of the imagination. “The realist novelist does not seek to give a photographic

18

representation of life, but rather to illustrate, with completeness, vibrancy, and

fluency, an aspect of life,” Paganos asserts (20, italics mine). Consequently, the fact that a novel’s hero is an imagined one does not render him illusory as well. Realistic novels, above all, present an imitation of life and a mirror of mores, maintaining concrete references to the social reality.10 In fact, a basic feature of realism’s tendency is to pass judgment on the urban society, thus revealing its flaws and casting doubt upon its values.11

Mundane actions and ordinary incidents rather than heroic feats are what is

mainly depicted in the realistic literature of Western Europe, an approach called

“critical realism”; the Greek novels that are to be studied in this dissertation are here

considered as belonging to the category of realism, based on the urban settings, the commonplace people in their plots, and the emphasized character approach. Besides, art is thought to draw the artist near the populace, to serve as a structure for people’s social evolution, hence dwell in man’s multi-faceted social side. In an attempt to embody what chiefly moves the psyche then, the artist has to manifest honesty and an objective, “documentary” truth.

Greek Naturalism

The Romantic Movement in Europe had been shaken by a new narrative style that engaged the study of both literature and society: therefore, Naturalism12 was the outcome of considerable scientific progress, industrial revolution, and a reaction against the prevailing romantic idealism. These economic and social changes led to the creation of organizations and unions on the part of the working class in the urban centers, demanding participation to the major decisions taken. This scientific and

19

logical predisposition greatly influenced the way of thinking, thus replacing the

elements of the unexplained, religious, and romantic with observation and rational13 experimentation. The Naturalists demanded an accurate reproduction that presupposed a stern denotation of the details, resulting in a representation so close to a taken picture that, as Epaminondas Baloumis maintains, the rendering equals an almost apathetic look at things (34).

The naturalist author that is more frequently mentioned by Gregorios

Xenopoulos in his critical texts is Alphonse Daudet, maybe because Xenopoulos identified in him certain characteristics that he himself would foster in the future; he was an author that avoided using realism in themes of genuine social criticism, and instead he illustrated the values of the bourgeoisie of the time, which rewarded him with money and honors.

The interest of the mass audience in the naturalist novel is achieved through the adoption of techniques from the field of mass production, as well as through the choice of popular themes that readers recognize from reality, or, on the other hand, through the description of ‘savage’ situations that the reader does not dare to confront; the audience’s attention is also achieved through the adoption of techniques and stereotypes of the popular novel that the readers also recognize, to all of which, however, another content is given, not for their easy decryption but for the suggestion of political progressiveness, and thus, the sociopolitical improvement of the audience.

Naturalism considers each person a prospective reader; it rejects the intelligentsia of the happy few and is not satisfied solely by the approval of those who belong to the field of limited production.

A common element between the popular and the naturalist novel is the movement from the novel to the theater, not only because the theater is more

20 profitable, but also because naturalists do not have such a distinct differentiation of genres as is the case in limited production literature. For the naturalists Art is communication, and they wish to assert themselves without being restricted to the few and without looking down on the mass audience.

What has to be taken into consideration however is that in essence naturalism with the characteristics that were given to it by Zola was never applied in Greek

Literature. In Greece, naturalism was mainly associated with some images of the bourgeois life and its vital surroundings, with erotic instincts, the presence of a sense of body consciousness, and the realistic verbalization of the life of heroes.

Everyday life remains the focal point of naturalism, yet it primarily studies moral behavior in an effort to confirm that external forces and internal instincts preside over human beings, limit their freedom, and deprive them of reason and morality. Consequently, the naturalists’ themes center on corruption, misery, desolate conditions of life, all expressed in a cruelly vivid manner, in a didactic effort to teach the ethical through describing the unethical. In line with this didactic ambition of the naturalistic principles and the movement’s guileless technique in depicting scenes and situations, Georgia Farinou remarks in “Readers of Novels in Xenopoulos’s Novels” that naturalism authorizes the representation of sexuality, provided that such a representation occurs on a scientific—and not moral—level. Thus the naturalistic novel does not become obscene or offensive (358). As a novelist, Xenopoulos used naturalist themes and methodology selectively, so as to cultivate production for a mass audience through a kind of bourgeois ithografia and occasionally through the social novel, without ever going beyond naturalism.

21

Ithografia

The weight of European literary tendencies has always been significant in

Greek fiction, with the French school being central to the development of the

scholarly circle of Modern Greek.14 Thus, as a result of French realism of the 1880s and its major representatives, Balzac, Flaubert, Daudet, and Zola, a new type of Greek fiction was formed; translated from the French term “roman de mœurs” (novel of manners) into the Greek expression “ithografia”15— the study of manners, this

writing style illustrated scenes from private life, along with the depiction of popular

culture, customs, and national identity of people and places, usually in the province.16

This fictional category, the so-called ithografico novel, was elegantly embodied in works by novelists/realists such as Papadiamantis, Drosinis, Xenopoulos,17

Karkavitsas, Kondylakis, Mitsakis, Nirvanas, Vlachoyiannis, Theotokis, and

Christomanos, among numerous other authors.18

The ithografic novel, which became officially characterized as the “Greek

novel,” did not evolve solely around country life and society, but also derived its

subject matters from urban settings. In compliance with realistic writing, this novel

intended to demonstrate the mode of Greek life in an effort to both safeguard an

idealistic impression about the national region, and to shed further light on the

austere, stern side of contemporary society. Ithografia sustained its meaning from

1901 onwards through texts by Chatzopoulos, Kambyses, Theotokes, Thrylos, Chares,

and Terzakes—writers who expressed a critical desire to examine contemporary

society and form a modern, up-to-date, national literature. Aiming to achieve the standards of the European novel, this inter-war generation of writers opted for an

urban environment in their works, accompanied by industrialization and a

22

sophisticated setting that disclosed the social conditions of the time and allowed for psychological interpretations. For Georgia Gotsi, the urban character of ithografia is

constituted by the factors of first, “modern space,” specifically the urban, narrative

space; secondly, the factor of social class, as seen in the study of the history and

behavior of the Greek bourgeoisie; and, thirdly, to a mode of writing that is derived

from the modern mentality of the social class it addresses (23). Ithografia, in other

words, indicates a specific literary term that focuses on the truthful portrayal of contemporary social stereotypes, with emphasis given to particular characteristics and types, as parts of an extensive unit.

Athenian Novel

Diverging slightly from the modus operandi of ithografia, another form of narrative technique evolved under the title of the “Athenian (athinaiko) novel.” In

“The Para-text of Xenopoulos’s Fiction,” Farinou defines its fundamental attributes,19 and points out that the Athenian novel occurs principally in a developing Athens, with specific references made to places in order to classify the characters’ social positions; accordingly, the society illustrated is one with a lower class, middle class, (the bourgeoisie), and the recently wealthy class. The Athenian novel does not make substantial references to the past nor does it allude to elements connected to ithografia, but it highlights the middle class, so that it becomes familiar to and recognizable by its reading audience (398). The involvement of nineteenth-century

Greek fiction with the urban experience forms the urban social novel, placed in the period of 1900-1930, and perceived, according to Apostolos Sachines, as an outcome

23

of the establishment of the middle class, the improvement of city life, and the impact

of foreign literature (148).

Gregorios Xenopoulos

A major representative of the Athenian novel has been Gregorios Xenopoulos.

He appeared in Greek literature at a time when the Modern Greek novel was almost

non-existent, and the short story, as well as prose, lacked profundity and substance. A

pioneer—when evaluated within the era he worked—he promoted criticism with a

rare decency and integrity, and his work reveals an affluence of aesthetic quests, as

well as an intention to educate and cultivate his audience. Panayiotis

Mastrodemetres20 considers Xenopoulos to be responsible for the transition of Greek

literature from ithografia to the urban novel, and defines the distinctive elements of

Xenopoulos’s fiction, which are the successful use of dialogue, the balanced variation between dialogue and description, and, finally, the subtle intervention of the narrator into the plot of the novel (90).

Xenopoulos with his article “ The Prejudices about Zola” that was published in Estia in 1890 insists on the correspondence between lying and disgracefulness and between truth and morality and develops the esthetic principles of “pragmatism” underlying one main condition: the rule of observation and the accurate description in fiction, and the “corruption” in reality by associating the progress of philosophy and science with the development of Art. According to Xenopoulos, Zola follows the

“mathematical” thread that leads one man to another, confirming the fact that inheritance has its laws, as does gravity. Aiming at the expansion and maturity of literary writing, Xenopoulos created an average reading audience, which would

24

operate as the link to an elevated, prominent literature. Eftyhia Amilitou calls

attention to the fact that, in establishing the realistic urban novel, Xenopoulos operates

as a “leader,” and thus promotes the development of the contemporary Greek novel,

which will connect the Greek and European intellectual worlds (76). Xenopoulos

introduced the Athenian novel into the course of the establishment of urban novel, and

often, being sensitive to social problems, enriched it with challenging and provocative

social issues.21 In fact, the need to discuss painstakingly the problems that troubled the Greek community of modern Athens derived from a cultural upheaval22 prompted

by the growth of the urban center; by the end of the nineteenth century, as the major

city of Greece, Athens had recaptured the glory of the past and formed a distinctive

character with prospects for education, social mobility, and economic growth.

Popular Novel – Roman-feuilleton and Xenopoulos

Farinou mentions that Xenopoulos in the decade 1890-1900 tries to define

literary work in relation to the non-literary work (paralittérature). According to this

separation, the literary work has esthetic verity, the narrations are “through strict

judgment chosen and studied,” the way in which an idea is displayed is delineative,

whereas the non-literary popular or folk work is the teratology “as it occurred through

imagination” with supernatural heroes and unbelievable narrations that aim at

excitement. In the midst of the first decade of the 20th century the definitions have

changed, and the non-literary is the industrial or the commercial, motivated by the

“momentary fame and sordid corruption”(“O Theoritikos kai Critikos Xenopoulos,”

37). The difference between literature and paralittérature (according to Xenopoulos’

term in defining the literary and the commercial) is determined also by the author’s

standpoint. In literature the author begins from the generalization of a personal

25 experience or need that he intends to make known through art, without any other selfish calculation. On the other hand, the folk author searches for collective experiences, that is for subjects that satisfy the reproduction of what is considered conventionally attractive, subjects that confirm the familiar emotions, correspond to the daily desires and the readers’ prejudices. Xenopoulos hastens to establish the difference between the author who writes “with calculation so as to profit” and the one who writes because of an “inward need” (“I Prologi … ,” 113).

Nevertheless, a type of novel with a romantic and yet contemporary storyline, the Greek popular novel (roman-feuilleton), offered a relief from Greek realities that included dictatorships, national defeats, and economic and political adversities. The popular novel, urban as well as sentimental, voiced old-fashioned moral values, and presented a social milieu that served as a romantic escape for its readers: the issue of romantic love and the woman’s position with regard to it are developed into major topics of concern. The heroes’ and heroines’ lives are determined by marriage, happiness, and social position, whereas fate plays an equally decisive role in the development of the plot. The dialogue is theatrically direct, the language is regular and simple, the setting is urban—the poor, the middle-class and the rich are involved— and the subject matters, chiefly melodramatic, do not call for any profound meditation.23

The novels in series (roman feuilleton) in newspapers and popular magazines had unlimited volume. They were written during their long-lasting publication. Their stretch was achieved as a rule through the method of accumulation (of patterns, episodes, characters). It was of particular importance where the sequence was cut, so that it drew the reader’s interest. This also supposes and imposes the continuous observation of the audience’s tastes and reactions. France is the first country where

26 roman feuilleton thrives, many issues publish more than one reading in their feuilleton and this continued until just before the second world war, since there weren’t any other hot issues and news to provoke the interest of the mass audience which usually had a low level of education. Many of these readings were literally written off-the- cuff, mostly those that were published in feuilletons of newspapers, magazines or daily and two-week issues, because the authors were pressed for time. At stands and kiosks, the products of the “romantic” paralittérature were brought forth as “popular love novels” not because they reflected the popular dead ends or because they promoted a popular esthetic realism, but mainly because they were addressed to the middle and lower classes in accessible prices. The female and –not rarely- the male audience overcrowded this bargain. The production of “love stories” had become an industry. The profits exceeded every prediction, while many “authors” served standard stories, changing the place, the heroes’ names and the occupations, in an attempt to enforce and reproduce the models of the urban ideology.

The serialized (sequential) novel is addressed to the middle-class and the

“aristocracy of labor”. The distinction lies in a) the field of limited production (noble literature) and b) the field of mass production. In the former, the works create their audience while the second complies with the rules of the market and is defined by the audience that is called “average audience” (an ambiguous and promiscuous cultural and social composition). The field of mass production is composed of works that are created by their audience, and it recycles subjects and techniques from the field of limited production of previous generations. The novelist becomes a producer and is interested in the protection of his/her interests, while the audience becomes an element of literary life. From the moment that the serialized (sequential) novel bases its success on satisfying the curiosity and the themes of attraction of the reading

27

audience and mainly the middle classes, the newspaper itself undertakes the direction

and fulfillment of its wishes; consequently, the significance of the feuilleton is

emphasized. (Farinou, “O Theoritikos kai Critikos Xenopoulos,” 34-35).

The quantitative and qualitative range and diversity of the reading audience as well as the work’s effectiveness in certain readings, depending on the receptivity and the demands of the readers, decisively determines both the author and the distinction between literary work and industrial (commercial) readings. Regarding this issue,

Farinou states:

I will counter the extensive discussion with the objections to the older

feuilleton writing […] objections that have to do both with the loose

and standardized technique (looseness of style, bold descriptions,

lengthy and without substance dialogues, excessive use of the “coup de

theatre” and of intrigue, emphasis on drama and the melodrama too, on

the sentimental or gothic variations of the romantic novel, although

without its metaphysical and poetic quests and its poetic innovations,

submission of the plot to the happy ending or at least an ending that

confirms that we live in a generally orderly world) as well as with the

doubtful morality of the ‘industrial or the commercial novel’

(Littérature industrielle) a term that was introduced by Saint-Beure

and adopted by Xenopoulos (“Anagnostes Mithistorimaton sta

Mithistorimata tou Xenopoulou,” 394)

The decade 1910-1920 is characterized by Xenopoulos’ turn to the serialized

(sequential) novel. In practice it follows what was prepared by the orthography of the previous decade. From the literary work for distinguished magazines (Estia,

Panathinea) Xenopoulos passes on to the serialized (sequential) novel (Ethnos) for

28

mass consumption. The publication of his novels in sequences for consecutive years,

mainly in the newspapers Ethnos and Athens News led to accusations for scribbled

writing, unprofessionalism, “popular” in the sense of “bad” literature, that is,

paralittérature. To this criticism he also responds with a great many texts, like the

prologues in novels and in collections of short stories, chapters in his autobiography, essays like “I Diaskedastiki Tehni,” articles in newspapers and magazines, as well as

personal comments in book reviews. According to Xenopoulos, the marketability of

his texts is not a result of simplistic or scribbled writing since for all those publications in the press a structured plot preexists. Finally, publication in sequences, a habit of the great foreign authors such as Balzac or Zola, does not presuppose their bad quality. With these texts Xenopoulos turns the indicted popular –thus “bad” – author into praise thus exhibiting with his argumentation the literary completeness

and the national dimension of his work: “Those who said that I downgraded my Art to

the feuilleton, would be much closer to the truth if they had said the opposite: that I

upgraded the feuilleton to Art” (Gr. Xenopoulos, Fifty Years from the Death of an

Immortal, 18-19).

Xenopoulos is considered the initiator of a literature directed to the broader

reading public,24 thus he can somehow be perceived as the originator of a form of the popular novel.25 His motifs are addressed to and inspired by the sentimental novel of

the mid-war period, portraying issues such as the fallen girl, social and financial

deprivation, family “honor,” the love story between an unequally rich or poor man

and woman, the power of fate, the heroine as evil, and the heroine as angel. Initially

incorporating the element of ithografia in his work, Xenopoulos did not merely

present customs and traditions, but also indicated an entire atmosphere that centered

on the mental state of the heroes and—especially—the heroines. His plain and

29

uncomplicated style recalls incidents and adventures of life, and his concentration on

observing the paths of thought and psyche, elevates his narrative technique. The

realism indicated early in his work initiates the turn towards the urban-social novel of

the early twentieth century in Greece.

Modern popular literature was characterized as “para-literature” or “infra-

literature”, as dime novel (croschhenroman), or as “ literature of the unrefined.” The

contradiction towards the literary products of the ruling cultural class that expresses

itself through this terminology is evident. Therefore, the term “popular novel” remains the only relatively objective term for the characterization of the most exquisite kind of modern popular literature (G. Veloudis, “The Contemporary

Popular Novel,” 40).

We should perhaps seek the immediate ancestors of the contemporary popular novel in Greece amongst the representatives of Greek naturalism, at least from the moment they abandoned provincial ithografia and turned towards bourgeois themes.

Xenopoulos will substantiate this transition from a definitely “scholarly” literature to a broader, simply literate bourgeois audience in the most prominent way.

The popular romantic novel first appears in the feuilletons of some daily and periodic issues, at the same time as the adventurous mystery novel. The spread of the cheap popular issue that satisfies the melodramatic side of the Athenians’ character in

the 20th century is also considered part of the superficial imitation of a cultural model,

of a new code of ethics and values. The circumstances lead to the development of a

literature that does not criticize the “unattractive elements” of the bourgeois status quo

so that it does not fall into its disgrace. At this point it is worth pointing out that the

reading audience of these works consists greatly of immigrants of the province, who

definitely did not want to read and entertain themselves with the former tough life in

30

rural Greece. Popular romantic novels are in such a way structured and strictly abide

by certain limits of reading suitability for younger ages also, so that they can be read

without the parents’ fear that they may fall into their children’s hands; popular

romantic literature, therefore, also functions as the main carrier of the ascendant

ideology and as a means of education.

The main elements that constitute Xenopoulos’s narrative mode are his easy

narration and straightforward description; through his natural dialogue, persuasive and

detailed representation of daily life and social circumstances, as well as character

analysis within a simple plot, Xenopoulos was widely recognized and appreciated by

Greek readers. The quantity of his written production, however, (he used to publish

his novels in newspaper sequences, for year-long periods of time,) gave way to

accusations about the quality of this work; to these he reacted forcefully, in defense of

his art and professionalism, with a number of

articles, critical texts,26 and explanatory prologs27 to many of his novels. It is a fact that among the numerous stories, novels, and plays, some are poor and uneven, not on a level with Xenopoulos’s value as a novelist; an author’s ultimate worth, on the other hand, lies in the totality of his production and Xenopoulos actually promoted the rise of the novel to a level where it is identified as an autonomous genre. Accordingly,

Athens is depicted as a luminous capital, as the inspirational social and cultural center of Greece and all of his work is characterized by abundance, profusion, seriousness, class, and also by action, and surprise as part of the daily routine.

Xenopoulos contributed invaluably to the formation of a general reading audience, an essential factor in the expansion of literary production; in his role as the

“educator” of this reading public, he attempted to explore a number of issues concerning literature overall, as well as to imbue a social context to his text, by

31

studying the struggles of the rising urban class.28 A responsive recipient of

international literary movements,29 he also contributed to the progress of Greek

theater, and has consequently been declared the “father” of Modern Greek theater:

uniting the elements of the Russian School of Dostoevski and Tolstoy, with the

influence of—especially—Zola,30 and also Balzac, Flaubert, and Daudet, Xenopoulos

managed to create a local variety of the urban novel.

Xenopoulos’ “popular” novels satisfy another basic condition of the popular

reading: extensive circulation for their time. The popular reading is mainly a mass

reading. This presupposes reading masses, or, in other words, unformed - yet literate -

masses. Xenopoulos’ books, his short stories, his novels, and his uninterrupted

feuilletons entered every household persistently. Almost all of his novels were

published, in their primary form, in sequences in the more or less popular newspapers

and in the popular magazines of their time. We can subsume his work as a whole in

the popular romantic novel based on external criteria (publication in a newspaper, related illustration, when it is published in a book and mainly a warm response from the reading audience and a big publishing success). “I was also accused”- Xenopoulos writes in his autobiography of 1983- “that since I started writing feuilletons, I put indecent scenes in my novels so as to attract more readers. I would never see the need of doing this with such a purpose because my most decent novels have been read as much as my most provocative ones.” And in the prologue of his book O Katiforos,

Xenopoulos writes: “If I had a sixteen-year-old daughter, I would make her secretly read this book and I would rest assured that she would never be in danger of straying”

(198).

Xenopoulos viewed the movement of Realism as a means of direct connection with his reading public; taking into consideration the scholarly untrained Greek

32

society,31 which favored a literature that described simple and comprehensible situations,32 he bridged these demands with his personal need to share his thoughts

and enthusiasm with his readers. Yiorgos Frangoglou cites Terzakis’s statement about

the relationship Xenopoulos maintained with his audience, defining it as a connection on a “social” basis, rendering it the protagonist of his work, and on an “aesthetic”

basis, with his “artful and unique approach to people’s hearts” (4-5). It is

Xenopoulos’s qualities in designing well-built plots and elucidating literary

techniques with his criticism that urged Dimaras33 to describe him as a “master

builder who worked with confidence,” (441), and Nirvanas to accord him “[. . .] great

and exceptional merit, which is also an author’s obligation to his readers. You have

never been dull, sir. And this is the great secret of all admired writers” (129).34

Henry James

Centering on the direction of the male American realists and their approach to

the women heroines they created, the names of two authors appear, Howells and

James.35 The strength of their best realistic work exists in the balance and symmetry with which they present the passionate female identity, a characteristic of women’s novels, and the detached judgment that was a fundamental component of realism.

They belong to that group of authors who proceed more deeply into what is strongly felt, and gain the true essence of realistic fiction by considering the society and the popular art of the time. The very source of realism lies in the gender roles attributed by the major social institutions and in the outlines of the idealized hero or heroine. In his essay “Realism,” Alfred Habegger considers the meaning in the existence of a common pattern in canonical works of realistic literary production:

33

How did it happen that some of the major realistic novels in various

countries—Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Middlemarch, The

Portrait of a Lady, and A Modern Instance—all told the story of a bad

marriage? The source of realism lay right on the surface—love

interest—and yet ran far deeper than intellectual history can reach.

(359)

James, in particular, avoids the use of the term “realism” in his criticism.

However, he has indirectly paid homage to certain criteria of realism: the qualities that constitute a realistic aesthetic are included in the depiction of everyday American

life, with an emphasis on psychological reasons in the portrayal of behavior, and in

the belief that an aesthetic of creativity underlies the immediate experience as the

source of the writer’s knowledge, a knowledge developed and reshaped by the role of

the imagination.

For James, reality does not depend upon the truth of the writer’s material, but

on the sensibility and imagination with which he absorbs the aspects of life around

him. These qualities will grant him the power to “guess the unseen from the seen, to

trace the implication of things” and to connect the experience with the impressions:

Therefore, I should certainly say to a novice, “Write from experience

and experience only,” I should feel that this was rather a tantalizing

monition if I were not careful immediately to add, “Try to be one of

the people on whom nothing is lost!” (51)

He urges writers to acquire a free perception and acceptance of art and life as

one, liberated from preconceived notions and confining attitudes.36 For James, life

itself is the one source worthy of inspiration, and the novelist should perceive it as

such:

34

Do not think too much about optimism and pessimism; try and catch

the colour of life itself. [. . .] If you must indulge in conclusions, let

them have the taste of a wide knowledge. Remember that your first

duty is to be as complete as possible—to make as perfect a work. Be

generous and delicate and pursue the prize. (59)

It would be important, however, to study the close relationship that realism establishes between realistic novels and the female heroines that often constitute the novels’ major characters. In the essay by Habegger previously cited, he maintains that realism as a genre belongs to the mid-nineteenth-century genre of the novel, but can also be viewed separately, as an important type of novel, women’s fiction:

Women’s fiction was characterized by an idealized heroine, a strong

appeal to the readers’ fantasies or daydreams, a great deal of

“domestic” social and psychological detail, and a plot based on love

interest that led up to a decisive speech—“I love you.” (357)

What these heroines usually agonize over is making the right choice, which must always be established as a major ethical concern. The plot requires them to make a difficult decision with important consequences for themselves and others, thus reminding the readers that in realism the self is free, but up to a delicate point where ethical demands assert their power over the individual. The characters can choose, but only between two options, and only one is correct. In most cases this correct choice administers a painful discipline on the self, thus revealing a Victorian influence on realism, but at the same time the absence of a firm belief that suffering and grief always lead to a compensatory husband or fortune. Habegger further remarks:

“American realism was an extremely moral fiction. But its insistence that we live in

35

society rather than in the wonderful fantasy-world of so much popular fiction, was

sane, practical, and truthful” (360).

Thesis Statement

In the context of realism as a genuine, non-romanticized experience of real

life, an experience that includes the presence of an active and courageous heroine, this

dissertation examines six novels by two authors: Henry James’s The Bostonians

(1886), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), and The Tragic Muse (1890), and Gregorios

Xenopoulos’s Secret Engagements (1915), The Three-Sided Woman (1922), and The

Actress’s Husband (1940).37 In these novels the readers become acquainted with girls

who grow into women at a time when a turn of the century, and simultaneously a

change of mentality regarding the issues of power, equality, and autonomy occur.

Regardless of the result of their undertakings, these characters manifest a strong voice when it comes to asserting their talents, ambitions, and self-expectations. They reveal personalities that exhibit force and will, qualities not expected by young women in the end of the nineteenth century, neither in America,38 nor in Greece.39

Even though most of the plots’ resolutions present a defeat for the heroines in the face of the strict notions and standards of society, the novels manage to illustrate the might, persistence, and potency that lay behind the creamy exterior of those normally well-bred, refined girls of decent family background: examined in pairs, a technique that enables a comparison between one American and one Greek novel,

these particular works of James and Xenopoulos tackle the theme of marriage—as

salvation and condemnation—in The Bostonians and Secret Engagements, the theme

of independence of spirit—as a reinforcement of female autonomy and as a threat to

36

the woman’s respectfulness—in The Portrait of a Lady and The Three-sided Woman,

and the theme of artistic profession as a form of inner completion and as a source of

moral and marital turmoil in The Tragic Muse and The Actress’s Husband. Therefore, these novels will be discussed as parts of the realistic literary production, that is, their perspective will be that of realism, yet they will also be viewed on the grounds of theme, within the context of a feminist approach.

Social historians and literary critics often use literature as a source of information about women’s lives. This practice can be explained by the fact that history traditionally disregards women, particularly in the nineteenth century, where literature presents situations parallel to the prevailing social realities. This approach is fraught with danger, however: literature is fiction-art, and not fact-history, thus it cannot faithfully portray women’s roles. Authors might shape and mould their information for various reasons, some of which are far removed from the intention of accurately presenting society. What realists can offer, nevertheless, is a picture of a tangible, meaningful world, where the focus is on character, the external and psychological consequences of action, the outcome of moral decisions or principled stance, and, above all, the everyday details of normal life in ordinary middle-class society. The social perspective and the instructive or moral function of the realistic novel often demand that the plot revolve around a social problem, as Susan Rubinow-

Gorsky maintains:

The heroic adventures and misadventures of the romance and the

distancing effect of the historical novel give way to the mundane

events and issues relevant to men and women supposedly very much

like the men and women reading about them. The point is

37

verisimilitude, though not simply for its own sake. The small truths

should lead to greater ones. (7)

In the present study, the point of reference for the consideration of these novels in relation to their theme and perspective has been the American and the Greek literary theory of realism and feminism. The theoretical background that is used in this chapter derives mainly from American, English, and Greek critics’ texts, essays, and articles. This dissertation does not aim at introducing any advanced, unstated, or innovatively viewed form of theory, either for realism or for feminism. It accepts, respects, and employs some of the options and studies presented until this time, and it adopts them as a steady background in order to compare, for the sake of a scholarly analysis, the works of two very different novelists: Henry James and Gregorios

Xenopoulos.

Novelists’ Differences

In fact, these two authors present a number of differences that can be distinguished through the circumstances of each author’s society and period: they come from dissimilar countries, have never heard of nor known each other, demonstrate contrasting writing styles, and have composed the novels discussed here at different times.40 But James and Xenopoulos are both realists, and both influenced by the realistic movement; also, most importantly, the six novels dealt with in this study exhibit a striking resemblance in the theme and the treatment of the main characters within their social background.

I realize, of course, that earlier or later works by these novelists may or may not support this belief, which is that James and Xenopoulos can be discussed in comparison to each other, a premise which presupposes that they do share some

38

common ground as far as the perspective and the themes of their novels are

concerned; I also understand that works by other contemporary authors may

contradict this position as well. However, the six novels chosen are characteristic and

well-known works by these two distinguished writers, and generalizations drawn from

them do not necessarily render them representative of James’s and Xenopoulos’s

oeuvres or the literary production of the period as a whole.

The six novels as novels of manners

The works involved in the present dissertation are novels of manners in the

sense that they focus on the relationship of their central characters to a particular

social world. In each novel a moral tension or conflict occurs between the heroine and

her environment, a tension based on the prospect of a specific social behavior not only

on the part of the heroine, but on the part of all members of the society. The relations

and conduct among the members of a group, whether this is a family, a community, or

a marriage, are predetermined by social codes and proscriptions, and this etiquette

demands much more than just the behavioral protocol: it defines the system of ethics

which in turn reveals the norms, customs and culture of a society; it proclaims the

religious and theoretical assumptions that subtly affect the thoughts and actions of the

fictional characters; it even announces the important role of wealth and economic

considerations as a form of unmasking the social values. James Tuttleton describes41 five areas of social experience that, according to sociology, systematically analyze society:

Firstly, a set of social conventions and taboos regarding relations

between the sexes, [. . .] as well as people’s behavior in the company

39

of their fellowmen. Secondly, a set of commonly [. . .] accepted ethical

standards. Thirdly, a set of religious and philosophical beliefs, [. . .]

concerning the position and role of man in the universe. Fourthly, a

given type of economic organization [. . .] Lastly, the political structure

of a given community [. . .] (11-12)

For the novel of manners the “set of social conventions and taboos” is the appropriate ground to indicate the limits of human experience. At the specific period with which the novel is each time concerned, manners represent the principles, ideologies and notions of society, and a violation of these tenets amounts to the transgression of the ethical values that dominate each social group. Manners and morals can therefore be easily fused and combined in people’s perception, so that it remains unresolved whether characters’ actions are dictated by the morally right or the socially proper.

These social conventions remain the focal point of the novels of manners, because the characters are greatly touched and affected by them. The other fields, although contributing to the definition of the ethos and codes of a society, and despite their influence in shaping the thought and demeanor of fictional characters, are of comparatively minor significance to the overall development and understanding of the novel’s frame of mind.

These notions are present in the six novels discussed here and the reason I have concentrated on these particular works is that their theme enabled me to discuss these details that equally and efficiently control, and—strangely—fit into both societies. My narrative focuses, therefore, on the female characters whose talents, inclinations, or instincts urge them towards independent, cultivated, artistic and even feminist paths. However, when this conduct extends beyond the strictly defined

40 boundaries of the standardized, proper, solemn, and widely accepted, then the society reacts and revolts. In the novels to be discussed, feminist speeches are given by a young girl and the pursuit of talent leads a woman painter outside the boundaries of her homeland and even as far as an unmarried life; a young woman feels the need to be independent, educated, and to travel, all at the expense of her marital prospects, while another self-determining woman dares to allow herself to be carried away and experience the sense of liberated openness, all the time in danger of acquiring a bad reputation; a good actress is assumed to be a woman of loose morals and is thus forced to fail in the theater and in wedlock. When these events happen, society works its usual way: it threatens, punishes, rejects, and, generally, seeks to bring its members back to the correct and accepted path.

The Female Characters and the Position of Women

The women characters’ experiences may not be identical to those of the others involved here, yet the important link connecting the six is that each faces a crucial turning point in her life, and each decides how best to act by accepting responsibility for circumstances. Divided between moral alternatives—whether to succumb to the demands of the environment or follow the genuine instincts of the soul, to comply with the notion of the proper and right, or strive for individual ambitions and desires—these female characters make a difficult choice that involves substantial psychological discomfort. Lee Clark Mitchell regards such a selection by women as a sacrifice of personal needs in the name of (socially defined) ethos and propriety. “[. .

.] each triumphs over self-serving considerations to redeem a belief in their moral integrity, defining a self that exists beyond the pressures of temptation and desire” (5).

41

Notwithstanding considerable differences in setting, style, and tone, the six

novels reinforce a set of assumptions about the “self” that lead to a perception of the

individual according to the concepts of morality, decency, choice, responsibility, and

principles. James and Xenopoulos (and by extension, many other realists) conceive

the “self” in relation to—and judged by—the dominant moral perspective, thus their

characters define themselves not by actions they randomly carry out, but by the

capacity for choosing certain undertakings over others.42 Hence, the female characters

that emerge from the pen of the two authors demonstrate how cultural beliefs and

values have influenced the depiction of women in fiction, thus persevering the stereotypes of women as passive, weak, provocative, discontented, and occasionally strong, independent, and self-governed. Nancy A. Walker notes that in the autobiographies by women as well as in advice manuals and etiquette books of the period, an opposition to movements towards female emancipation and equality of any kind can be observed (xi), and Lee Virginia Chambers-Schiller identifies a cultural concept in the structure of gender which dictates “service” “vocation” and “duty,” while women begin to distinctly express the importance of female independence:

“They talked about the cultivation of the self—the female self. They exhibited a drive toward personal autonomy and expressed it in their single status, in their search for meaningful work, and in their thirst for education.” (3).

However, despite the various barriers for creativity, inspiration, and true selfhood, women never ceased to have ambitious expectations in the areas of education, marriage, interpersonal—intimate and public—relations, and behavior. The stories of female characters in nineteenth-century fiction display the problematics of a rapidly changing social order with turn-of-the-century moral demands that also undergo transformations. Within a cultural ideology that relies on women to provide

42

domestic stability, there are some strong, female voices heard that protest against the status quo and fight for a more significant place in the eyes and judgment of society.

Restricted and destined to observe life rather than live it, the women of this

period had to redefine themselves as personalities and identities in order to resist the

social pressure that confined them, and effectively defer their own desires, thus

achieving the moral triumph of relinquishing strong passions for moral will. About

the assumptions concerning the female moral self, caught in a world of constraints,

Mitchell remarks: “Since they [the women] were meant not to do but to be, the world came to them, not they to it, and Isabel Archer and her sisters define themselves by refusing what others assume they can only accept” (9). Most of these women, with the exception of a few unconventional adventurers, have far less freedom and mobility than men. The typical woman’s life is often marked by confinement that sometimes resembles imprisonment. In this context, the young girl attempts to discover her identity that has been, however, molded by the prevailing cultural configurations of nineteenth-century American society. In the pages to follow, an outline of the principles43 that indicate the frame with which female behavior had to comply will be

provided. These are standards and formulas that shaped the way a woman’s life and

routine was, or ought to be, as well as the roles she had to acquire, along with the

rules and commands of these roles.

Through the male-oriented typification of the male and the female roles, the heroes are presented strong, confident and virile, in command of powerful positions,

entitled to order and be obeyed, making honest money, (a woman is usually obliged to

end up immoral if she wishes to acquire money, and, naturally, it is dishonest money),

and in control of romantic seduction and conquest. The women characters, on the

43 contrary, belong to the romantic heroine category, with health, vivacity and beauty, yet compliant to the will of Fate and men, and prone to their sentimentality.

Accordingly, since society could be characterized as bourgeois and forcefully male-oriented, its doctrines were organized by—and for—men, Mary Poovey asserts

(ix). A substantial prerequisite for the model woman was the quality of a dutiful character, a trait defined and urged upon girls from their earliest years. The nineteenth century clearly displayed the differences between the sexes as innate and total, hence presenting women as inherently more religious, modest, passive, submissive and domestic than men, and as more content when occupied with tasks that suited their nature. In each case the woman is perceived as the inactive, secondary factor, the object; and man is the principal, alarming subject that desires and obtains. Even the description of women’s external appearance is meant to instigate men’s erotic desire, especially when a woman’s identity is denoted through the gaze of men (particularly in fiction). The woman, then, once more acquires the position of the object (love- object in this case,) whereas the male characters are perceived based on their social and economic standing. Man, then, functions as an overwhelming factor in the socially defined terms of power. In line with these presumed distinctions between man and woman, Poovey remarks: “Both stereotypes, in fact, rigidly confined real women to prescribed roles; as a daughter, a wife, a mother, a widow, as a virgin or a whore, every woman was defined by relationship—explicitly to man, implicitly to sexuality itself” (x).

These assumed differences of nature and capacity created the expectation that the woman, wife, daughter would be, above all else, obedient. Obedience and self- control were the two virtues that served as a protective shield from unsupervised forces, such as falling in love, which was a state that endangered the innocent

44

background of a girl, and put her immaculate reputation in jeopardy of scandal.

Welter comments on the vulnerability of the girl’s shrine: “The girl treasured her innocence of spirit and physical virginity as the ‘pearl of great price,’ which was her greatest asset” (5). When a girl disobeyed her family and initiated an acquaintance or a meeting without others’ knowledge, this constituted the beginning of the end for virtue.44 Welter declares: “This might seem a small thing, but it is the whole point of

nineteenth-century mentor literature that nothing is small when dealing with

absolutes” (6). The girl’s chastity was protected by a set of values that operated as a

guard against all factors that might endanger her position, reputation, virtue, and—

partial—ignorance.

This much-treasured innocence, however, did not prevent the young woman

from aspiring to a comfortable life with ample wealth and sufficient glamour.

Although warned against ambition and riches as unsuitable expectations for a girl, the

particular girl knew very well that a good marriage would provide fulfillment of her

desire for status and power; and, of course, every girl expected to marry. Welter

quotes Emily Dickinson affirming the benefits of marriage:

I’m ‘wife’—I’ve finished that—

That other state—

I’m Czar—I’m ‘Woman’ now—

It’s safer so—45 (8)

The institution of marriage was the proper way to advance up the social ladder

and acquire a much-desired prestige in the hierarchy of the young woman’s circle. In

fact, it was one of the few steps a girl could take in this direction.46 Marriage could

provide a woman with the important economic and social benefits that men received

through education, business, and culture, and most marriages occurred within the

45

girl’s own class, religion, and economic background.47 The young, nineteenth-century

woman, however carefully placed on a pedestal of purity and ignorance, was aware of

more than she let on. Her wonderful innocence was a quality manufactured in order to

serve an image, that of female passionlessness, a powerful ideal in Anglo-American

culture. “The natural woman was sexless; prostitutes were unnatural” (xxvi), affirms

Donna Dickenson, stressing that female chastity guarded women as individuals, and

the society as an institution. Underneath the virtuous icon, however, lay a girl well

informed about the physical aspects of marriage, expecting physical pleasure as part

of the assumed marital bliss.48 For the woman, this state encompassed multi-faceted roles as wife, mother, and household governess, yet there were a few women who were confused and uneasy with this double standard that pitted them between power and neediness, boldness and innocence.

What had been the ultimate paradigm of the right kind of girl, who would soon become the right kind of new bride and woman, was the pattern of “true womanhood.” This True Woman, however, was a captive in the home, a presence taken for granted that would defend and secure the values and virtues of her precious household and family. “It was a fearful obligation,” Welter states, “a solemn responsibility, the nineteenth-century American woman had—to uphold the pillars of the temple with her frail white hand” (21). The attributes of True Womanhood include certain virtues that should be included in a woman’s overall qualities, and contribute to her magnificent record as a mother, daughter, sister, and wife. Welter refers to these virtues as “piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity [. . .] Without them, no matter whether there was fame, achievement or wealth, all was ashes. With them she was promised happiness and power” (21). Apart from being and feeling passive, weak, and timid, the woman had to relinquish any ambition concerning work and

46

recognition of talent. Even the slightest educational aspirations were not supposed to

threaten the female confinement within the domestic realm. The household sphere,

Dickenson reports, was the territory where “American women had shown themselves

worthy” (xiii). What is more, the woman had to devote herself to supporting her

husband’s genius and career goals. A wife should occupy herself only with domestic

affairs and not expect or strive for more than what is merely given to her. The True

Woman’s genius celebrated the submissive and selfless female, who discards

independence as a form of egotism.

The New Woman

If, however, this was all that most men would ever expect of a woman in order

to be delighted by her, then the four virtues mentioned above were seriously threatened when at some point the woman began to ask more of herself. The True

Woman began to acknowledge for herself the right to imagine, desire, need, demand, battle, oppose, achieve, conquer, obtain, and triumph. She realized that she could go outside the home, seeking other rewards than love. This, however, was a path that diverged from the secured happiness and power enclosed in the rooms of her home, as women’s magazines and related literature eagerly warned. But the ideal of the perfect woman as portrayed through these channels was, by now, long lost in the face of the new, nineteenth-century forces that motivated a woman herself to change, and prompted her to play a more active and creative role in society. Along with social reform, industrialism, economic activities and war, there was born the demand for a response on the part of the woman as a member of this world, a response different from the ones she was trained to believe were hers by nature and blessing. Welter

47

concludes her study by maintaining that this new situation was a threat inherent in the

system itself: “The very perfection of True Womanhood carried within itself the seeds

of its own destruction” (41). Thus, the True Woman evolved into the New Woman, a

transformation that dislocated the up-to-then sound values and demolished clichés.

Woman could no longer be convinced that she had it all—power and virtue—by

maintaining the traditional order of things, and by preserving the picture of her world

at large as beautiful and holy.

In fact, this world met with an upheaval when women started to wonder about and eventually tried to specify what gender was and what dynamics existed between the male and the female. When this dichotomy was examined, preexisting hierarchical inequalities were brought to light, a number of which are valid even today: to many,

the values and characteristics associated with men and the masculine are seen as

dominant and superior to those associated with women and the feminine. Therefore,

men are perceived as the authorized rulers of society while women are considered as

natural subordinates, traits that strongly suggest the two sexes’ conceded differences.

Acting according to designated roles, being masculine (thus superior) and feminine

(subordinate) becomes a social accomplishment that renders social credit. Stephen

Schacht and Doris Ewing, in Feminism and Men, identify a dominant assumption

regarding gender: “A great deal of our personal and social worth is based on how well

we live up to and perform our assigned gender in relation to audiences of gendered

others” (4). In the light of this notion, most young women were taught from an early

age that to succeed as women and realize their intentions, they had to be passive and

sweet, to adjust themselves to men’s tempers, to predict their needs, expand their

power, and elevate their importance. Although these conceptions are not as

entrenched today, they still exist, compelling women to attain the role of the helpless,

48

frail creature in order to escape male control, rather than act as competent adults.

Schacht and Ewing comment on the result this belief has had on the formation of the

female personality:

Becoming handmaidens in their own oppression, women learned to

take on the actions of the powerless: to control information, manipulate

behind the scenes, play on the master’s emotions, and make themselves

indispensable. [. . .] A deep fear of male power makes many women

accept a pretence of inferiority, a farce that in time turns to self-hatred

and anger. (5)

The women’s movement of the nineteenth century changed contemporary life

by redefining women’s sense of themselves, their relationships with others, and their

role in the state. For centuries, the prevailing perception was one that defined woman as a negligible presence, unless outlined and substantiated by a male figure.49 Women

who maintain socially acceptable relationships with men are fine and good women,

whereas those who disregard the norms are faulty and bad. The prototypically exemplary woman starts as a virtuous, obedient daughter and ends as a dutiful wife

and accommodating mother. The attempts to keep women restricted in their place— the home—were also exercised in the public space, from which they were denied

access. When women in the name of their domestic role made new claims to power

and influence, a different space was asserted that gave them authorization to control

certain areas. This asserted power gave birth to women as public speakers, painters,

poets, and actresses.50 Still, the role that was manifested in public access endangered

the acceptance of women as respectable and solid persons. The freedom, liberty and

self-government that was incorporated in the involvement with arts and community

was perceived as a breeding ground for the disgrace and immorality of women, who

49 were subsequently portrayed as “public” and indecent. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century did respectable women become customary theater-goers, were allowed and even urged to cultivate themselves through education and music, and could rightfully desire to advance their cultural interests, art or talent by going abroad and studying further.

This “New Woman’s” choice not necessarily51 to aspire to marriage and motherhood, but to pursue a career and have ambitions, was condemned and rejected by the conventional bourgeois standards of the time. A. Ardis cites arguments by an anonymous author of the 1889 England, which represent the prevailing judgments concerning the emancipation of the woman. Ardis states that the independent woman was blamed for all the world’s evils:

[. . .] for her transgressions against the sex, gender, and class

distinctions of Victorian England, she [the New Woman] was accused

of instigating the second fall of man [. . .] [This critic] naturalizes the

cultural status quo; he figures social change as a violation of a God-

given order. And he domesticates the problems associated with or

produced by Victorian England’s transitional industrial economy by

characterizing them as part and parcel of “The Woman Question.” (2)

The prospect of marriage, whether inevitable or desired, was challenged by the

New Woman, who replaces her chaste, immaculate predecessor, the one Ardis refers to as “the Victorian angel in the house” (3), with a heroine whose thinking was not controlled by the rules of absolute morality. The novelists of the New Woman willingly shatter the Victorian conceptualization of the female identity as something impeccable, pure, and enduring; the ideology of “womanliness” is now demystified and enriched with aspects of dynamism, energy, and purpose. This is a woman who

50

may even dare to become sexually active outside of marriage, for pleasure only,

defying the ethical principle according to which a Victorian lady denies her sexual

appetite—and any kind of passion or dream whatsoever. Although she recognizes

maternity as her calling, she resists the traditional bourgeois household, and is

prepared to work in order to support herself and her family. The New Woman, therefore, provokes not only the established sexual ideology, but also the long- existing ideology of domesticity, the stereotypic pattern of middle-class family and

household.

Not only did the ideology of the New Woman challenge sexually–repressed,

Victorian codes, but it inspired a whole domain in fiction as well; the fiction of the

New Woman, then, assumed a sexual candor and a sexual discourse that became soon viewed as a mark of literary dissolution. Nevertheless, these defiant attempts against the presumed gender definitions were soon ridiculed and silenced, with the New

Woman accusingly portrayed as unfeminine; to quote Sally Ledger, “[the New

Women] were often constructed in the periodical press as mannish, over-educated, humourless bores” (26).

Consequently, what the nineteenth-century women’s movement redefined was the meaning of autonomy, deprived of the pre-existing gender stereotypes. Griffiths

regards autonomy as a difficult achievement—for women—because it is a desirable

quality, attained by overcoming obstacles.

Autonomy is often thought to be a problem for women. It is asserted

that: they haven’t got it; they are frightened of it; they are insufficiently

separated from their mothers; they are too reliant on the opinion of

others; they are encumbered by their families; they are absorbed in

51

caring for their husbands; they are interested in private rather than

public matters; and so on and on. (135)

Independence and autonomy, albeit hard to achieve, present no contradiction

regarding the substance of this achievement. It is the freedom one has to be oneself, to liberally determine what is uttered or what is decided about life, the freedom to develop cultural and social ties, and to choose the appropriate course in order to

maintain such bonds. When these implications for the concept of autonomy are

applied to the lives of women of all times and places, or when the New Woman

resolves to achieve this condition, then the direction is towards creating a free self, freely living, and rightfully participating in decisions affecting that self.

Feminism in Greece

Accordingly, mid-war feminism52 in Greece indicates a progressive mentality

and a conscious realization that it takes a collective fight to achieve its goals. Through

unions and printed texts, feminists urged women to look beyond the boundaries of

individuality, and thus acquire social awareness. This was not an easy fight in the

Greek society of the 1920s and 1930s, which had to deal with the threat of war,

political instability, and economic crisis. This was the Greek reality to which the mid-

war feminists responded; their claims expressed a new social aspect of the time, the

awarding of social and political rights to women. Aiming at the acquisition of new

terms in their financial status and in their rank as civilians (Efi Avdela and Angelica

Psara refer to them as “citizens of a second degree”), Greek women recognized the social needs and responded to this realization with the expansion of the feminist

movement.

52

From the mid 19th century a perceivable shift is observed in objective

viewpoints and the behavior of middle class women, an increased tendency to view

themselves as “subjects” that have their own ideas about the position they deserve in

the Greek society. The formation of the consciousness of gender in Greece in the 19th century has to do with a procedure that begins from the first decades of Independence and is grounded in the last quarter of the century.

The clearly feminist struggle strives for all the reforms that are necessary for women to become equal to men in society and for their position and their child’s position to improve. However, this effort often merges with the tradition of the woman that calls herself emancipated, although her emancipation rests solely on the fact that she escaped the pattern of the Greek housewife of the past.

The place of woman presents a gradual improvement from the beginning of the 19th century both on a familial and societal level, while education becomes what

girls ask for. With the establishment of the first girls’ school, the general education of

the lady of the house and the professional education of the teacher are set as a goal.

Women’s participation in the education of their country proves to be great and ends

up in the hands of Calliroe Parren (1861-1940) who fights for the political rights of

women as well as for the idea of equality of the genders with “conservativeness of

principles”, “health of emotions” and “ a balanced mean of ideas.” (Lianopoulou, 20-

21).

Women perceive and take part in the problems of their time, they participate

in political and public life too and they achieve this greatly through literature.

Women’s prose works increase and are often awarded. At the same time, the

professionalization of women in the beginning of the 20th century as well as the

expansion of “educated” Greek women in male-dominated areas is enhanced. The

53 acute social problem of female inequality is the main reason that forces the state to allow women access to “male” professions also. Women gain their financial independence, they build their confidence, they participate in public happenings, they overcome their cowardice and shyness towards men; women’s occupation with literature is therefore considered a step of progress for the feminists of the mid-war period.

In the third quarter of the 19th century, Greeks living abroad return and settle in their home country and therefore the financial situation of the “newcomers” as well as the capital placements create the conditions for the first stage of an urban structure that will organize the leading class. Therefore, the socioeconomic life tends towards a broader boost and a European air encloses the country’s capital. While in Europe the struggle for women’s emancipation takes on different forms, the bourgeoisie creates for women the ideal icons and the ideal life that encourages (or, better, dictates) tolerance and conservatism (Hatzis, 24).

The violent and unscheduled inland immigration and the uncontrollable flaring up of the urban centers not only created social changes but also cultural ones.

Xenopoulos was also aided by the turbulent political situation of the first half of the twentieth century in Greece: the consequent dictatorships, national defeats and catastrophes generated phenomena of “escape” in the field of Greek literature. The popular romantic novel was by nature ready to serve such a situation. Between 1840-

1907 the population of the capital was multiplied, as all of the country’s financial business was concentrated there. Works of infrastructure were established, production and foreign trade increased significantly while, at the same time, industry and commercial marine developed. The bourgeoisie is now presented as an economic self-

54

powered force and begins to play a significant role in the history of the place.

(Fragoglou, “To Laiko Esthimatiko Mithistorima …,” 11)

The Athenian society, Karandonis comments, fifty years now stagnant,

unformed, and almost provincially idyllic would not be able to provide material for prose proportional to the European one. However, it was definitely a society with its constitutions, its psychology, its mentality, with its romanticism and its realism and above all the tendency of its vital elements to break the boundaries of its stagnancy

and to advance more independently towards life and action. And even though it was

kept pent within its limits and set to its immobility by a provincialism of ethics and a

mental inertness, it had formed a lifestyle that was urban and in line with Europe , and

Athens was its most genuine and typical expression. This society and this urban

lifestyle, the capital one, was reproduced by Xenopoulos through his art; he was the

first to create the objective and social novel and in the long-lasting period of its

incredibly fertile production, he managed to compose the life of the socially organized

pre-war Greece that remained unchanged in many of its characteristics until the war

and much more during the war. (189-190).

The Greek prose of the 19th century lacked a specified reading audience and a recognized artistic position in the social system of the time; in essence there was no literary genre “purely” and deservedly novelistic, valued with proportional and notable standards, as was the case in the mid 19th century France of Honorè de Balzac

and in the England of Charles Dickens. While, therefore, the revolutionary adoption

of the popular language mainly with the work of Psycharis To Taxidi mou (1888) and

the poetry collection of Kostis Palamas “The Songs of My Country” (1886) start to

alter the climate of decomposition and stagnancy, the need for a prose tradition starts

being formed, which would not turn down the profits of the past while it would

55

incorporate Greek intellectual creation in the broader cultural map of the European

common nationality.

Men’s criticism regarding female prose, although at many points praising,

considers it, however, inferior to that of men. Life in the city- Athens- is the subject of

the novelists’ interest in the end of the 19th century; Athens is the most significant

Greek city, since it is the capital, and it has been reconnected to its glorious past while

it hosts the first Olympic games of modern times. The population of the city surpasses

the number of one hundred thousand since both the habitants of the province with an

intense desire to be educated and ascend socially as well as the bourgeois of the

community with the hope of financial expansion stream into its terrain. The social and

cultural differentiation of the two categories of immigrants attributes to Athens a dual

character, that of the cosmopolitan but dirty and indecorous city. The social

inconsistency that is combined by the urban center with the semi-rural precinct of the city nourishes satirical or melodramatic descriptions of Athens in the daily press, while at the same time the distinct contrasts of the urban society become a target of criticism for modern prose.

We shouldn’t overlook the fact that the reading audience of scholarly literature began to shrink from the end of the last century and turned to the widely circulated popular novels, where a cheap romantic escape from the already decadent romantic

Athenian society to Athens of the “Belle Époque” was attempted. This era was based on the one hand on ethics, values and the hierarchy of an old mentality and on the other hand it presented the elements of the social urban structure. It is this secular society and the time of a general destruction of the old world that transforms the character of literature and gives it an urban populism.

56

A more precise explanation of the feminist movement in the period we are

concerned with, is offered by Avra Theodoropoulou in 1927: “feminism is the world

movement so that equal rights with men’s in the state, legislation, employment and in society can be given to women. (Avdela and Psara, 17). For the feminist women of the mid-war, feminism is first of all women’s upheaval as well as their refusal to accept their subordinate social position.

In contrast to the previous period, mid-war feminism supports the new possibilities for equal social accession, which are offered to women through salaried

employment. Women’s need to work will make them pursue a better and broader

education, an important means for the intellectual and moral uplift of their gender. So

it is believed that they will earn men’s trust, which is considered necessary for the

positive outcome of women’s demands.

However, salaried employment, although a prerequisite, is not an adequate

condition for the development of the feminist movement. Other women endure

everything passively, their only concern being how they are going to maintain their meager income, and they easily become an object of multiple exploitation. So do

many women who keep to their housework and the upbringing of their children, often

uneducated and uninformed, as they confront the feminist promises with disbelief and

prefer the security of their slavery.

The feminist struggle in the mid-war years sets two goals: a) the claim for the

vote b) the change of the legal framework in employment, family, motherhood, education and prostitution. The understanding of the fact that women’s collective struggle is necessary to achieve the aims of feminism distinguishes the mid-war period from the previous one (1887-1920). Through the unions and their practices feminists try to make other women escape individualism, and have a broader

57

worldview, to acquire a primarily social consciousness. In the Greek society of the

turbulent decades of 1920s and 1930s, this struggle is not easy. It has to deal with the

successive political ups and downs, the intermittent presence of political democracy,

the economic crisis, and the fear of war.

It has to be noted that feminism in the mid-war period was not outlandish or

something foreign in the Greek society; the feminist women of the mid-war period are a result of a specific Greek reality. With their demands they express a new social claim of their time: the allowance of political and social rights to women. This claim was formed as a consequence of a historical development: during that period, Greek women participated in economic life with new conditions, they developed activities in all fields, while they remained second class citizens without any possibility of politically influencing their position. Feminism of the mid-war period responds to this social need.

In 1920 the Association for Women’s Rights is established; it bears the character of the movement of the time, and in 1921 the women’s conference is held by the “Likio ton Ellinidon,” symbolizing the transition from one period to another.

The feminist movement of the mid-war period found it difficult to achieve its goals.

The age-long struggles for equality of the women of the time were not vindicated. The

feminists of the time not only failed to impose legislative reforms that would ensure

them a fair and equal place in society, but did not manage to convince more women

about the singularity of their social position and motivate them towards a struggle for

the attainment of their rights.

In the 19th century the only recourse for educated girls that wanted or had to

work was the teaching profession. It is not accidental, therefore, that women who

58

fought for the uplifting of their gender were usually teachers and presented education

as the most urgent demand.

Calliroe Parren, the most radical of the women who struggled for their

gender’s elevation, tried to spread a feminism that considered emancipation

depending not only on the consolidation of the right to education, but also on

employment. The first Greek women scholars pursued the spread of the new models

especially regarding women’s behavior, through the translation of European works. A

big part of society completely ignored these problems. They had heard of feminism

from the humoristic news reports of the everyday press that mentioned the capricious

and weird appearances of English suffragettes whose look was justified somewhat by

the terrible intensity that the Greek struggle had there. So, feminist women were

supposedly presented as decent amazons that turn Modern Greek imagination into a

fancy mermaid. However, this show was often merged with another, although of a

completely different type, with the tradition of the woman that called herself

emancipated, even though her emancipation rested solely on the fact that she had

escaped the type of the old Greek housewife and tried to impose a look that balanced between the eastern harem ladies and the Parisian “demi-mondaine.” (Avdela and

Psara, 168).

By providing financial independence, employment also provides the basis from which one can break the shackle of social slavery and obtain human rights. The ruling class in Greece wants woman a slave or part of a harem. It does not tolerate an independent human being; for example, women cannot become chairpersons in the

State Court. They are not allowed to have a career in superior public posts. They cannot be superior bank employees. They cannot become judges or enter the diplomatic field. Since the ruling social class in Greece did not manage to adapt to the

59

needs of modern times, it did not have the ability to see that in the civilized world

exactly the same social classes radically unbar careers for the unrestrained female

activity under the pressure of need. For the Greek state, women are neither an

economic nor a social entity. Their job is not taken into consideration, neither is their productive value because it always appears connected to the job of their husband,

their brother or father. Just this fact explains the indifference of the Greek state

towards them. For as long as they live, they are of no interest to the state; they are

only calculated in numbers when they die, maybe because each time they vacate a

space. Their family conceded it when they entered the world, lamenting the accident.

Society closes its doors tightly to those who dare respond as self-existent beings. They

do not tolerate the woman who works, when her work renders her an autonomous

economic factor. Women who gained the means to support themselves even if these

were incomplete, now demand to be called human – a human being first of all, and

then all the rest. (Avdela and Psara, 261-3). Women, thus, began to feel the pressure

of exploitation, to see their needs increasing while their means of satisfaction

decreasd or remained the same.

With the foundation of the Women’s Rights Association in 1920, the women’s

movement entered a new phase that lasted until 1936. The request for equality before

the law, which a few years earlier Parren described as premature, was a priority for

Avra Theodoropoulou, Maria Svolou, Athina Gaitanou-Giannou, Agni Roussopoulou and all the other women who played a leading part in the women’s movement during the mid-war period. They sought equal political, civil and economic rights for women and men. In contrast to the previous period, the role of the mother, wife and lady of the house is not the sole object of questioning or point of reference all by itself any more. The feminist movement focuses its attention mainly on the denouncement of

60 the institution that ensures men’s domination over family and the processing of reformatory proposals.

Xenopoulos seems to identify with Parren’s views, when he speaks of her in the preface of his Apanta, where he mentions that

she seeks women’s emancipation but in a moderate, logical,

conservative way. She repulses all those unreasonable exaggerations,

which at least for the present will only draw ironic smiles. She never

recommended change of apparel, nor the abolition of family, nor free

love, nor complete political equality, she desires a woman-queen of her

household, a real companion of man, as free as possible, developed as

much as man, possessing the qualities necessary to live without

external help. (20-21)

Henry James and Female Characters

Henry James, on the other hand, is one of the authors that has given birth to some memorable women figures,53 known for their strength of character, daring deeds and richly complicated inner world. He turns most often to the supposedly weaker sex, which exists within its limited responsibility illustrated in the narrow context of the Victorian period. A post-Romantic, a Victorian, and simultaneously a modern

American, James was concerned with the individual’s fulfillment and frustration that derived from the contrast between thought and action, between life’s potentials of creativity and its demands for compromise, in other words concerned with the contrasts manifested in social tragedies. Kenneth Graham indicates the universal desire and need for a complete life with quality and meaning, a state that includes a

61 human consciousness that accepts the conflicts within the self, and between the self and the world. For this reason, Graham records a tantalizing power and reality at the center of James’s work, where heightened images, scenes, and situations are given through a “lyric, heroic, and elegiac feeling” (xi). This is why most Jamesian characters

[. . .] take up their individual lives as a specific challenge thrown down

by some larger “life.” And this greater reality is not left as some

merely nebulous grand harmony, but is a force and a desire that is

expressed through particular things: a woman, an artist, a landscape, a

beautiful house, a pile of letters, a social situation, and above all, and

again and again, a personal relationship. (xi-xii)

James as a male novelist has portrayed figures of women that could be interpreted as his own desire for freedom from stereotypes, for the acquisition of another self. Many of his novels center on women, and he has explained this choice of theme by stating that women’s lives and feelings were the locale of a different but equally important mode of being than men were unaccustomed to recognizing. This drama of feeling derived from the choice a woman was usually called to make was, to him, of greater importance and value than the standardized modes of male heroism that included physical action and public history. Robert B. Pippin places the dilemmas of James’s characters within the boundaries of moral categories—whether they are ideological and reflect the requirements and interests of social position and power, or psychological, thus reflecting the needs, desires and anxieties of individual consciousness. He believes that James “has something to show us about the nature of the moral claim itself, the subjects who cannot but make use of it, the social and historical world within which it fits, and its unique indispensability in an

62

unprecedented historical transition” (4). James’s moral concern was directed to the

responsibility of each person to preserve spiritual or psychological moral health, thus

maintaining human integrity among people.

Idealism is not what dominates this view ideologically; James was keenly

aware that traditions, conventions and manners were necessary for an organized

functioning of civilized society and that for civilized human interaction and

communication to take place, it was essential to honor certain obligations and rules.

These institutionalized demands, however, were not to overwhelm the individual’s

independence and personality; the aim was for a person to reform these conventional manners to his/her own needs, in order to use these manners while still expressing the individual. To refuse to compromise, however, is as destructive as to completely surrender to compromise and for that reason all of James’s fiction outlines the factors that render this compromise possible.

James’s personality, upbringing, and the absence of pressure to pursue a traditional “men’s” career,54 permitted him to become an artist,55 thus acquiring close

access to women, and expressing his perception that they are trapped by dictated

roles, by the trivialities of the social scheme. He perceived that, regardless of a

woman’s social class, she remained a person dependent upon male support, unable to

achieve self-sufficiency, and trapped in her own sentimental expectations. Bell

comments on the circumscribed nature of their fates: “Women were confined by a

plot they had not written, the plot of novels which began with the need of a girl to find

herself by finding the right man and ending with her successful arrival at the altar”

(3). Hence, a struggle often presented in James is that of the individual against the demands of a society that functions as fate, crushing a person’s uniqueness, and forcing conformity to its rules and standards. Occasionally this struggle occurs among

63

individuals, and it often concerns interpretations of social forms, such as marriage.

This institution is often understood as a conventional plot by certain Jamesian

heroines, a plot inadequate to freeing them to reach self-realization. Suspicious of

stereotypes, James appears to be a “sympathetic painter of female portraits” (3), as

Bell remarks, and these portraits may acquire multiple and different readings, as given from James’s conventional male viewpoint, or his personally articulated feminism.

Nevertheless, in these narratives by James, which masterfully deliver and

represent women’s characters and lives, it becomes easy to spot an underlying, patronizing attitude towards his female protagonists.56 The women’s need for men

renders them unable to be free to realize and become themselves and James’s plots

often reveal a contempt towards feminist movements. A basic fact is that up until his late middle age, James expressed scorn and disrespect for women’s suffrage and their entry into the professional field; his treatment of his female characters, then, casts

doubt upon his authority in writing about them. Besides, it is essential to take under consideration that at the time when James reached his novelistic maturity and found his true vocation as that of an author, there was an abundance of theory and controversy about women.57 In Henry James and the “Woman Business,” Habegger

maintains that this controversy displays a quality of betrayal in James’s fiction, since

a struggle against patriarchy is represented in his work, but from within. The heroine

appears submissive and defiant at the same time, her dreams divided between

surrendering to bondage and fighting for independence (26). In the same study,

Habegger holds James to be unjust and prejudiced towards these girls’ “free spirit,”

especially when the ultimately liberal American girl is portrayed as unable to bear and

handle her freedom, or as if she disobeys her own will and allows herself to be

consciously defeated.

64

Where woman’s fiction was contradictory, James’s fiction resolves—

but in the wrong way. Why does Verena Tarrant allow Basil Ransom58

to wrest her away from the speech she has her heart set on delivering?

Why does Caspar Goodwood’s59 forceful kiss finally show Isabel that

she must return to a tyrannical husband and a failed marriage? [. . .]

one is face to face with the elusive male authoritarianism of James’s

narratives. With few exceptions60 James’s heroines would either

connive at their own defeat, or their creator would weaken their powers

of resistance at the critical moment [. . .] Behind James’s narratives

there is found the ancient theory that women are weaker than men.

Daisy, Isabel, and Verena, like Joyce’s Gerty, have been lamed in

secret by their author. (26)

Gregorios Xenopoulos and Female Characters

Even though in Greece all efforts concerning the “romantic novel” have their roots way before the revolution of 1821, the conditions that will allow the integration, development and vast propagation of this genre emerge much later. Maybe “Golfo” and “O Agapitikos tis Voskopoulas” are preferred by the Greek rural public, but the

Revolution in Goudi in 1909, the Balkan wars, the rise of urban centers and the consolidation of the bourgeoisie will be necessary for the appearance of Gregorios

Xenopoulos along with a local, contemporary, urban, romantic novel. The mid-war period is the “golden age” of romantic paralittérature.

The industrialization and the rise of small industries, advertising and the spread of luxury articles, which in the lower classes mainly address women’s beauty

65

care, the spread of the cinema and the patronizing of foreign models, will be acquired for the differentiation of the romantic novel. The qualitative difference is obvious.

The ruling class in its cultural attack attempts to modulate ideas and tastes that will serve its economic and political ambitions, and for women, and for romance as well, marriage is no longer an adequate guarantee for social ascent.

Besides, in all the heroines of his books, Xenopoulos has reflected with artistic mastery and delicacy the psychology of the Modern Greek woman, her place in

society and the pressures she endured, but he also envisioned a new type of woman who was liberated from the strains of the past and who could equally participate in social life. In Xenopoulos’ work we encounter a contrast that resides in the social descent of women figures: in the highest class of society we find the westernized woman, the ideal beauty, contrasted to subjugated and immoral women who are described based on models of coarseness and ugliness. Xenopoulos, in most of his work, avoids expressing an opinion and merely keeps the role of a painter of his time for himself, a time when he believed that honor is a valuable attribute and a girl only loses it once since most people considered a girl doomed if her purity vanished.

The public appearance of the Greek woman is a very important fact for

Xenopoulos and he concludes “just a short while longer and this Greek woman,

isolated like in the past in the loft, will be one of the finest, the most intelligent

women of Europe” (“Ginekes pou Omiloun,” Hellas). The social classes

differentiated in terms of their social residential environment, while at the same time they created a new way of life and behavior. The feasts, the flirting, the merits of marriage, the clothes were recorded in the first Athenian novels. The distinction of classes, that is now discernible in the capital, forms a similar particular vision. The

bourgeoisie stresses its dominating position from the scope of a different class, while

66

Xenopoulos traces the new characteristics of the capital’s bourgeois and middle-class citizens.

Focusing then on the stance that Gregorios Xenopoulos has regarding his heroines, we observe a direct development of plot, a natural and complete growth of his characters, where each one represents a particular unity, an identity with specific

gifts and power, set within literary boundaries. A more intense consideration of his

imposing female figures reveals the delicate way with which Xenopoulos depicts the

psychology of his contemporary Greek woman. In a number of his novels and stories

he acknowledges her inferior position and the pressures her life is under, and

somehow he envisions a new type of woman, even before this type acquires the title

and attributes of the “New Woman”. Xenopoulos portrays dynamic and liberal

women characters that wish to renounce the past restrictions and be active members

of the Greek social life; however, this initial intention is not displayed throughout his

novels’ endings: although the heroines initiate their presence with force,

broadmindedness, and sovereignty, it is the author himself that finally robs them off

this strength.

Therefore, the same women that set off independently and ambitiously to

pursue their goals, the same women that appear to be strong behind their frailty,

return, suppressed, to the known and approved paths of domesticity, conventionality,

and societal stereotyping. Xenopoulos’s realism does not touch, nor does it cast doubt

upon the established norms and situations; in his wish to preserve the element of

respectability in his storylines, Xenopoulos does not profoundly deal with the decent

icon of the “Greek Family,” an icon praised by the urban morality of the “Athenian

bourgeoisie.” Parents are always morally impeccable, and the female qualifications

required are passiveness, submission, obedience to the traditional ethics, and lack of

67

opinion. Only in some novels of the 1930s is the issue of female adultery or divorce

presented, and even then, this is illustrated with quite unpleasant consequences for the

woman (Iστορία Mιάς Xωρισµένης [The Story of a Divorcée], ∆ίληµµα [Dilemma],

Αφού ‘Eριξε τα Tείχη [After the Collapse of the Walls])

Within the political and social upheaval of nineteenth-century Greek society,

the reading public sought a way out of the disappointing present, and was willing to

overlook contemporary reality; thus, the literary production of the day presented a

tendency towards the heroic, the legendary, and the ideal, in an effort to culturally

train the female public, while preparing them for a private, domestic role. In this

framework Xenopoulos presents women that prove to be brave in claiming their love

and in valuing beauty and romance, and this remains a fiction suitable for the female

reading audience: the conservative structure is apprehended as moral, modest, and

romantic, especially since the heroines stand as role-models for the majority of the

women readers.

The important role that the woman plays in the work of Xenopoulos is

revealed through the ample use of female names in the titles of his novels and plays.61

These women are portrayed as weak creatures who have surrendered to the patriarchal authority of their fathers and husbands, silent victims to others’ intentions, ready to sacrifice themselves to prove their high morality when needed, deeply faithful to their emotions and promises. However, some of the names in his titles belong to women that are not weak or feeble, but who react to the power imposed on them, and stand firm in their quest for autonomy and independence: these are the ones, however, that are castigated in the end, restricted by the very conventionality they have fought against.

68

Conclusion

In the light of an interpretation that considers the ideological frame of the authors, this dissertation questions the liberal intentions of the two authors in the novels surveyed. Well-known as writers that have given life to noteworthy women characters, Henry James and Gregorios Xenopoulos portray heroines that possess a spirit of independence, dynamism, talent, and ambition, qualities that the authors allow their heroines to acquire; but when this autonomy reaches a point where it claims its rights, when the desire for self-rule asserts itself, these women are halted by their same creators: the plot reverts into preventing the heroines from actually pursuing their goals, and they are consequently silenced through marriage, through dependence on men, through control by men, and through following their duties instead of their dreams. Thus the heroines conform to the particular social contexts, realizing their inability to struggle against the general current, and hence accepting their confinement within the boundaries of marriage and family—a role often fulfilling, yet usually demanding, and always binding.

In this context then, it remains doubtful whether these authors outline their heroines from a feminist perspective by stating the determination and self-sufficiency entailed in the female identity, or whether they imply an anti-feminist spirit by expressing the impossibility of an equality scheme, and stressing, ultimately, that women are weaker than men. In fact, on a second reading of the novels, the suspicion of an anti-feminist spirit of their creators is consolidated, since behind the presentation of feminist-oriented heroines, an ending is presented in which these women are rendered silenced and castrated, especially under the pretext that such realistic texts as these should always present people and situations as they really are.

69

Thus, readers are forced to consider a given perception of the circumstances and

conditions that supposedly exhibit reality, a perception that, nonetheless, obscures the

conservative side of the authors, a side more traditional and conventional than the one they wish to disclose. Gubar observes a tradition of “pen-penis” relation between the male authors and their female (“virgin page”) heroines, a tradition that perceives the male as primary and the female as “his passive creation—a secondary object lacking autonomy, endowed with often contradictory meaning but denied intentionality.”

(295). Therefore, my dissertation will discuss the ideal of the perfect—True—

Woman, a pattern according to which society aimed at preparing women for marriage, and the way James and Xenopoulos reinforce this image of the virtuous, domestic, selfless, and giving female, as the ultimate recipe for a successful, married life.

The novels by Gregorios Xenopoulos presented in this study are not his best work stylistically, nor are they his most widely recognized creations; in fact, these particular novels have received negative criticism regarding a certain incompatibility between Xenopoulos’s professed ideas and their applicability to his fiction, which result in vague inconsistencies. On the other hand, the works by James are some of his most discussed and praised, yet this disparity does not function as an obstacle in the aim of my thesis: First, I pinpoint the ideology of the time in America and in Greece, as well as the stereotypes of the societies that overwhelm the female personalities in the novels. Second, I discuss the portrayal of the heroines from a feminist viewpoint that highlights their patriarchal attachment. Third, I claim that the two authors conclude their novels by deliberately annihilating the dynamic and autonomous elements of the female characters, thus confirming their conservative and conventional persona. This goal of mine, however, is achieved mainly when I base my arguments not on the differences in the authors’ style, origin, or character, but on a

70 thematic analysis of the six novels; this stated, I discuss the novels through the spectrum of plot and theme, centering on their subject matter, and focusing on the recurrent images and unifying ideas that confirm the authors’ stand concerning their heroines.

I therefore support the claim that James and Xenopoulos stand in accordance with the formulas and patterns of their times in illustrating notably independent and free-spirited female characters, but more as glorified outcasts than as autonomous women. Their treatment of their heroines underlies an ultra-conservative position, embracing after all the patriarchal and male-oriented mentality. In this process, however, I have not favored one critical perspective over another or privileged the role played by literary culture in the historical formation of gender and sexual identities. My project may consider differing critical angles, because of the amplitude on the definitions of realism, realistic writing, feminist stance and/or patriarchal frame of reference. However, my own approach is presented here, as well as the critical perspective that I consider most appropriate for the study and discussion of the authors and the novels I have decided to tackle. Moreover, since realism is stated to be the obligation of the artist to represent life as he sees it, which means not as life really is, I interpret the viewpoint of these authors as it becomes filtered through their mental vision, in compliance with the belief that in these novels one can detect the way James and Xenopoulos convey their inner world as an image of the outer one, or, as is recounted by Robert E. Spiller, “making the conscious self of the artist the final measure of experience” (129). And, finally, I concentrate on plot analysis for reasons that are in accordance with Nina Baym’s theory: because the story itself is the first step in the acquaintance with a specific type of fiction, and because “individual

71 authors are distinguishable from one another largely by the plot elements they select from the common repertory and by the varieties of setting [in] the basic tale” (12).

72

Notes

1 Michael Davitt Bell notes that in the 1880s, when Howells declared his

“Realism War,” the development in the literary history of American fiction after the

Civil War was perceived as the rise of Realism or, in the post-Howells generation, of

Naturalism (1).

2 James was the only writer who manifested such a definition with thoroughness, and he was thus often at odds with, for instance, his friend Howells, the assumed leader of the war for Realism.

3 Realism, according to Lathrop, extracts from the most ordinary and uninteresting of events their full value and true meaning. It calls upon imagination to present a side of human nature conceived within the true relations of things. It reveals the spirit, changes, moral decay or regeneration, the passionate or intellectual problems of the personality, with a simple, pictorial that is devoid of technical description. Literalism, on the other hand, presents an excessive regard for the appearances of realness in and for itself, trying with tiresome vigor to imitate, thus making the writer a copyist, an imitator—merely a reporter of life (28).

4 Naturalism originated in France and Zola initially used the term; Flaubert also employed it with slight differentiations in the prism of study. Representatives of the naturalistic movement in the American literary tradition include Dreiser, Norris,

Lawrence, Frederic, and Crane.

5 The American critic Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) offers what could be perceived as a representational point of view about what constitutes a really good novel, a viewpoint that supports the elements of ethos, morality and optimism that one observes in the realistic novel. He concedes that:

73

[. . .] the main object of the novel is to entertain, and the best

entertainment is that which lifts the imagination and quickens the

spirit; to lighten the burdens of life by taking us for a time out of our

humdrum and perhaps sordid conditions, so that we can see familiar

life somewhat idealized, and probably see it all the more truly from an

artistic point of view ... that novel is the best which shows us the best

possibilities of our lives—the novel which gives hope and cheer

instead of discouragement and gloom. Familiarity with vice and

sordidness in fiction is a low entertainment, and of doubtful moral

value, and their introduction is unbearable if it is not done with the

idealizing touch of the artist (39).

6 Lee Mitchell’s work Determined Fictions is cited in this chapter.

7 A personal note is required here in order to stress that from this point

onwards, the translation of the majority of Greek terms, Greek names, Greek titles of

novels and critics’ works, and Greek quotations from the above texts are my

translations; this is also the case with the titles of two of the three novels by

Xenopoulos that will be discussed in the proceeding chapters, the exception being The

Three-sided Woman, translated by Vlassis Publications.

8 The nationalistic movement for a common language, (dimoticismos), through

the work of Yiannis Psicharis My Journey (1888) and Kostis Palamas’ collection of poems, The Songs of my Country (1886), put an end to the atmosphere of decay and insularity that threatened the development of literature in Greece.

9 Representatives of Romanticism include Byron, Foscolo, Stendhal, Solomos,

and Calvos.

74

10 Tellos Agras holds that realism is a reaction to an atmosphere that is suffocating because of intense sentimentality and idealism, and he declares realism’s fundamental beliefs:

Fantasies are no longer needed [. . .] I wish for reality to be uncovered,

just the way I see it [. . .] I will not describe people as they should be. I

will create them as they are [. . .] I do not see virtue around me, I do

not see the victory of good over evil, of progress over filthiness, and I

will not generate moral virtues out of my books [. . .] I will grasp [. . .]

the dark sides of human character and will describe them as well”

(172).

11 See also, Gyorgy Lukacs, Studies in European Realism, and Gina Politi,

Criticism Notes.

12Milioni declares Naturalism an era of intellectual liberation, and outlines it

as the natural development of realism; she chronologically categorizes the realistic

period from 1848 to 1867, the naturalistic from 1867 to 1887, and states that from

1887 onwards naturalism began to decline.

13 It is believed that the human mind and the evolution of society are explained and comprehended solely through concrete reason and practical truths. Hence,

Darwin’s theory can be supported, as well as Zola’s influence with his theory on heredity.

14 Zola’s naturalism was an important source of inspiration, especially after his

novel Nana, which was translated into Greek and published in Athens in 1880,

provoked an upheaval in the insulated world of the Athenian middle-class reading

public.

75

15 Beaton defines ithografia as “a form of realism devoted, with much

precision of external details, to the life of peasants in the Greek countryside, described

either with sentimentality or with a strong emphasis on its brutal and unpleasant

aspects.” (105).

16 See also Vitti’s Ideological Function of Greek Ithografia, for the role of the

description and the dialogue in ithografia, pp174-177.

17 Vitti describes some comments by Eleni Politou-Marmarinou regarding

Xenopoulos’s categorization: his fiction, Marmarinou claims, displays qualities of a

social and psychological writing, yet it also belongs to ithografia, infused with the

field of the urban novel. (179).

18 Baloumis reports that ithografia, as a fictional term, appeared in Modern

Greek literature represented by a number of authors known as “the generation of the

eighties” (11). See also: G. Valetas’s The Generation of the ‘80s. Modern Greek

Naturalism and the Early Stages of Ithografia.

19 See also, in the same text, 396-398.

20 Mastrodemetres also remarks on the influence of Zola and Balzac, whose

work provides examples of the French urban novel, on the style and language of

Xenopoulos, as well as the influence he received from Russian realists and

psychographers Dostoevski and Tolstoy (90).

21 See also: Emmanouel Kriaras, “Gregorios Xenopoulos as Illuminator,” A

Selection from his Work, 107-118.

22 Gotsi notes that “the years between the establishment of Charilaos

Trikoupes’s government and the Balkan Wars testify to the formation of a Greek

urban society which incorporated all the conflicting elements of the passage from a pre-modern world to the first manifestations of—in a broad sense—a modern one (9).

76

23 For further discussion on the Greek popular novel and this genre’s keynote

spokespersons, see: Yiorgos Veloudis, “The Contemporary Popular Novel” 40-46,

and “Views on the Contemporary Popular Sentimental Novel”, 14-16. Also see:

Dimitris Hanos, “The Sentimental Popular Novel Through the Magazine Press”, 17-

23, and Yiannis Hatzis, “ Detecting the Marks of the Local Sentimental Novel”, 24-

29.

24 Almost all of Xenopoulos’s novels were published in the popular magazines of his time, addressed to a mass reading audience. Prior and also contemporary to the publication of these novels by Xenopoulos, Greek readers were introduced to literary productions from abroad. Among the most celebrated works of popular fiction were:

Camille: The Lady of the Camellias (1892) by Alexandre Dumas; The Two Orphans

(1917) by Adolph D’Ennery; The Story of my Life (1910) by Giacomo Casanova;

Manon Lescaut (1893) by Abbé Prevost, as well as the works of the Brondé sisters,

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brondé, and Withering Heights by Emily Brondé.

25 Farinou in “The Prologs of Gregorios Xenopoulos” clarifies the distinctive

difference between the authentically literary author and the author of popular

literature; in the first sense, the writer is inspired by a personal experience or need, and proclaims it through his art, having no ulterior motive in this process. The writer

of popular literature, however, is motivated by themes that signify a collective

experience and a mutual apprehension of issues such as beauty, desire, prejudice, and morality, and hence these themes can be easily reproduced within and comprehended by the reading public. (113). For further amplification on what is—and what is not—

(scholarly) literary, see also Farinou’s remarks in Gregorios Xenopoulos: A Selection of Criticism Texts, especially pages 36-37.

77

26 An important critical text in which Xenopoulos states his theory and ideas

about art— its objectives and function—is his essay entitled “The Amusing Art.”

27 A comprehensive commentary on the prologs of Xenopoulos’s novels is

given by P. D. Mastrodimitris in Prologs to Greek Novels, 16-19 and 21-23, while

Farinou also offers an illuminating account in “The Prologs of Gregorios

Xenopoulos”.

28 In “Gregorios Xenopoulos,” Periplous, 30-31 (1991): 112-118, Petros Haris mentions several other authors who served the urban novel from its beginnings:

Psycharis, Theotokis, Hatzopoulos, Christomanos, Praoritis. Yet, he stresses that

Xenopoulos exemplified the author of the urban novel, and contributed to this genre

until its final stages.

29 In October 1894 Xenopoulos introduced Ibsen to Greek audiences and

critics of theater; their reaction was enthusiastic.

30 For the influence of Zola’s work on Xenopoulos and for Nana’s reception

by the Greek critics and audiences, see also: Georgios Valetas, The Generation of the

Eighties: Modern Greek Naturalism and the Beginnings of Ithografia, and G. Farinou,

“Xenopoulos as Theorist and Critic,” Gregorios Xenopoulos: A Selection of Criticism

Texts, 9-79.

31 In the journal Ιόνιος Ανθολογία there are numerous articles containing

information about the conditions of the Greek society at the time Xenopoulos created his urban novels (48-53).

32 The accurate representation of life’s predicaments that characterizes

Xenopoulos’s style is in accordance with the conventions of Naturalism. The author

states in his autobiography that his inspiration is the outcome of a personal response

and understanding of the naturalistic theories: “When I first started writing, naturalism

78

was dominant, and its theories convinced me that an author has the right to present whatever is happening in life.” (My Life as a Novel: Autobiography, 35).

33 Representative authors and works of critics who studied Modern Greek

Literature are the following: Ilias Voutieridis, Short History of Modern Greek

Literature (1000-1930); Linos Politis, History of Modern Greek Literature, Fifth

Edition; Spiros Melas, Modern Greek Literature; and P. D. Mastrodimitris,

Introduction to Modern Greek Philology.

34 This is part of the reception speech Nirvanas gave in welcoming

Xenopoulos to the Academy of Athens, on January 30, 1932. (Cited by Haris, Petros.

Greek Novelists, vol. 1, 129.)

35 As I have mentioned earlier, from 1880 until the beginning of the 20th century, the major figures in the American literature of realism are William Dean

Howells, Mark Twain, and Henry James; for naturalism, Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, and Theodore Dreiser are representative.

36 Along with a number of other authors (George Eliot, Emile Zola, Thomas

Mann), James fuses history and fiction, making readers keenly aware of the historical

context the novel is set in, through the protagonists’ experience. This is the case with

The Bostonians. The Civil War is the historical event that marks the novel, yet the

year is left open as “187-”, contrary to the practices of realist fiction. The

psychological and economic traumas that the main characters suffered are made

known through references to the war as a recent, painful event.

37 The titles of Xenopoulos’s novels Secret Engagements and The Actress’s

Husband are based on my own translation from Greek into English.

38 The characters of Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Lilly

Barthe in Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, as well as Hester Prynne in Nathaniel

79

Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter are classic examples of strong, dynamic heroines in

American Fiction.

39 A heroine in Greek fiction that matches this independent and autonomous

character is Myrto, in Ioanna Boukouvala - Anagnostou’s Myrto.

40 The three novels by James were written between 1881 and 1890, whereas

those by Xenopoulos were written between 1915 and 1940. It is important to note,

however, that this divergence in the time periods is amply covered through the

circumstances existing in each country: Greece, due to war and its consequences,

reflected the socioeconomic development and ideological tendencies of American society, with an intervening space of several years. Consequently, the social realities occurring in Greece during the 1920s through 1940s can be contrasted to and discussed in comparison with the state of affairs in the America of the 1880s.

41 As quoted in: W. Witte, “ The Sociological Approach to Literature,” 87-88.

42 Mitchell recapitulates the views of Howells and James regarding the

moralistic role of the realist:

The novelist was therefore, as Howells put it, “bound to distinguish so clearly

that no reader of his may be misled, between what is right and what is wrong,

what is noble and what is base, what is health and what is perdition, in the

actions and characters he portrays.” Or as James more succinctly observed:

“Every out-and-out realist [. . .] is a moralist.” (5)

43 These principles derive mainly from Dimity Convictions, a book by Barbara

Welter that examines the place of the American woman in the nineteenth century. For

a more thorough study of the position of the woman in the nineteenth century, see

also: Susan Phinney-Conrad, Perish the Thought: Intellectual Women in Romantic

America 1830-1860; John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A

80

History of Sexuality in America; Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American

Culture; Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic; Carol

Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development;

Bram Dijkstra, Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle

Culture.

44 Frangoglou claims that the quality of holiness in a woman was further

stressed through her presentation as a poetically romantic icon of femininity, her

frailty becoming a pattern of beauty and attraction. This “European,” in a way, ideal

appearance, also denoted an advanced social rank; for that reason, according to the

urban mindset, virginal looks combined with social class provided the woman with

social and economic assets. (65).

45 Welter notes in Dimity Convictions that this is an extract from Richard

Chase’s book Emily Dickinson, where he discusses her preoccupation with status,

although not in relation to her society.

46 The dream of a happy resolution for the girl’s life is also vibrant in Greek society: thoughts of a married future preside over the mentality of heroines in Modern

Greek fiction in the majority of urban novels.

47 Welter maintains:

American girls, no matter how lighthearted their international image,

were for the most part intensely moralistic about all the institutions

they inherited from their God-fearing parents, whether marriage, the

church, or democracy, and almost completely without any desire to

fundamentally alter these institutions, even if they grumbled at them.

(9)

81

48 In a number of novels by Xenopoulos, the heroines indicate their daring and well-informed nature by admitting to having read with curiosity and pleasure Zola’s novel, Nana, a work regarded as highly provocative for the times.

49 Gorsky comments on the Biblical definition of woman as saint and sinner,

as mother of the human race, as source of suffering and of salvation. Eve tempts

Adam to sin, consequently introducing sorrow and death into the world. Mary gives

birth to the Son of God, thus redeeming man from sin and suffering. God is a

patriarch in the Old Testament, whereas the New Testament deems God the Father

and God the Son. The most significant women in the Judeo-Christian tradition appear

only in relationship to male figures, as wives or mothers. (3).

50 The examples used for the public space occupied by women are inspired by

the heroines of the particular novels by James and Xenopoulos discussed in this study.

51 Marriage might not always be the prerequisite for true happiness, but it was

officially a state all girls wished to enter. Morwenna Griffiths suggests that, even in

very recent times, although a man still remained a whole person when alone in life, a

woman wanting a man was considered unable to function properly. Her life was

supposed to center on the husband and children, thus acquiring meaning. And she

adds: “Men’s thrillers are about action in which they may get a woman as a bonus.

Women’s romances are about getting a man. This is all most extraordinary at the

same time as being utterly commonplace.” (140).

52 For further information on the Greek woman’s position in society and the

development of feminism in Greece, see also: Eleni Varika, The Revolution of the

Ladies, Alexandra Bakalaki, The Housework Education and the Women’s Duties,

Sidiroula Ziogou-Karastergiou, The High-school Education of Girls in Greece.

82

53 Representative heroines of James are the imprisoned Catherine Sloper of

Washington Square (1880), the idealistic Isabel Archer of The Portrait of a Lady

(1881), the pliant Verena Tarrant of The Bostonians (1886), the fascinating Miriam

Roth of The Tragic Muse (1890), and the provocative Daisy Miller of Daisy Miller

(1909).

54 Apart from the strictly sexual sense, James had no taste for the roles of

father and husband, affirms Millicent Bell, and holds James’s phrase “I am too good a

bachelor to spoil” to be a way of saying he was homosexual. Thus marginalized,

unwilling and unable to enter domains of domestic and public power, James could identify more easily with the marginal condition of women (2). For the subject of

James and (his) homosexuality, see also: John Bradley, ed., Henry James and Homo-

Erotic Desire; Wendy Graham, Henry James’s Thwarted Love; Eve Kosofsky

Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet; Jonathan Freedman, ed., The Cambridge

Companion to Henry James; and John Carlos Rowe, The Other Henry James.

55 The source of this attitude is based on his family’s ideology in regard to

raising children, as well as on the prevailing spirit of the age during those formative

years for James. The Protestant tradition, in which both he and his father were brought

up, firmly stresses the importance of individual freedom and personal responsibility,

while encouraging an honest and brave acceptance of the world as it is.

56 In Henry James and the “Woman Business,” Habegger asserts that James

could not keep his ideas, prejudices, and conflicts out of his writing. He was not only

a man with opinions about the differences between men and women and a strong

viewpoint concerning the movement for women’s rights, but his own masculinity was

problematic in the extreme (6).

83

57 In Henry James and the “Woman Business,” Habegger refers to the

ambivalence that is noted in James’s characterizations of his most important heroines,

and comments on The Portrait of a Lady, which he estimates to be “the product of a

divided mind.” And he continues: “James loves Isabel, loves her when she struggles

to do the right thing under oppressive circumstance, loves her all the more because

she is hamstrung by that fatal female mind.” (8)

58 Verena Tarrant and Basil Ransom are the two main characters in The

Bostonians.

59 Caspar Goodwood is Isabel Archer’s husband in The Portrait of a Lady.

60 The Tragic Muse is a novel that constitutes such an exception: Miriam Roth

does not abandon the exercise of her talent for marriage, although this renunciation is

fervently asked of her.

61 Margarita Stefa, Fotini Sandri, Stella Violandi, Rahil, Tereza Varma-

Dacosta, Afroditi, Laoura, Isavella, Pavlina, Liza, Anieza are all names of women

used in the titles of these novels and plays. There are other works also, where the title

is not a female name, but denotes the condition or position of a woman: I Mitria,

[Stepmother], I Anadiomeni [The Emerging Woman], I Adelfoula mou [My Little

Sister], I Trimorfi Gineka [The Three-sided Woman], and many others.

Chapter One

The Bostonians and Secret Engagements:

Passive Identity within Marriage – the Possession of the Prize

The ideal of marriage, along with the ideal of the Perfect Woman, — who will

be the epitome of the good wife and mother when married— have always been

prevalent among the myths of society; and, like all myths, they are filtered through

literature. In all forms of literature, then, marriage defines a woman’s life since this is

the supreme goal that love is supposed to lead to. Love and marriage, therefore,

constitute not only the leading matters in women’s lives, but also the traditional

themes in nineteenth-century literature.

The women, however, did not truly rein in the home, even though this is their

implied state in the time’s literary production, which was reluctant to deny the myths

endorsed in the women’s sphere. Thus, nineteenth-century literature reflects a specific

ideal of marriage and family life: realistic and detailed descriptions of houses,

servants, dresses, and carriages may be given as a down-to-earth connection to the

real world, but still the glory of marriage cannot be masked; it is made very clear that

young women marry. If any problems do occur, it is usually before the wedding,

when unenthusiastic parents have to be persuaded about the suitor’s social and

financial eligibility, approve the future husband’s age and morality, and be reassured

that their daughter holds no aspirations to pursue college education or career1 ambitions; then, all ends well, and patriarchal domesticity engulfs husband and wife and they live happily ever after. 85

In order for women to achieve the benefits of the conjugal bliss, they would

even relinquish the dignity of their personality and would concede to marital solutions that deprived them of their moral duty for happiness: Avdela and Psarra mention the inability of some women to fight for the sovereignty of their soul and to resist the desperate quest for a marriage, any kind of marriage, and refer to women’s fear of becoming “old maidens” and of having to rely on someone else’s labor to provide for them: “And thus they agree to a conventional marriage, which is nothing more than a mere act of purchase, based on no kind of spiritual and psychological bond between the future couple” (169). Celibacy could not be apprehended as a free choice, and most single women were forced to deal with problems of economic dependence and social alienation.2 For the vast majority of women marriage was the sole means of

acquiring a social position, granted the status they obtained from their father, and later

from their husband. This was their only path towards achieving a public individuality.

Especially in Greece, the choice of the husband remained the prerogative of

the girl’s parents for a long period of time, her opinion and preference seldom being

considered. The “good marriage” was an important concern of the whole family in

middle-class urban societies, and its criteria were based on the prospect of economic

and social rise. However, romantic love made its appearance in these spheres that

favored pre-arranged unions, and the force of feeling was a natural law resulting from

the more frequent socialization of the two sexes, as well as from the birth of new

emotional needs. Marriage was romantically perceived in the literature of the time,

but for the real-life society the influence of the sentiment was still, as Varika cites,

“foolish and dangerous and should not be considered” (93).

In fact, of primary concern were not the vigor and unpredictability of emotions, but the woman’s education and preparation for her future duties in the

86

household. Through principles and organized knowledge,3 the woman was guided in

directing her realm, the domestic responsibilities. The ultimate core of a stable and proper household was based on a number of qualifications that a woman should

acquire; these are ethics according to which the man is the one that provides for the house, that works, obtains money, and is the giver, the supplier of everything — thus the master and controller of all. The woman, on the other hand, is supposed to maintain her husband’s supplies, direct her household, be frugal, ready to give account on everything she had done, spent, purchased, and is responsible for a tidy home, and a tidy life.

Marriage is seen as the center not only of a woman’s life, but of society as well, as an institution unquestioned in significance and structure, marking officially the beginning of a woman’s real life, despite the fact that she was thus made invisible under the law. This was a situation generally accepted and supported by literature, which fostered marriage as the most desirable goal of women’s lives and a natural part of men’s. This idealization was not limited by the different — and not equally fair — rules for men and women; in fact, it influenced the development of feminist attitudes about womanhood and marriage4 and initiated questioning, refining, and

seeking of new truths. Occasionally, writers offered a heroine who experienced a

problematic marriage, a heroine who wished to achieve fulfillment through education or who wanted to work without actually needing to. Following these gentle primary doubts, the definition of marriage was beginning to be put into question, and its unjust

realities to be attacked. Accordingly, the early period’s American ideal of the Perfect

Lady, the epitome of the elegantly feminine innocence, gave way to the Perfect

Woman, a queenly representative of moral virtue within the realm of the private

87

home. And later, the New Woman took place and revealed, with an independent and

yet feminine air, a world outside marriage.

The New Woman model was also exacted in the Greek society, where the type

of the “Perfect woman” had acquired the title of “woman-doll,” and yet this was a

route that led too to the formation of a kind of “New Woman.” The woman-doll was

the outcome of a whole social class’s need for a female identity perceived as sexual

prey, robbed of its fundamental human rights and educated according to convenient

doctrines. Accordingly, the eminence of the housewife and motherhood qualities was

rigorously stressed, and their perceived superiority served as a brilliant façade in order

to manipulate the female personality. Thus, the elegantly behaved woman resembled a

soulless doll, adorned with a speculative and superficial schooling, and some rough and shallow artistic talents — what was permitted by the dominant philosophy of the

Greek culture. To those women, however, who dared this culture with an independent and forceful character, society declared their segregation, and denied them access to the circle of its approved civilians and to its acknowledged members.

Female labor is accepted only when it is taking place within the domestic boundaries; the working woman, that is the woman that has the opportunity for financial independence, is feared and hence not allowed to prospect in this domain.

Destined for servitude in the house and for the male desire, she is not recognized as an autonomous being, but as a self-effacing presence, always at others’ disposal. This social situation became extremely pressing for women and this weight urged a number of them — the first, pioneer feminists, — towards a path of struggle and strain. Svolou states that an important number of women in Greece were crushed under the burden of carrying out the mission of uplifting the feminist conscience, having to combat not only a deep inequality between men and women, but also the

88 oriental compliance to the wishes of the Fate. Yet, Svolou asserts, through this harsh fight, a healthy and intense force was born, that empowered women to carry on the endeavors for the establishment of the feminist movement in Greece, so that “the woman-doll will withdraw on her own from the scene of the world” (170-171).

From the beginning of nineteenth century the position of the Greek woman showed signs of progress, and moved in the direction of an improved family and society balance, with the female education5 and culture oriented dynamically towards the profession of the school teacher. This brought forth a wave of advancement in the women’s participation in the intellectual realities of the time in Greece, where women break new ground in the development of the feminist movement6 and show the way to the expression of the first female aspirations.

It was World War I that finally set the terminal date for the Victorian mentality. Women were compelled to leave their households in order to enter the workplace, thus earning economic freedom; they were allowed to pursue a higher education, and to even defy sexual taboos. This is the time when the woman realizes that she does not wish to be dictated, and will not allow others’ interference with her life and decisions. But this model of the post-Victorian time woman could not be easily received in societies that were full-fledged with the ideal of the woman-angel and woman-doll. For that reason, woman was deprived of her opportunity to achieve identity, independence, and fulfillment of her talents. She was then illustrated as dominant only in man’s home, where he had the absolute power, and she carried the weight of accomplishing a specific role: that of the pure, charming, sympathetic, domestic, self-sacrificing, submissive, selfless creature that Woolf called the “Angel of the House” (287).

89

The “angelic” substance of the woman is also considered by Veloudis in his

essay “The Contemporary Popular Novel,” where he reports that the saintly essence

of the woman is marked in her purity, innocence, and sparkling laughter; these are attributes of the state before matrimony, when the woman is sensed as “a cuddly and sensual little cat” (45) only to become “an insignificant little wife” (45) after the marriage, destined to serve the man and decorate his home with her presence. The fundamental female virtues, therefore, of modesty, piousness, self-discipline, dignity, submission to the father and the husband, meekness, sexual morality,7 self-sacrifice, devotion to the family and good management of the household, were also the major criteria that determine their femininity,8 and, accordingly, their appreciation in the

eyes of men.9

The female education on the household duties was given an insistent

importance, since the tasks concerned were those of a hostess, a wife, and a mother;

consequently, the education on this kind of obligations was influenced, more

significantly than anything else, by the model-sex directed by the dominant ideology.

The domestic talents of women were supposedly implied by nature itself, and hence

young girls were nurtured according to these patterns. Gorsky comments on the

tendency to preserve women in an eternal mental and intellectual inactivity by

declaring them incapable and uninterested in further exploring their capacities, and

she also distinguishes a depreciation of the wife’s role in the household:

Common knowledge, reinforced by manuals and magazines, lectures,

sermons, and “scientific” studies, said women lacked men’s physical,

intellectual, and moral strength. Ironically, this morally weak creature

served as priestess of the home, moral guide to the household, and

creator of a sanctified refuge from the pressures of the outside world

90

… The young girl’s parents and later her husband helped her to spin a

delicate cocoon in which to live, but unlike the butterfly, she was to

remain forever chrysalis. (27)

An entire mentality, beginning with the feminine ideal that lowered woman to

the position of a feeble, inadequate, and ineffective person, ensured that men were appreciated as better educated, more aware of the world, more perceptive and

observant. Gorsky insightfully cites Trollope (Towers, 290) and remarks that a

woman “who insists that her husband has no right to guide and to chastise her, would

delight no feminist, since her reason is that her father still lives” (28). Marriage

belittles the impact of a woman’s being, and suspends her legal existence, rendering

her a piece of her husband’s entity. With society and law’s blessings, the husband’s

will was supreme, his word absolute, and it was under his protection and instruction that the wife performed everything.10

It is according to these standards that the heroines of the novels discussed in this chapter are developed, treated, and formed. Verena in The Bostonians and Thalia in Secret Engagements display characteristics and qualities that render them exceptional figures for their time, regardless of their sex, and always within the boundaries of the novels’ social theme: the stirrings of feminism and feminist thought in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Boston and Athens. Verena’s ability to talk with mesmerizing ease in front of a large audience and captivate it, and Thalia’s talent of a high-leveled consummated capacity, maturity, and inspiration in painting, position them in a noteworthy minority of young women of the period. However, when at some – early — point in their lives they meet with a love interest in the face of a man that charms them, everything falls apart; the order of the appropriate steps that could lead them to the accomplishment of their artistic and intellectual targets is

91

deviated, and the male authority and power, however welcome and desired,

overwhelms the artist and creator in them. Verena flees with the man she loves, abandoning the very stage that would establish her as a spokesperson for the women’s

rights movement; and Thalia, after failing to unite with a spiritual and intellectual

male soul-mate, renounces her painting and her ambitious potential in this domain, to

marry a wealthy upper-class man whom she does not have feelings for, and thus

becomes a much-traveled and rich lady of the aristocracy, well-known for her fortune,

name, and participation in illustrious social events.

What this chapter discusses is the presentation in these two novels of the

towering male power over women and over women’s inner dreams and desires; to

indicate, in line with McFadden’s point, that the “male claim” on the woman was

accepted as “natural” and therefore (according to the mentality of their time)

“irresistible” (246). What is more, this study also considers the attitude of the two

authors, James and Xenopoulos regarding their treatment of their heroines, and depicts an anti-feminist perspective in the conclusion of each novel: the female characters are presented with an artistic endowment which their author permits them to follow; they are initially let, by the plot, to follow this gift and to work hard on ameliorating it. Nevertheless, when these heroines actually demonstrate an uncompromising devotion to the mastery of their vocations, their creators cease to treat them as artists, but place them back into being just female persons, thus subject to male hegemony. Therefore, neither James nor Xenopoulos adopt the ideology that supports the dynamic, autonomous woman, the one that will successfully defy society’s stereotypes and track her inclinations. They rather present the woman in a demeaning position, reducing her into the limits of the traditional female destiny: the woman bound by the domestic sphere.

92

In The Bostonians, to begin with, the characters’ social reality is located in the details of sexual politics, which determine and manipulate the dynamics of power inherent in all of the novel’s love relationships. Reserve and domination constitute the decisive factors that form the traditional sexual relations and, although gender equality is presented as an ideal that requires commitment, the exploitative impulses are not precluded from the culture’s model of human sexuality. Conflict and domination are firmly linked to the notion of desire in American culture, and, as maintained by S. Mizruchi who acknowledges the discords provoked by desire and the will for authority in the novel, it is the acceptance of an undeclared contract in the novel’s culture what brings forth a concealment of these conflicts:

Repeatedly, the novel exposes what the characters seek desperately to

repress: the will to dominate that stands as the modus operandi of their

love and sexual relations. Significantly, the concealment of the

conflicts aroused by desire is portrayed as a reflex of democratic

analogy: the ritualized denial of a will to power is an unspoken

convention in the novel’s culture. (172)

In the portrayal of this culture, in fact, little of Boston’s realities and conventions are displayed in The Bostonians. The novel is not really about Boston;11 the title refers to two Boston women, Olive Chancellor and Verena Tarrant. The social world of Beacon Street and the Back Bay, the cultural world of the Boston

Athenaeum and the Music Hall, the intellectual world of Harvard, all those institutions that promoted Boston to its distinctive place in the American consciousness, are not illustrated in the novel, except through the tourist gaze of Basil

Ransom. (Cambridge is perceived by Verena as simply the place where her poverty- stricken family is tentatively accommodated, and not as a precious academic suburb;

93 and the Music Hall is presented not in connection to its acclaimed tradition, but as the place where a performance takes place, one that reminds Basil of the Roman

Coliseum). R. D. Gooder estimates that James aims at giving to his readers the outward image of Boston, with an ironic comment on its cultural pretensions, omitting the inward realities and greatness of the place, which are outlined in the figure of

Olive Chancellor. Olive for James stands for all that he knew of Boston — the subtle manners and traditions of its best circles, of its refining history, and also of its occasional eccentricity, contradictions, pleasures, and doubts.

James began thinking about The Bostonians while he was staying in Boston in

1883.12 The novel was to deal with the feminist movement in Boston in 1870s, but this was only the prelude for a larger commentary on America. About a year before

The Bostonians James had briefly approached the cultural enthusiasm of the Boston ladies13 and the social neglect of American women by the powerful, upper hand, moneymaking male sex, and now, in the light of the 1870s Boston, he was studying them more thoroughly. He states in his Notebooks:

I wished to write a very American tale, a tale very characteristic of our

social conditions, and I asked myself what was the most salient and

peculiar point in our social life. The answer was: the situation of

women, the decline of the sentiment of sex, the agitation on their

behalf. (47)

The Bostonians, James’s only major novel that is purely American, is realistic in a way that his previous European novels are certainly not; the known history of

Boston is confirmed by every detail both about individuals and of society as a whole, and the resentment that the book’s appearance was met with, proves James’s accurate illustration of the Boston society. However, apart from being a social document The

94

Bostonians is also a work of art, in fact one of the masterpieces of American

literature. Witty, mature, just and sensible, the book deals with a provincial subject

while maintaining its detachment regarding New England culture and the inherited

civilization. It is also a humorous satire of certain aspects of the American life: the

noise for the attraction of –even cheap- publicity, the trend that ordered interest in any

sort of “reform” movement, the magnetic attraction of people by mesmerists and inspirational speakers, and the emphasis on the influence of the environment as a determining force for the characters’ fate in the novel. The Bostonians, however, was an unpopular and unread work when it first appeared, serialized in the Century from

February 1885 to February 1886. The book publication of 1886 was still unsuccessful,14 and was not included in the New York edition of 1907-9, something

that hurt James deeply, since he believed that the novel had never received a just

reception.15

Secret Engagements was first published in the “Ethnos” journal, in sequences,

from November 22nd 1915 until May 12th, 1916. The novel produced a great

impression on the journal’s readers, and it was thus republished a few years later, from August 1922, to January 1923.16 Only until much later, in 1938-39, did

Xenopoulos reveal his personal, leading participation in the novel’s plot: in his

“Autobiography,” (published initially in the newspaper Athinaika Nea, June 13 to

September 25, 1936), the novelist admitted that he himself was the central hero in the

book, tactfully avoiding though to disclose the identity of Thalia, his heroine.17

In Secret Engagements, a talented, attractive and celebrated painter, Anastes,

meets at a ball an extremely beautiful and captivating devotee of his art, Thalia

Demades, a young girl from a wealthy family, and an artist, — a painter — herself.

Anastes is meanwhile secretly engaged to Katie, the daughter of family friends, but

95

this commitment is not yet made public, due to a grieving period in Katie’s family.

Thalia, uninformed, falls passionately in love with Anastes, whom she adores and admires both as painter and as a man. Anastes primarily resists, but Thalia’s loveliness along with an exquisite talent in painting he discovers in her, weaken his devotion to his fiancée: Anastes decides to give over his sense of duty and to pursue an artistic and passionate life with Thalia. A misunderstanding, however, alienates the two lovers, and they part, marrying other people that absorb them in family life and in responsibilities that eventually eradicate the artist in them. Several years later,

Anastes and Thalia finally clarify the misapprehension that separated them, only to recognize that it is then too late to alter their lives.

In The Bostonians, Basil Ransom, a young man from Mississippi, comes to practice law in New York. He goes to Boston to visit two distant cousins, Mrs. Luna, the elder, lively, and sophisticated widow, and her sister, Miss Olive Chancellor, a diligent and strictly responsible woman, wholly devoted to the cause of female

“emancipation.” Basil follows her to one of the supporters’ meetings, and there he makes the acquaintance of the girl who gives a speech that day, Verena Tarrant. She is the daughter of a vulgar charlatan, who profits from his daughter’s gift of musical voice and articulately flowing oration. Basil and Olive both fall in love with Verena: the rich Olive takes her under her protection and trains her for their cause, while Basil wins her heart over; Verena finally disappears in her lover’s arms, leaving Olive alone to confront her collapsed dreams and unfinished causes.

James’s plans for the novel did not concentrate on a specific title or sense of characters; the subject and situation thought of, were, however, influenced by his family’s long-standing conservative opposition to the “woman business.” Thus, the elder James’s views on sexual difference and the younger James’s feedback to the

96 fight of women writers18 are all projected on the writer’s portrayal of women in the particular novel. Having decided on a story about the women’s movement, with characters interested in the female emancipation, James created radical personages of the reforming type to stand as his –eventually turned out poisonous– criticism of the movement;19 one such is Doctor Prance, the novel’s female doctor, that embodies, along with Olive, Verena, and other women, the author’s effort to control and direct the social conditions presented. Dr. Prance’s authority over issues of mental and physical health makes her a reliable and trustworthy figure, James’s accomplice in this novel against the women’s suffrage movement.20 Besides, as Michael D. Bell asserts, “ the politics of The Bostonians are above all sexual (or gender) politics” (84).

Furthermore, since the novel was conceived just after feminist fiction began to appear, it followed the pattern of the new kind of heroine, who represented the changing role of women in society. According to this role, a woman could now pursue a career, have political opinions, even decline marriage. The new heroine differentiated from previous literary ones, in that she wished to define and fulfill her own self, rather than to be useful or proper or virtuous. In writing The Bostonians James would comply with the newly emerging topical genre.21

These social changes, however, did not provoke any immense diversions in the context for the heroine of the New Woman novels. The majority of plots portray a very attractive and brilliant heroine who initially aims at a career, but is soon challenged by a marriage proposal that is usually accepted. In handling the theme of career-versus-marriage, none of the authors objectively examines the choice of a career. Even James’s plot in The Bostonians –a pretty girl torn between marriage and the woman’s movement chooses marriage– is in accordance with this theme, even though he silently acknowledges a lady doctor in the novel. Jacobson holds James

97 here to be working within and against prevailing fictional conventions, since the author does present Mary Prance as a doctor, but he simultaneously reports her brusque manner of speech and her boyish and asexual conduct, thus stating his conventionally male view on the professional woman, as well as his “impatience with the sentimentalizations of popular fiction” (27). While James in The Bostonians tells the old story of a young girl undecided between two suitors, he also outlines,

Jacobson affirms, the contemporary, topical plot, thus avoiding stating his personal standpoints –and detached regard– on the claims of a career for women. Verena’s commitment to Olive’s sphere of ideology might denote a demand for an exclusive, lesbian relationship, and James ultimately turns his heroine against Olive, since

Verena is intended to live a normal life; consequently, the movement’s claims on

Verena become unrelated to her, as she finally makes her choice. Jacobson beholds this “obfuscation” to be “congenial” to James, taking into consideration his conservatism and limited knowledge of the movement; moreover, the classification of the plot to the career-versus-marriage theme, (Jacobson believes it to be a

“substitution of the two-suitor plot”) provided James with characters that would

“stand for the competing values in the novel — and hence, in their confrontations, the basis for a more dramatic novel” (28).

This dramatic opposition22 is enhanced by the treatment of the feminist movement as a response to a perceived failure of masculinity in the post-war New

England and therefore serves as the angry affirmation of the female disappointment derived by male behavior.23 Within these broad social conflicts, James expresses his opposition to the feminist concerns by the final choice his New Woman heroine makes.

98

Accordingly, Xenopoulos bestows signals of repudiation against the feminist

framework, creating in his work characters that reinforce a more traditional and customary line. Among the industrial progress, the development of career opportunities, the creation of financial and political ambitions, Xenopoulos insists on presenting the ideal of marriage as the sole way for woman’s solidity and social uplifting. The feminist demand for the emancipation of the woman is being modified through Xenopoulos’s text, where his heroines’ mentality and deed bear little connection to the movement’s genuine goals.

In accordance with Xenopoulos’ veiled conservatism, Thalia, as a stereotypical woman, surrenders to Anastes’ initiative, just because he is the man whom she loves; in the prospect of her coupling with her loved one, the – otherwise

— “New Woman” is willing to decline marriage, but remains passive and submissive in relation to the man in her life: “ … I am now yours! This you should know. You can do whatever you want with me, put me at you disposal. I would even die right now, if you told me so. This is the right that your love gives to me … You are for me the air that I breathe and live …” (228).

Towards the novel’s ending, Xenopoulos reveals, I believe, his conformist frame of mind by explaining the hero and heroine’s transformation in accordance to a

standardized way of life: the author refuses to admit the power of social conventions and his own reception of these patterns as the true reasons for the artists’ suppression, and rather illustrates romantic love to be the cause for this modification. Thalia’s future husband, Stratides, gives voice to this concealed traditionalism by holding the power of one’s adoration of another person to be responsible for the suppression of the creativity in Thalia and Anastes: “The person that demonstrates the initiative in

99

love, is the dominant one. In us, I love, and you respond. But in them, Katie loves,

and Anastes responds.” (386)

In discussing The Bostonians, it would be constructive to center on the

conflicting sides of the novel, and hence focus on the character of Olive Chancellor. A

worthy representative of the best elements of the Boston tradition, Olive is

overwhelmed by a severe lack of humor, that grants her the austere quality of high

seriousness, thus rendering her easily at odds with herself. Well-bred and

independent, Olive impresses even Basil Ransom himself, who, at their first meeting,

admires her personality, her home, her view over the Back Bay, and her wine,

inherited from her father. Olive’s refinement and elegant taste could not be denied by anyone. Confronted with difficulty, Olive demonstrates a unique firmness of soul, a seriousness and determination that enables her to concentrate with zest and endurance on the completion of a cause. In the current case the cause is the emancipation of women: “The unhappiness of women! The voice of their silent suffering was always in her ears … Ages of oppression had rolled over them; uncounted millions had lived only to be tortured, to be crucified … the day of their delivery had dawned” (30-31).

R.G. Gooder observes in Olive a “fanatical singularity of focus,” which, along with her preoccupation with “election, salvation, grace and righteousness,” turns her to a devotee of terms nor religious, but social, although she “cleaves to her belief with religious fervour” (xix).

The religious core in Olive’s personality is even more passionately presented when she attempts to ignite Verena’s faith in the movement, and to elicit her promise not to marry. In Olive’ words there are all those elements that translate the Puritan24 psychology into terms of a fight for a modern, noble and liberating cause: the fear of men (or, rather, the fear of the demands of the sexual nature of a young woman), the

100 appeal to biblical ideas, the promise of a spiritual and higher state of being, the idea of salvation, the worthy sacrifice of self-denial, and the gift of liberty, all are encompassed in this agreement of – religious — conversion that Olive requires:

I hope with all my soul that you won’t marry … You must be safe,

Verena — you must be saved; but your safety … must come from the

growth of your perception … from your feeling that for your work

your freedom is essential, and that there is no freedom for you and me

save in religiously not doing what you will often be asked to do — and

I never! (106-107)

Olive is herself an artist, wishing the ultimate artist’s wish, to “enter the lives of women who are lonely … to be near to them … to do something,” and concludes:

“oh, I should like so to speak!” (30). Following one of Olive’s private lectures on masculine falsity, Verena remarks: “You are quite a speaker yourself … You would far surpass me if you would let yourself go” (107). In fact, Olive does have an innate gift for oratory, but she remains tight and tense, unable to release her strengths and to let her speech float around the audience.

It is not Olive the artist, though, who seeks fervently to demystify romance in order to free women from the spell of masculine power. In trying to reveal to Verena all the dangers of conventionality that the girl might come up against, Olive presses her to acquire a dislike for those who “insult … one’s womanhood,” but fears that such realizations dwelled still as theoretical concepts in the young woman’s mind.

The campaign against romance, eventually turns against Olive, because in her effort to define Verena and at the same time determine all the traits of this definition, Olive becomes attracted to the very properties that she fears, thus contributing to the

101 creation of a — not desired — romance narrative. Michael D. Bell comments on the paradox of Olive’s role as a romantic knight fighting romance:

The problem is that Olive’s campaign against romance … keeps

getting infected with the very disease it sets out to cure … Her problem

may be inevitable, since a narrative in which romance is to be deprived

of its power … is itself, after all, a romance narrative … [Olive]

invests Verena, from the first, with all the qualities she has sought to

suppress in herself, and she then falls in love with them. (91)

Olive sees in Verena a friend of her own sex, in whom she finds a potential soul mate. The intensity of Olive’s presence in the relationship surprises and bewilders the young girl, who feels heavy upon her the responsibility of being Olive’s center of life and designs, the focus of her aspirations, and the completion of her own ego. Nevertheless, this austere and devoted feminist remains for Verena a frightening mystery that she does not feel the urge to explore or please. A relationship25 with such omens can scarcely endure the burden of unnaturalness and differences. Of marriageable age, yet not actually marriageable, Olive feels constantly threatened by the possibility of Verena’s marriage. After the tranquil period of their first winter in

Boston, Olive is never again secure, and follows a contradictory path, fighting for the liberation of the women’s rights, while struggling to lock Verena in an emotional prison, a complexity which the girl’s simple and honest character cannot bear. It is this purity which characterizes Verena that attracts Olive so much, because she sees in it a chance to rewrite a part of history, to replace it with a mythical history that will indicate the couple’s solemn quest and holy bond. Their relationship, Olive tells

Verena, is based on eternal time, and it existed forever: “I am a thousand years old; I have lived through generations – through centuries. I know what I know by

102

experience; you know it by imagination” (106). In Olive, Verena sees the ability to

carry her up, “like a bird of the air … Verena liked it, for the most part; liked to shoot

upward without an effort of her own and look down upon all creation, upon all history from such a height” (62).

Olive’s mythic view of Verena as the archetypal savior of women proves to be a self-delusion, since it replaced, in Olive’s mind, the real person with a desired one, a person that eventually brings pain to Olive when she understands the reality of

Verena’s character. For Gorley Putt, Olive’s grasp of this actuality is estimated as an imbalance in human situation that develops to be a tragedy: “Olive’s tragedy is fairly simply that of self-delusion, but the self-delusion itself is anything but simple. It is soon clear that love and jealousy prompt all her actions with regard to Verena;” and

Putt casts no doubt upon the theme that James uses to present a tragedy: “[the theme of the tragedy is] the relationship between a conscientious thoughtful moralist and a

creature of grace and personal fascination whose lack of those same qualities of moral

high-seriousness alternately infatuates and disgusts the pursuer” (184-185).

Olive acquires her tragic dimension by being profoundly devoted to her cause

even before she meets Verena, the “typical Jamesian innocent,” to quote Lee,

“ruthlessly cultivated as a vehicle for the feminist movement” (25); moreover, she

instinctively fears Basil Ransom as an anti-progressive enemy of causes, even before

he appears as a threat to steal away Verena. Her acquaintance with Verena deepens

her scar, because it reveals her anguished commitment and weakness, as Putt claims:

“If Olive had her own tragic flaw, so — from Olive’s point of view — had Verena. It

was the flaw most likely to strike against Olive’s own, and wound her at her weakest

point” (185).

103

Hence, the ideological becomes the sexual — and Olive connects her

principled convictions to her very intimate thoughts’ doctrine; in all her encounters

with Basil Ransom, although the pleasant and sociable Southerner gave her no reason

for an ugly treatment on her part, Olive appears rude and repulsive: “Ransom offered

his hand in farewell to his hostess; but Olive found it impossible to do anything but

ignore the gesture. She could not have let him touch her” (76). Basil is soon to

understand that you cannot win with Olive Chancellor: “If he should not come she

should be annoyed, and if he should come she would be furious” (195). McCall

depicts in her not rudeness, but a “tragic helplessness; Olive cannot win anything

because she is determined to lose everything” (92).

The fatal prohibition for Verena on Olive’s part is for the young woman to

have a free personal life: Olive here reaches the point where her own inability to

surpass her own morals and love freely, imprisons the girl to the state of being Olive’s

object of affections,26 her friend and protégée, all excused as parts of a morally high

program. Millicent Bell holds Olive to be selfish and “motivated by possessiveness,”

(11) whereas McCall judges the purchase of Verena “iniquitous” for both sides of the transaction. When she actually buys the girl from her father, we cannot say who is more criminal for this abominable deed, the serious Olive, for doing it, or Verena’s absurd father-manager, Selah: “she expressed to herself the kind of man she believed him to be in reflecting that if she should offer him ten thousand dollars to renounce all claim on Verena, keeping – he and his wife – off her for the rest of time, he would probably say, with his fearful smile, ‘Make it twenty, money down, and I’ll do it.’”

(89). Ownership here takes the form of a commercial proposition, equating the need

for the emancipation of slaves to the situation of women: both are inquired, bought,

owned, perceived as items. The moment when Olive actually purchases Verena from

104

her father, is the most unethical and debased in the story — the lowest point of the

novel, a financial transaction where the goods that change hands, the victim, is a

specific individual, the father’s daughter. The immoral quality of this deal is —

though unexpressed — clear to both sides.

Marriage is not in the least desired by Olive, who hates marriage for herself

(66), since it would bring her into union with a man; however, she is not necessarily opposed to the institution of marriage, and so Verena’s initial radical reproach to the marriage tie “gave her a vertigo” (66). She “didn’t like the ‘atmosphere’ of circles in which such institutions were called into question” (66) and the partnership Olive seeks is not one to support the “free unions” (66) in which the partners are free to dissolve it at will. The fellowship that Olive wants resembles, actually, a marriage contract, a promise that “would bind them together for life,” (87) and “their two minds” (122) would form a relationship based on mutual consent. But, in the light of

Thomas’s remarks, Olive aims at an even tighter union than one secured by a

marriage contract — she strives for the achievement of an “organic whole” between her and Verena:

[…] her subsequent refusal to accept Verena’s spoken promise when it

is offered, preferring to “trust” her “without a pledge” (B 137),

emphasizes how Olive hopes for a union more tightly bound than the

existing marriage contract … enforced by law. Olive’s idealized bond

demands a perpetual renewal based on mutual trust. Coming together

in a partnership that compensated for what each lacked, Verena and

Olive form an “organic whole” (B 122) (66)

Since Olive egotistically aims at changing things into what she wants them to,

McMurray talks of a “tyranny” of her “pathological personality” that is made evident

105

in her choice of homosexuality, and in her decision to keep Verena from marrying.

Olive believes that together with Verena they could acquire a triumphant future for

the women’s movement, they would inspire the “mystical moment when Verena’s

transcendentalism will inspire in her sex their glorious emancipation” (162).

The major antagonist of Olive in the sphere of ownership and control is Basil

Ransom. While their effective similarity and connection is the identity of their desires, the important difference in these two rivals is that while Olive fails, Basil succeeds, and wins the girl over. Dominion and possession are attempted by Basil through romance, and by Olive through the application of her political program which aims at repairing the historical evils of male authority. M. D. Bell wonders if “this confrontation between Basil and Olive, this belated renewal of the American Civil

War, is in some sense, at least in part, a confrontation between romance and realism”

(86). At every point in the text there are metaphors of battle and competition that verify the feelings of pain and loss resulted from such fight; the world of women is set against the world of men, a realization which brings relief to Olive when, at Marmion,

she clarifies that for her and Ransom, “ It was war to the knife” (290).

The agonizing closing chapters of The Bostonians indicate Olive’s tragedy

once more. Verena ends her dilemma by finally choosing the more perpetual and

determined force. Putt states that the personal side of Verena loves Basil on his own

terms, whereas her public side could love Olive on her public terms, but — and here

lies the core of Olive’s tragedy — the reformist displays her personal means of

attraction; as a result, “the needle flickered awhile and then finally came to rest where

that particular pull was strongest and simplest — not in Olive … but in Basil whose

powers were concentrated in a single attraction” (188).

106

The novel’s big final scene takes place at the Music Hall, full of “the sound of

several thousand people stamping with their feet and rapping with their umbrellas and

sticks” (338), people who wait to hear Verena’s major speech. Basil is present, and, after some difficulty in getting through, ultimately achieves his goal: under his

protection, Verena escapes; her delight, though, is contaminated by the tears Basil

sees running down her face underneath her hood, and James concludes the novel with

the following: “It is to be feared that with the union, so far from brilliant into which

she was about to enter, these were not the last she was destined to shed” (350). With

Verena’s fleeing which forces Olive to finally rush onto the stage, the novel offers a

conclusion that Mizruchi apprehends as “controversial,” declining the reading of

Olive’s gesture as suicidal and perceiving it as an energetic and determining recognition of her history of social action: “While Basil, with Verena, enters the

sphere of domestic bliss to write his anachronistic denunciations of the modern age,

Olive embraces the demands of ‘critical history’ in her move to promote social and

political change” (152).

The other central character of the novel, and the second Bostonian, is Verena

Tarrant, a girl with all the naiveté, freshness, simplicity and graciousness to be

typically found in all the Jamesian young American heroines; Verena also has the gift

of being an inspirational speaker and thus catches the attention of Olive Chancellor and her Southerner cousin, Basil Ransom. Attracted by Verena, both wish to take

possession of her — Olive as a reformer who wants to use the girl’s talent (and also as

a lesbian who feels drawn to the young woman’s beauty), and Basil as a man whose

maleness is magnetized by the female nature. As Verena progresses in the circles of

the women’s movement and as she feels surrounded by Olive’s jealous guardianship,

she is also flattered and tempted by Basil’s — the enemy’s — persistent attention; she

107

reluctantly admits her attraction to him, agrees to secretly meet him, and finally

rewards his determination by letting him carry her away with him, right at the peak of

her career.

Verena allows from the beginning others’ actions to determine her life and fate

— initially Olive and her parents, who perform on her an exploitative business-deal

based on her lack of a criterion for related transactions; Verena was ignorant of “what was done and what was not done,” because she had “ no worldly pride, no traditions of independence” (86). Mizruchi estimates that the reason for Verena’s absence of

“challenge” towards the opportunism displayed by the other people is found in her

“originality:” “her historical innocence indicates that she can be shaped according to their wills” (147). Although at the heart of the novel, Verena appears to change protectors — or wardens — always consenting, pleased, and susceptible to all the

ruling agencies that alternate:27

She had been nursed in darkened rooms, and suckled in the midst of

manifestations; she had begun to “attend lectures” as she said, when

she was quite an infant, because her mother had no one to leave her

with at home. She had sat on the knees of somnambulists, and had

been passed from hand to hand by trance-speakers … and had grown

up among lady-editors of newspapers advocating new religions, and

people who disapproved of the marriage-tie. Verena talked of the

marriage-tie as she would have talked of the last novel. (66)

Verena seems to escape definition and puzzles anyone who attempts to interpret her. J. Gooder entitles her an “empty vessel” that takes shape first by her father’s hands, then develops a,,s Olive’s protégée, and in the end submits to Basil’s masculine vigor: “Like her father’s (mostly female) clients, she is passed from hand to

108

hand, willing, pliant and responsive to each influence in turn. And how should it have

been otherwise?” (106).

Until the novel’s end, neither Basil nor Olive penetrate with insight Verena’s

deeper nature; instead, they prefer to consider her as a character without ideas or

personality, who obeys the assessments of others. Verena, though, undergoes a

profound transformation in the novel and proves that she is not really the flat and

muted woman as others’ intentions presented her, but a person with an identity that

grows and develops and changes. Confined by the limitations of her publicity-

conscious parents and later by the controlling Olive, Verena soon acknowledges an

inconsistency between her performing self and an inner voice she had not been

accustomed to listening to. The hollowness of the “rehearsed” (42) role she plays in

public is expressed in her declaration to her mother before the gathering audience: “It isn’t me, mother” (43).

The thorough alterations of Verena’s character are made evident in the way the content and quality of her speeches matures; from a first speech that contained general comments against social injustice and about the social position of women,28

Verena’s later speech manifests Olive’s guidance and cultivation, combining the former universal claims to specific historical applications. Calling for a return to

Eden, the speech designates the situation of women as a “convenient” box of conventionality, “with nice glass sides.” The box confines women to a “comfortable, cozy” section, excluding them from entering into the outer world. Verena affirms the stifling circumstances of the roles of contemporary women, and demands that the “lid

… be taken off” (207-208). She even grounds Basil’s nostalgic adoration for the traditional woman, by referring to the demographic realities of the women’s movement. Thus, she asks Basil regarding the women without families and the deep

109

transformations in society: “What are you going to do with them? You must remember that women marry — are given in marriage — less and less; that isn’t their career, as a matter of course, anymore” (261).

Therefore, Olive’s account of a natural passivity or, “unlimited generosity”

(70) in Verena, disagrees with the girl’s projection of self-image. And yet, Verena’s

“tenderness” (67) that Olive acquired as well, her “speechless smile” (77) that appears

so convenient to Basil, the image of “ Joan of Arc” (67, 106, 126) that Olive dresses

Verena with, and Basil’s first impression of her “like an oriental,”(52) verify the wish

to restrict and control Verena through such typecasting. But she steadily moves

towards freedom, even when this results from the terror that she experiences for her

feelings of pleasure connected to Basil. Her parents and Olive had cast upon her a

fixed role that offered her the – illusionary — comfort of knowing who she is, but

Basil makes her wonder about her true, concealed self, thus introducing her to the

feelings of confusion and doubt. Both Olive and Basil consider the male influence

responsible for the formation of the new principles in Verena’s mind, thus denying

her the chance to experience by herself the complexity of her new feelings and thus

make the girl choose between two contrasting poles: devotion to either the man or the

movement.

The effort of Verena’s two suitors to hide or erase her identity is denoted in

the instances where her individuality is concealed by a cloak or mantle. When Olive

demands of Verena the promise not to marry, she covers the “shivering” girl with her

mantle; and when, at the novel’s end, Basil escapes with Verena, he “thrusts the hood

of Verena’s long cloak over her head, to conceal her face and her identity” (349). If

the first occasion can be read as an act of protection, the last one is certainly a move

of “thrusting” and “concealing,” which replaces Verena’s public role with a domestic

110

identity; however, Basil’s authoritative command and Verena’s tears beneath the

hood, foretell a life of grief and pain, unrelated to the “ever after” happiness of

romances. After all, Verena is cognizant of the prejudice and mentality of the man

who proposes to seize and muffle her: “If he should become her husband, he should

know a way to strike her dumb” (249). Basil ultimately wins and it is his brute male

power that forces Verena to willfully accept the arbitrary assertion of his ruling

presence in her life. And yet, all this is perceived and enacted under the given

impression of a classically romantic plot of a maiden’s rescue by a heroic Knight —

this is where Basil yields the image that Verena’s speeches proclaimed, of the woman

trapped inside the glass box of patriarchy: “He said that he had come to look at her

through the glass sides, and if he wasn’t afraid of hurting her he would smash them in.

He was determined to find the key that would open it, if he had to look for it all over

the world” (247).

As a representative American girl, Verena is pretty, bright, active and ready to

fall in love — even though she claims uninterested in marriage. However, she is

apprehended in terms of the marriage-plot convention, which entails the heroine’s

salvation by a brave man from the evil enemy that has captivated her. Verena is also

perceived as incorporating another novelistic convention, that is why she is presented

as a character in a story of love versus honor, where “honor” stands for her

commitment and faith to the feminist movement’s causes. Still, Verena is not the

feeble, insignificant, trifling, weak, delicate and small creature that critics — and

James, as will soon be pointed out, — prefer to portray; she is a young woman rather than a meagre girl, with humor, wit, perception, awareness and personality.

In the same way, Thalia, in Xenopoulos’ Secret Engagements is described as the epitome of the cultivated young woman, as the pride and honor of a culture that

111 generates such refined and sophisticated creatures to the society. Thalia has not received merely a school-level education, but has also prolonged her studies in the

Polytechnic School29 — and is thus noted as an “educated” exception even among the women of the nineteenth century Greek upper middle-class society. Moreover, she is not only granted with a recognized talent in painting, but her acute and sharp insight on the art of painting in general, strikes Anastes: “The painter was impressed … The young student of the Polytechnic School was referring to that specific work of his, that, while he appreciated it more than all the rest, it did not create an equivalent impression on the people and the critics. His face was instantly lit by a smile” (16).

Thalia bestows an adoration on everything that surrounds her favorite painter, and when she manages to visit him at his home and workplace, her adulation brings to mind an exuberant child, commenting on every little detail, observing closely all the paintings’ features, and whispering her observations to herself as if she was murmuring a prayer; in these little phrases uttered softly, however, Anastes discovers her acute perception of things and her sensitive artist’s eye:

[Anastes realized that] the beautiful Thalia had a much sharper

intuition [than her cousin, who accompanied her], a much more

delicate taste, she did not overlook any concealed splendor, any artistic

secret, and that she could understand him more. “This girl is gifted,” he

thought. “I would be curious to see her painting!” (57)

And when he finally sees Thalia’s work, the acknowledged painter admits with enthusiasm that it was “wonderful!” and that it displayed not just her talent, but also her education, her cultivation, her persistent labor over her craft. “That girl was already a painter,” (145) Anastes exclaims, and a little later he announces that Thalia is a “revelation,” a “true, born artist, very close to surpassing her teachers” (147).

112

In the process of his socializing with the Demades family, Anastes

understands that the young woman’s fine development is the outcome of a

sophisticated, refined, and careful nurturing. Thalia’s growth to a capable young

painter was materialized within a family that valued art and cultivation, honored artists, and respected one’s natural gift. When Anastes visits Thalia’s house and observes her social environment, he apprehends the circumstances that enabled the girl to become the distinguished young artist that she is:

Anastes entered a plainly furnished and crowded living room … The

people in the living room became agitated. The painter’s name was

very well known among the afternoon visitors, and all the girls’ young

guests rose and stood in line … Thalia introduced everyone to her

friend: a young painter, classmate of hers in the Polytechnic School;

another one, a poet, just in his prime steps; a journal publisher; an

actor, student in a Drama School; and a very handsome young man, the

girls’ cousin, employee at an Insurance Company. (139)

Being by now bound, through his secret engagement, to a nice, beautiful, but indifferent-to-art girl,30 Anastes subconsciously compares the two women each time

he meets with either one. However, Anastes had already perceived the type of life that

Katie signified, even before he becomes familiar with Thalia’s personality and falls in

love with her beauty and gift. In describing Katie to a friend, early in the novel,

Anastes remarks: “She has a nice appearance, she is wholesome, brisk, and vigorous

… and a good, positive, decent person … Katie does not understand much about art.

She respects art, like she does everything related to me, but she does not appreciate it”

(35).

113

Although Thalia is for Anastes the only one able to understand and participate in art, she does not cease to be a person raised in a patriarchal setting, brought up with a different set of standards as to the woman’s ideal qualities. It is therefore difficult, even for Thalia, to believe in her own talent, to allow herself to hope for Anastes’s approval:

Thalia let him study [her work], without posing any questions. She

only wanted to guess his impression, and was severely puzzled when

she realized that he was not laughing with mockery … Actually, she

was truly modest. The only quality she allowed herself to take pride in

was her passion for the art, her zeal for her vocation. But she did not

have a high regard for her talent, neither was she content with the way

she was educated. (146)

But Anastes’s response to Thalia’s work is a fervent encouragement to build up this gift, follow her true inclination, and pursue “big” and “noble” (160) dreams that her talent deserves. “You will be devoted to your art,” he writes, “and you will become great — not just for me, but for the whole world. But, mainly, for you” (160).

But Thalia displays a different mentality in the prospect of her separation from her beloved painter, even if this parting would occur for the fulfillment of her own aspirations. According to the model of the traditional woman, and being the heroine of an urban, stereotypical novel, she has to demonstrate these traits that render her to be correct and proper: the achievement of her personal happiness, which, naturally, evolves around a male presence. Marriage is not what Thalia anticipates at this point

— she is rather against it — but she follows the standard route of identifying completion only through her coupling to a man: “Oh, how I wish I could live with you, next to you, become your partner in your life and in your work, and to love you,

114 the way only I know how to love! Oh, I can imagine a life with you, true, complete, beautiful, peaceful, and artistic …” (122).

Notwithstanding the total devotion and worship that are revealed through these loving sentences, Thalia does not display unconditional submission. She may whole- heartedly admire and love Anastes, she may erase her painting ambitions to be always by his side, but she is not willing to efface her personality and her substance. She has safeguarded the proud and unimpeded spirit of a young, sophisticated woman; thus, when Anastes refuses to provide her with a clear answer as to his feelings towards her, it is the dynamic, decisive, self-reliant Thalia that takes over the compliant devotee:

the minute she felt [Anastes] to be unenthusiastic and distant, the

minute she thought “he despises me,” Thalia … decided to take action

and ask for a “yes” or “no.” Another woman, in her place, would

demand an explanation through insinuations. But Thalia, being daring,

hasty, independent, sent that letter. (135)

Marriage does not stand among Thalia’s priorities, unless she achieves a marriage on her own terms; close to the New Woman ideals, the autonomous, unimpeded, self-governed Thalia of this part of the novel, refuses to marry, unless it is the outcome of a great, happy love. She maintains any deviation from this path, to be a “slow, secret, mental and physical death,” (165) which her vigorous spirit resents.

Thalia, like Verena, is depicted as a splendid creature, a fine, impressive, and skilled young woman that, nevertheless, has to be restrained by her creator, despite his esteem towards her. Verena, though, is seen as trifling and insignificant at some parts, generating doubt as to her real worth and importance. Thalia, though, early in the novel, inspires awe, and attains a firm and constant quality until the final choice of her

115

life, her marriage to a wealthy, upper-society man. Regarding the treatment of his heroine in Secret Engagements, hence, Xenopoulos was not as perplexed as James;

Thalia, too, appears in need of supervision and control, only she does not receive it until the end, with the decision that obliterated the artist in her, and allowed only the futile and insecure side of the woman to linger. In this sense, Thalia resembles

Verena: they both decline the kind of freedom that would allow them to express their inner soul, articulate their dreams, and convey a deeper meaning to their future. At this point, though, I should further discuss the way Verena and Thalia are perceived and analyzed not as mere female characters, but as personalities whose growth is closely dependent on their creators’ worldview and, consequently, management.

The concept of Verena as a marvelous female character, then, seems to have created confusion and dilemmas to her author; although James holds an unquestionable admiration, allegiance and devotion for his heroine, he at the same time restricts his praise and places Verena’s nature to be judged by each reader’s personal criteria. This reserve on the part of the author erases the genuine respect he feels for Verena, and indicates an impression that James wants the reader to have for her, that he himself does not share.

In fact, Verena proves to be good-hearted in her willingness to please others, as is reflected by her charming performances. She is not firm in persevering the ideas she declaims, and she is in real need for somebody else’s guidance and direction. To those who would wonder if Basil is too domineering, the reply is given, and it is solid:

“it was in her nature to be easily submissive, to like being overborne. She could be silent when people insisted, and silent without acrimony” (255, italics mine); the vulnerable girl feels “more free” walking by the side of “a remarkable young man who would take beautiful care of her” (252). Habegger in Henry James and the

116

“Woman Business,” sees Verena as a person who finds freedom only when she

relinquishes freedom, and believes that the author, too, embraces Basil’s

contemptuous attitude towards her emotional world:

It is essential to see that Verena is not the only one who finds freedom

in yielding freedom. The author, too, after first raising his eyebrows at

Basil’s cynical opinion of her, ends up confirming it by using his own

prerogative of omniscience to expose her inner nature to view. Once

again we see how extraordinary Basil’s control proves to be: In many

respects the novel unfolds from his deepest, most private convictions.

This is one of the reasons the book attacks the public exposure of the

private. (217)

Verena’s surrender to Basil is not the outcome of her individual weakness; it is

rather, as maintained by Habegger in Henry James and the “Woman Business,” her

feminine nature that functions and induces her to be carried away by Basil in the

Music Hall. It is her gender, endued with loveliness and charming womanhood, —

especially in Verena than in the other female characters-, that makes her what she is:

“It is femininity that determines her behavior, and this femininity has two related

components, a weak capacity for thought and an emotional disposition to yield to

others — ‘give herself away, turn herself inside out’ (296)” (217). This preposterous

face of femininity that is acquired by a number of James’s women characters in the

novel,31 which has inspired in him feelings of contempt and mockery, is also

attributed to Verena: only in her case, James wants to admire her for this exact quality; although she is portrayed as marvelously being made, still, she can only obtain a consciousness of her essence, when a sound man comes to light. For the delicately perceptive style of heroines that James favored, Verena is illustrated as

117 pitilessly flat and passive. In fact, after Basil’s meaningful speech where he establishes the subordinate domestic role of women, — a speech James praises for its

“reason” and “very considerable mystery”— a comment is given, that reveals all the trouble that James faced: in his effort to mask Verena’s feeble disposition, James applies obscure explanations of the young woman’s inner nature; thus, he discerns her consent to Basil’s captivating truths, from her surrender to the force of his arguments:

It is to be feared, indeed, that Verena was easily satisfied (convinced, I

mean, not that she ought to succumb to him, but that there were lovely,

neglected, almost unsuspected truths on his side); and there is further

evidence on the same head in the fact that after the first once or twice

she found nothing to say to him (much as she was always saying to

herself), about the cruel effect her apostasy would have upon Olive.

(304)

For Habegger in Henry James and the “Woman Business,” Verena is a paradigm of the female nature that actually longs to abdicate her autonomy as a woman. He refers to her as “the apotheosis of nonrational feminine sentiment, and her inmost nature softly receives the penetrating, Ransoming doctrine … The collapse of her interest in her own civil liberties … [confirms that it] … is not in female nature to care about personal freedom” (223). Had Verena the ambition to cultivate and promote her talent more dynamically, aspiring to a less domesticated life-scenario, she would be a serious threat to the male-dominated order of things. A small and simple Verena cannot emerge to an emulated and ambitious public performer, and cannot inspire any struggle for assertive feminist issues, since she chooses not to be a public, — acknowledged — woman; at any rate, the public woman, as George Eliot remarked and Auerbach claims in Romantic Imprisonment, “provides an image of the

118 commanding public woman which need not constitute an overt feminist statement; she provides a conduit for the hidden, and often the dark, richness of the self; she is a talisman against anonymity.” (267). As Basil’s wife, Verena is guaranteed to remain anonymous and, consequently, risk-free.

Notwithstanding the liberal upbringing that she has received, an upbringing that has granted her a lively and assertive spirit, (“Well, I must say … I prefer free unions” (66)), James literally distorts and curtails Verena in his account of the girl’s development. Wavering between Olive’s and Basil’s views, Verena is not once displayed to solemnly judge the conflicting ideologies, estimate her awkward situation and contemplate the oppositional stands; her mere argumentative presence consists of manifested complaints that are soon silenced. She even avows a guilty feeling for her inexperience: “I don’t remember ever to have had to make a sacrifice

— not an important one … I have been very fortunate, I know that. I don’t know what to do when I think how some women — how most women- suffer” (181). James after all emphasizes the “singular hollowness of character” by his concentration on

Verena’s intimate feelings (“She loved, she was in love — she felt it in every throb of her being” (299)), but still, he seems reluctant to admit them.

In compliance with Verena’s “hollowness of character” and “extraordinary generosity with which she could expose herself, give herself away, turn herself inside out, for the satisfaction of a person who made demands of her” (296), Thomas judges her to be susceptible and qualified in speaking the voice of anyone who directs and dominates her. Drawing on James’s description of the girl’s “light, bright texture, her complacent responsiveness, her genial, graceful, ornamental cast, her desire to keep on pleasing others at the time when a force she had never felt before was pushing her to please herself,” (300) Thomas claims that “James draws on the traditional

119

definition of a woman as an empty vessel, waiting to be filled and given identity by

her union with a man” (70). And yet, if Verena’s voice seems capable of conceding to

whomever addresses her, it is this same voice that attracted and tempted Basil so

profoundly and so completely, that he struggled to take exclusive possession of it:

[…] he counted that her strange, sweet, crude, absurd, enchanting

improvisation must have lasted half an hour. It was not what she said;

he didn’t care for that, he scarcely understood it; … he contented

himself with believing that she was as innocent as she was lovely, and

with regarding her as a vocalist of exquisite faculty, condemned to sing

bad music. How prettily, indeed, she made some of it sound! (48-49)

… “ — Why should you ever listen to me again, when you loathe

my ideas?” “ — I don’t listen to your ideas; I listen to your voice.”

(258)

Verena’s voice, however, is not identical to the ideas that she expresses and

which originate in Olive’s mind; her fragile identity is indicated in her future marriage

with Basil, where her character will be reshaped by the domineering nature of the male partner in the couple: the ideas will be maintained by Basil, not discussed through unconstrained, liberal conversation. The voice that Olive and Verena prepared to present to the public, is later denied by Basil; but although that voice is

Verena’s, Olive controls it: either way, the young woman is left with no space of her own. James is well aware of the difficulties met when one strives for autonomy within the private sphere of domesticity: despite Verena’s wish to establish her assertion and freedom of opinion by choosing to marry, she in fact encircles herself — typical of

James’s treatment of his heroines — to the constraints and standards of yet another private relationship.

120

McMurray believes Verena to be so generous, as to acquire a cosmos that encompasses both the worldviews of Olive and Basil, but she is without a strong sense of self that would enable a healthy and balanced union between her and Basil.

The union does take place, but only because Basil proves to be very forceful and decisive in the crucial moment:

The narrow and exclusive worlds of Olive and Basil are opposed to the

boundless one of Verena Tarrant. In her selflessness the worlds of both

Olive and Basil are contained. Verena’s crisis comes when she is

driven to choose between them. But the psychological and moral

condition for exercising such a choice — a consciousness of self as the

basis for discriminatory action — is what Verena lacks in her make-up.

(164)

Accordingly, Thalia in Xenopoulos’s novel is restricted to a position more confined than what was expected of a self-governed artist to allow. In the force of her passionate feelings for Anastes, she even dares to propose to him a liaison outside marriage, a suggestion unthinkable for a girl of Thalia’s background and social position. But it is exactly this society that she defies, these stereotypes that she closes her eyes to, in order to reach her desired state: a life with the man she loves and admires, a life full of art, creativity, sensitivity, and intellectual communication.

Marriage for Thalia is a mere triviality when compared to the real meaning that her life would acquire with Anastes in it. But the completion of this female character remains unresolved, and her wishes unanswered: the woman-artist does not impose her own scenario, since she is unable to defeat the demands that society — and her author — impose on her. Consequently, she ends up castrated, silenced, conquered by the male authority that forced the marriage plot on her. Thalia, then becomes a

121 married, settled woman; she creates a family, becomes a dutiful wife, a caring mother, an illustrious socialite, yet a stifled artist, deprived of her voice and her chances.

The reason that actually thrusts Thalia and Anastes to move towards different directions acquires a lesser significance in the end, since it is the definite pattern of the urban novel’s plot that dictates such a turn; the novel reflects the social reality and it is according to its truths that the story evolves. Therefore, the heroine is confined by the author’s commanding intention and patriarchal gaze, which in turn reflects a suffocating moral code. This overpowering set of laws eliminates the female perception of things, and thus renders the woman weaker in reacting and protesting.

Lianopoulou refers to “the ignorance, the innocence and the naiveté of the heroines” in the Mid-War novels, that mirrors their “inability to acquire a ‘different view’ of reality and interpret it sufficiently.” She also calls attention to these heroines’

“gradual isolation, [which consequently] produces an unbearable sense of loneliness, desertion, and helplessness, in a chaotic, unfriendly world” (328-329). Accordingly,

Thalia becomes restricted in a world of amenities and compulsory social graces, while she is aware of the mistaken route she followed:

I may marry Stratides, but I will never forget Anastes. He is so deeply

set in my heart, in my being, that he can never be detached. I know, I

very well know this. And if I now decide to proceed with this

marriage, don’t you ever doubt that it is very much like committing

suicide. (353)

The young man that Thalia eventually marries, does not lead her to suicide, not in the literal sense, that is; the creative instincts and aptitudes that the young artist had displayed, ultimately die with this relationship, but it is not until it is too late that

Thalia makes this realization. In fact, Stratides is the one that will open for the young

122 woman new paths to the understanding of erotic love; with her sexual instincts frozen during her adventure with Anastes whose center was mainly the soul and the intellect,

Thalia now experiences a new sense of love, the one that consists of kissing and embracing, of physical passion and exhilaration, while simultaneously recognizing her female subordination to the man’s sexual authority:

As soon as she bent her knees, he seized her again with both his hands,

he vehemently pulled her, and forced her to sit, or, rather to collapse,

on him. At the same time, he turned her face, drew it near his lips, and

sealed it with boisterous, persistent kisses … Thalia ceased

[complaining], calmed down, and received his kissing with a passive

surrender and a desperate expression. She was acting as if she was

suddenly facing an overwhelming catastrophe, with no alternative but

to give in … (365, italics mine) … She was just now realizing love.

And since Stratides was the one that forced this awareness on her, —

since he was the first man that dared to embrace her and to kiss her as

if she were his, — she thought that him she had always loved. His male

vigor was compelling upon her, and, what is more, the newly felt

delight in his kissing her. (370, italics mine)

It is this matter-of-fact, commonsense attitude that overpowers Thalia’s body and mind, absorbed until then to the awe-inspiring artistic discussions with Anastes.

Underlying the physical aspect of love, her future husband manages to persuade her for the vigor of his feelings, and introduce her to the erotic desire as the compelling force behind people’s actions:

I am one of those people that hold only the physical affairs to be

meaningful. The spiritual ones, sensed on their own, count for nothing.

123

Just air. And listen to this: To me, this Anastes who did not ever kiss

you, not even once, did not really ever love you. Neither did you

wholly love him, or you would make him kiss you! (359)

This physical triumph of man over woman is another way of indicating the female resignation to male authority, a surrender that centers on the women’s economic dependence on men. Unable to operate as autonomous individuals, women were deprived of opportunities and motives for liberty and creativity, a situation sustained by the social rules and the domesticity principles of the time.

In The Bostonians, however, as Verena matures in the world and learns what it is to be loved (through Olive’s love to her), and to love (through her own thrill for

Basil), she also masters the art of deceiving and manipulating others, a skill that

Thalia will never obtain in Secret Engagements. Her experiences being enriched,

Verena acquires an intensity of awareness, along with an insight on how to lead and exploit others as a means to her own ends. By employing Olive’s former terms of speech in regulating people’s lives, she demonstrates an accumulating oratory of confrontation. In line with Mizruchi’s claims, Olive and Basil are Verena’s eminent archetypes in competently handling the procedures of loving and being loved (175).

Being at a situation of moral strain, Mizruchi states, Verena finds herself within two conflicting aspects of truth which struggle in her to simultaneously affirm their predominant command. Ultimately, for Verena to remain loyal to her notions of a guileless and generous awareness, she has to deny any acts that call upon her self- gratification and self-intention, thus rejecting the booming of her passionate self that longs for Basil. But Basil has the ability to pierce into the young woman’s sensual nature –even Olive admits this nature, accusing her of being made not to suffer, but to enjoy (298). Scheiber finds in this aspect of Verena “her eagerness to be pleased

124

herself, which has no place in Olive’s plans for her”. But Scheiber also notes that sensuality and submission is not all there is in Verena; her mind needs to be enriched

and flourished as does her soul and body, and her attachment to Olive is because she

believed the strict reformer to acquire the truth she was seeking, that would result –

and it did- in her “intellectual blossoming” (242-243).

Only toward the novel’s end does Verena begin to reveal that her intense

selflessness, however lovely, is logically explained: she gives her self painlessly to

Basil and his ideas, because she does not fervently believe in that self. J. A. Rowe

claims it to be “a new inner force” that entails “the private meaning of love that Basil

awakens in her” (164). Thus, in the end, Basil takes over with his male might, and

includes Verena in his life. Her tears that James writes about predict the unavoidable

tension that will distinguish this bond between Basil’s restricting and private love

within the marriage, and Verena’s intense confusion between intellectual repulsion to

her husband’s ideas, and her sexual attraction to him. Scheiber considers Basil to be

using “the instrument of gender to divide and conquer her consciousness,” despite the

antithetical doctrines that each supports: “Verena experiences sensual appeal and

intellectual horror as intimately, inextricably intertwined” (243). Her usually radiant

smile is rooted in her zeal to be surrounded by people content with her and her deeds,

sayings, even thoughts: “ she liked to smile, to please” (54); — she was, after all, a

girl “both submissive and unworldly” (55). For J. A. Rowe Verena gives her own

battle in order to hold on to her voice, personal choice and idiosyncratic moral

development, despite her selfless tendency to please others:32

Verena’s real battle lies in the effort to transform herself from a

symbol, or mere object of others’ desiring, into a woman with enough

125

ego strength to reshape her voice as a medium for self-recognition and

the expression of her own personal style of being. (164)

Scheiber asserts that the major danger derived as a theme in The Bostonians is the stifling of women’s rebellion against preset standards that intend to govern and confine them. Thus, all the Ransoms will easily demeanor all kinds of ambitions and personal plans that all Verenas might express:

What is at stake in The Bostonians is whether human beings — and in

particular women — dare hope for, dare aspire toward, a place in the

world beyond what custom and common usage have assigned them. It

is Verena’s imagined, hoped-for self that Ransom attacks when he

belittles her political activities; … Ransom’s persistent psychic

aggressions finally break down her own self-confidence (which she

derives, in part, from her partnership with Olive), replacing it with his

own limiting signification of her. (244)

Therefore, instead of the novel’s romantic hero who aspires to win the battle,

Basil Ransom is a threat to Verena’s liberty -a threat as alarming as Olive’s. The information that is given about Basil at first, however, refers to his looks and demeanor from an external point of view:

This lean, pale, sallow, shabby, striking young man, with his superior

head, his sedentary shoulders, his expression of bright grimness and

hard enthusiasm, his provincial, distinguished appearance, is, as a

representative of his sex, the most important personage in my

narrative. (6)

As Basil becomes more and more familiar to the readers, he reveals a character of excellence and integrity, with trivial — if any — corrupt weaknesses.33

126

Basil competently attains all the features and aspects of a Southern gentleman34 — the regal head, the slow drawl, the perfected gallantry, the preference for whiskey and cigars; even his blunt and forthright behavior to the others results from his deeply experienced Southerness. A Mississippian and not merely a Southerner, however,

Basil acquires a weak and unconvincing pretence of his origin’s culture and progress.

Behind his apparent courtesy lies an aggressive sexuality,35 as this is proved when he literally seizes Verena in the end. He expresses to Verena his patriarchal and aristocratic — by tradition — views, yet he does so with a clamorous and imperative tone, which reveals his subconscious need to confirm his validity. In his continual and persistent lectures, Basil makes clear his sexual conceit as well as his social insecurity. Conveniently presented a Southerner, Basil, — unlike Olive — is never dubious of his effectiveness, never lacks confidence in his rhetoric and he boldly defends “the masculine character” (322). What is more, he does not ever question the intellectual substance of his words — which could easily be compared to Verena’s

“glass box” speech in defense of the women’s rights, a speech towards which Basil was reasonably scornful.

On the other hand, Basil’s attitude towards Verena appears rather puzzling; it is Verena’s originality36 that initially attracted Basil, her spirited and stimulating qualities that he had not often met in Southern women:

The women he had hitherto known had been mainly of his own soft

Clime … That was the way he liked them — not to think too much, not

to feel any responsibility for the government of the world, such as he

was sure Miss Chancellor felt. If they would only be private and

passive, and have no feeling but for that, and leave publicity to the sex

127

of tougher hide! Ransom was pleased with the vision of that remedy; it

must be repeated that he was very provincial. (11)

Basil falls in love with Verena because she is so different from all the women

he knows, —the women of the South are characterized as “voiceless” by Mrs

Farrinder, (40)— but the irony is that, at the same time, he is resolute about not

allowing Verena to continue cultivating the prerogative of autonomy that gave birth to

her originality; this, besides, is one of the reasons that James predicts Verena’s tears

not to be her last. J. A. Rowe regards Basil’s attitude of confining Verena as actually

turning against him:

The irony in Ransom’s need to control Verena (“if she’s mine, she’s all

mine!”) (427) is that in policing the boundaries of speech he will stamp

out those very elements of spontaneous feeling he treasures in her,

denying her the autonomy which nurtures both intimacy and true

civility. (166)

A parallelism at this point with Secret Engagements would indicate that a

comparable rivalry occurs in Thalia’s case, but here the antagonism is not expressed

through the author’s ideas indirectly represented by his hero, (Anastes, in that case),

but straight from the author himself. Thalia’s talent as a woman painter is not a threat

to Anastes, who, contrarily, wishes the growth and advancement of the girl’s art; the

intimidation is rather experienced by the mistrusting, conformist side of Xenopoulos

towards the eternal competition between Art and Life. The domestically oriented type of living, that entails and presupposes the model of the ideal woman, is opposed to the artist’s lifestyle; it is this scheme of life that Anastes dreads when he considers his future with Katie, and this actually becomes the reality for both artists, Anastes and

Thalia, when they deviate from their creative destination and marry the way they do:

128 the painter’s spontaneity, freedom, and autonomy, the artistic sense of self- determination and denial of society’s formulas, the refusal of a typecast life of propriety, etiquette, and social codes, cannot be applied to the standards of a young woman, especially when this woman has been nurtured to aspire to marriage rather than education and career.37 Art, then, contradicts Life’s pattern of the conventional, yielding, submissive womanhood, and the domineering cliché of piousness, virtue, obedience and docility.

In support of Thalia’s final choice of the domestic, marital bliss, Xenopoulos portrays her convinced about the form of love that her suitor Stratides proposes, and thus engrossed in the life-outline that he proposes. Thus, the author elucidates the process her mind followed, which resulted in the concluding obliteration of the creative urge in her:

She now realized, in his arms, that Stratides was right … Today she

loved for the first time … Stratides was the sole great Artist of Love

and Life, and he would help her love and live. She was reflecting all

his words and movements, from the beginning [of their relation] …

and now everything seemed to her lovely, wise, enjoyable, since their

outcome was her being in his arms (371)

Stratides is solidly presented as a young, attractive, wealthy businessman from

Egypt, who meets Thalia and flirts seriously with her. Although he guesses her feelings for the famous painter, Stratides relies on his charm and confidence to win the girl over, especially since Anastes does not ever openly claim the young woman.

The part of the plot dedicated to this charming suitor is plainly given, his character denoting no complications or bewilderment, unlike Basil’s complex persona: Basil sees himself as a man connected to a respectful tradition, at a time when everything

129

advances rapidly. Classically conservative, he feels superiority amongst the

“womanized” generation which is pervaded by “hollow phrases and false delicacy,”

(260) thus he defines himself as an outcast, consciously confusing those around him: he is certain that Olive “would never understand him,” (18) considering his intellectual preeminence mystifying for her.

Ambitious in his planned and coordinated efforts (“he had always had a desire

for public life; to cause one’s ideas to be embodied in national conduct appeared to

him the highest form of human enjoyment” (148)), Basil also feels nostalgic in a

world that reluctantly accepts his longing for the restoration of past values. Being

“without means, without friends,” without designs for creating a place for himself,

Basil feels precluded and displaced, as is also maintained by Mizruchi: “More than a

world he wishes to revive, Basil’s past affords an escape from a threatening present”

(153). Thus, his passionate concerns render him different: “He was apart, unique, and

had come on a business altogether special” (371).

As the moment of their decisive exit approaches, Basil’s self-centeredness in

his plans for Verena becomes more intense. He perceives the designed “rescue” in

chivalric terms, as a trial of “all his manhood,”(343) and his beliefs are so rigidly

rooted in him, that Verena is rendered “helpless” before Basil’s fierce power of

decision. In the diffident and without solidity age that he lives in, Basil imagines

himself as a triumphant knight who responds to the “tremendous entreaty” that comes

from Olive and Verena (344); in fact, he feels his power and supremacy growing as he

realizes that his time was “talkative, querulous, hysterical, maudlin, full of false ideas,

of unhealthy germs, of extravagant, dissipated habits, for which a great reckoning was

in store,” (149) that the women and men in his environment were insubstantial and

frail. Therefore, for Basil, everything “looked small, surmountable, and of the

130

moment only” (343) and it is from this parody of public life as well as from his personal grip of Olive that he wishes to save Verena, the “half-bedizened damsel”

(48); thus, Basil answers to Verena’s accusations of wishing to destroy women by

silencing them: “No, I don’t want to destroy you, any more than I want to save you …

My interest is in my own sex; yours evidently can look after itself. That’s what I want to save” (259). Consequently, he disregards Verena’s appeals and hesitations before

his organized scheme (53-55, 196-197, 230-232), and in her face he only sees his victory, how she had “evidently given up everything now — every pretence of a

different conviction and of loyalty to her cause” (346).

But, apart from the role of the knight-rescuer, quite often Basil assumes that of

the “monster/enchanter”, to quote M. D. Bell’s characterization (90). In keeping with

this portrayal, he expresses his “monstrous opinions” to Verena in Central Park, and

casts “a spell upon her as she listened” (255). At the final “salvation” scene at the

Boston Music Hall, Basil attacks, gives “inevitable agony” not to the gathered crowd, not to his enemy, Olive, but to Verena herself, the hostage maiden. In retrospect, his behavior at that time brings to mind a rape, rather than a rescue: “ [He] saw that he could do what he wanted, that she begged him, with all her being, to spare her” (343).

Verena “had evidently given up everything now — every pretence of a different conviction and of loyalty to her cause” and begs Basil, “just as any plighted maiden might have asked any favor of her lover,” (346) but in reality she is certainly not

pleading for the conventional favor offered in a romance; Verena is actually imploring

Basil to “go away” (“Now I want you to go away … if you will only go away it’s not too late”), (346), and Scheiber comments: “Significantly, her moment of capitulation is one also of accusation, as if she knows, deep down, that his victory is not a moral

131

one, but a matter of might (and not right) enforcing its definition of her as a woman”

(244).

Very few of James’s stories end in marriage and when they do, the writer

foresees tears and misery. In Verena’s story there seems to be no alternative: she was

“made for love” and Basil is her fate. This view of the female character and the

female destiny by James is mainly applied to women who theoretically deny the

marriage-tie: Following Isabel Archer, Verena (in turn followed by Miriam Roth in

The Tragic Muse) wishes to resist marriage and explore other ways to realize her self.

For Millicent Bell, the questioning of the marriage grandeur by heroines such as

Isabel and Verena is a “transcendental protest of an individuality belonging to a pre-

Civil War social world. In the 1870s, in which The Bostonians is set, the same

question was being asked by politicized feminists” (11). The equality of sexes is a

topic that James does not touch upon very openly and daringly.38 Through the

reference to de Tocqueville,39 Basil’s favorite author, though, Basil’s — and James’s

— views are made clear. According to de Tocqueville, then, women might gain a type

of equality, but one that would never allow them to enter the spheres of business or

politics; this would result in feeble men and rebellious women. Behind the standards

of this delicate, polished conservatism, James’s views are exposed, views that are in

support of the moral superiority of women, but would not ever concede to their social equality. Subtly, James admits that freedom and equality cannot meet; when Verena decides to marry Basil, she believes that she gains her freedom. And yet, she does so at the expense of equality.

However, James is hesitant in presenting the side he considers more substantiated, and thus perplexes the reader who is trying to discover the author’s degree of conservatism — or progressiveness: following Basil’s speech on the brave

132 masculine spirit, James comments: “The poor fellow delivered himself of these narrow notions,” (260) but the case does not close here; the author’s voice is let free and illustrates Basil attacking and criticizing those very attributes, phrases and ideas of modern reformers — “hollow phrases and false delicacy and exaggerated solicitudes and coddled sensibilities”(260) — that the novel induces the reader to disdain. This peculiarity strikes Habegger in Henry James and the “Woman

Business,” who remarks: “The paradox in this situation is that James feels a sneaking admiration for someone who broadcasts an uncompromising scorn of sneaks” (196).

The role that Basil wants for women to play in society is outlined in the statement he makes at Marmion. Verena has just wondered about the meaning of her talent if she is never to use it for delivering a cause, and Basil provides her with his clear and solid views regarding women’s social function: “Believe me, Miss Tarrant, these things will take care of themselves. You won’t sing in the Music Hall, but you will sing to me” (303).

J. A. Rowe comments on Basil’s plan to force Verena into maintaining his definition of masculinity and thus adapt to him wholly: “To keep her at home to sing only for him is metaphorically to ‘do’ to her, to plant her within himself — and so to give him what he lacks and longs for, a sight (and site) of the emotional sources of life” (177). Thus, at Verena’s eagerness to go and calm the anticipating audience whose nature, she feels, is “fine,” Basil responds: “Dearest, that’s one of the fallacies

I shall have to woo you from” (347). For Basil — and James — marriage is a form that confines woman in order to produce marvelous conversation and general sophistication. Taking into account James’s eternal devotion to graciousness and cultivation, it is comprehended that for him, these qualities derive from — and excuse

— a former compelling bondage.

133

The refined female education and manners that indicate a classy upbringing have also been Xenopoulos’s much loved features in a woman’s training, as is revealed in his choice of well-liked and well-bred heroines. In the majority of his novels Xenopoulos describes, with an approving and admiring manner, those female figures that acquire the quality of compliance and delicacy, the proper elements for a competent wife, mother, and hostess. In other words, the middle class ideal of the

“Lady of Leisure,” also applies to mid-nineteenth-century Greece: the pattern that

Xenopoulos denotes is that of the dedicated-to-her-duties woman, who moreover delights in the lavish and costly commodities, especially when these contribute to her classy exterior. The Lady of Leisure does not only concede to the capitulation of her personality by surrendering to the codes of “correctness,” but also yields to the oppression of her external appearance, by the conventions for external, socially graceful appearance.

The woman who was raised to abide by the “delicate flower” commands, responded in actuality to the “submissive maiden” prototype that prohibited her from obtaining her physical strength, her healthy ambitions about a career, her autonomy within marriage, even her intellectual development (Cogan, 3-4). This fragile model of woman entailed the domesticity principle, which in turn promoted and established the specific, limited female role: being a wife and mother, while functioning mainly as the caring, cultivating, religious, and moral force within the family. The literature of domesticity, consequently, engulfed this conservative and traditional understanding of the women’s place, and thus produced corresponding heroines.

Accordingly, in Secret Engagements, the contrasting power between the home and the world is evident in the oppositional feelings Thalia’s and Katie’s personalities create in Anastes’s soul: on the one hand there is the artistic, free, liberal and exciting

134

life of a painter, — a life reinforced by the support and inspirational presence of

Thalia — and on the other the predictable, conservative, secure and traditional life indicated by Katie’s moral and pious presence. With his choosing Katie for his wife, though, Anastes enters a whole different mind frame, since he naturally becomes receptive to his wife’s -inartistic- influence, which disheartens the advancement of the painter in him: worried about a headache that had tortured her fiancé, Katie blames his art for overwhelming him:

“It was a nervous tension headache … you must not work so hard …

Oh, this art of painting … what do you want with it? You act like

those who rely on selling a picture for their food … Enough is enough

… You created, you created more, you have had your portion of glory,

now it is time to stop. Now you have your little Katie.” (89)

And later, when already married, she dampens Anastes’s spirits about going to an Art

Exhibition in Milan, without even expressing her objection to it: Anastes is already aloof to his former passion: “ ‘And the Artistic Exhibition in Milan?’ Katie whispered. ‘Never mind… I have now totally lost my desire for it. I don’t give a damn for all the exhibitions of the world. My little Katie is all I want … ’ ” (340-341).

But the domestic ideal is a prevailing principle in Thalia’s mentality as well; heartbroken that she cannot be with Anastes for life, the same girl who dared to

propose to her loved-one an affair outside marriage, admits that the prospect of a

conjugal life with Anastes is preferred to her pursuing her art alone, in Europe; in one

of her letters to Anastes, Thalia discloses her secret, holy dream of their future:

Where is my dreamy little shelter … where is my warm little house?

Alas! Now [I will cope with] the cold student’s room, the loneliness in

a foreign place, the strenuous practice in the drawing room. Yes, I will

135

do my best, and I may even one day become a great artist, a celebrated

one, as you also believe me to become. But I would turn down all glory

and praise — if I ever receive such recognition — for a happy, quiet,

humble little life, short, very short, just like I have dreamed it! … This

is the life I was destined for. (174-175, italics mine)

In The Bostonians, Basil’s cornerstones in ideology challenge Olive’s doctrine

and viewpoint, and render him her main and most dangerous adversary. This Southern

gentleman who is governed by the old values and acquires very conservative ideas, is

devoted to a cause of his own: to preserve the “masculine tone” in a femininely raving

age, to establish his perception of the women’s destined role: the “domestic

affections,”40 a restricted and restricting area where he seeks to draw Verena into. It is

not a union of souls that Basil offers Verena, but rather an intimate, selective, and

exceptional love. When he first hears her inspirational speaking at Miss Birdseye’s, he

cannot but smile “at the sweet grotesqueness of this virginal creature’s standing up

before a company of middle-aged people to talk to them about ‘love’ ” (50). Basil’s

traditional guard and old-fashioned mentality, provide him with narrow-mindedness

just like Olive’s — only that he leads his way less exhaustingly and hard than her.

In Central Park Verena becomes captivated —on this level, she is merely

mesmerized, not yet a literal captive— by Basil’s “deep, sweet, distinct voice,” although he expresses what to her are “monstrous opinions” with “exotic cadences”

(255). These same opinions, however, persuade Verena of the “want of reality” in her bond to the feminist movement. Unprotected, exposed, and susceptible to his sarcasm

that her “connection with all these rantings and ravings is the most unreal, accidental,

illusory thing in the world,” Verena becomes miserable in her certainty that Basil’s

presentation of her role and character is painfully true: “That description of herself as

136 something different from what she was trying to be, the charge of want of reality, made her heart beat with pain; … it was her real self that was there with him now, where she oughtn’t be” (263). J. Gooder claims this to be the starting point for the equation of her “real self” with her sexual self, a selfhood that Basil calls for, even demands of her, and Olive fearfully repudiates: “The narrative appears to concede that

Verena too has ‘succumbed to the universal passion.’ Without too much difficulty, it seems: ‘it was simply that the truth had changed sides’ ” (110).

In most aspects, Verena’s relation to Basil suggests that it will be even more repressive than her relationship with Olive. The girl’s willingness to hold “her tongue” (253) and to cease the public speeches reveals the power and influence of this affair on Verena. Moreover, the confining nature of their meetings and their prospect, introduce to Verena a force of sexuality she had never experienced before, and at the same time shatter any chance of equality, the establishment of which is Olive and

Verena’s actual purpose. It is the realization of the exact threat that Olive had warned

Verena about: “There are gentlemen in plenty who would be glad to stop your mouth by kissing you” (107). Thomas compares the above image to the scene between Basil and Verena in Cambridge: “If that scene culminates in a handshake, the act most symbolic of contractual relations between equal partners, the kiss is an act most symbolic of sealing the contract between husband and wife” (68). The novel’s final scene foreshadows the circumstances of Verena’s married life; when Basil with his

“muscular force” pulls Verena away from Olive’s clutch, he shoves “the hood of

Verena’s long cloak over her head, to conceal her face and her identity” (349). In fact, her identity will be well isolated and unheard in the domestic sphere she is about to enter, where Verena will be allowed no room of her own: she will be absorbed by her husband’s actuality, she will have her voice silenced.

137

This lack of the voice, whose commander will be Verena herself, is the reason

for the vulnerability and allure that she pronounces to those who use her to deliver their own opinions. Her ideas, though, were not the reason for Olive and Basil being so attracted to her; Olive resists the notions of free union, and Basil rejects her notions of every aspect — as he tells Miss Birdseye, “ Does a woman consist of nothing but her opinions? I like Miss Tarrant’s lovely face better, to begin with”(171). As she performs in New York, Basil finds himself under the spell of her voice, but does not question that “the matter of her speech was ridiculous … She was none the less charming for that, and the moonshine she had been plied with was none the less moonshine for her being charming” (206). It is this voice, and not her views, that transcribe Verena so seductive a woman and represents her “character.” Thomas estimates this to be indicating the blankness of Verena’s essence, which, still, renders her fragile and charming: “There is, in fact, no better expression of the emptiness at the core of her being than the discrepancy between her voice and the ideas that she expresses. It is, however, that emptiness that allows her to be both vulnerable and

seductive” (83).

The novel’s ending implies that Verena wants to talk, that she is struggling

against Basil’s confinement as she fought against Olive’s restricting ideology. But

Basil remains aloof to all her pleas and desperate gestures — he only acknowledges

his own victory and passion for her. These, after all, are the terms under which he

understands his relation to Verena: those that reinforce his own ego — dominance,

possession, authority, command. Fetterley believes Basil to despise women as

deficient creatures, yet efficient to influence others; therefore, they should be

controlled through confinement. Consequently, she wonders: “With all admirable

qualities categorically assigned to the masculine character and hence to men, and with

138

the feminine equated with the damnable, it is difficult to understand why Ransom

wishes to possess himself of any woman, especially one as feminine as Verena”

(131).

For Bender The Bostonians is read on the basis of Darwin’s The Descent of

Man, where sexual selection stands as the premium criterion for a personal

relationship. Thus, the novel, Bender says, is not a “love” story at all, but is a book

about sexual selection and courtship; according to Darwin, the principles of these

themes are attraction, “the law of battle,” the male’s possession of the female, and, partly, — in James’s view — female “choice.” Bender cites these standards and estimates them to be the reality lurking under James’s cruel attack on women: Dr.

Prance’s ironic view on courtship, Ransom’s hearty laugh before the “grotesque” scene with the virginal Verena talking to the middle-aged crowd about “love,” and

Olive’s final avowal of her disempowered influence on Verena. Bender considers

James “very careful” in the way he presents his subtle comments, as the author “will arrange for Ransom to win Verena on his terms;” thus he never tells her that he loves her, he only declares that “the use of a truly amiable woman is to make some honest man happy,” and that Verena should “be charming for” him (186-187).

The primitiveness that Basil acquires is linked to his Southerness, and his courtship procedure indicates his unquestionable male force. Yet James does not suppress his own voice to the end, so he associates, towards the novel’s end, Basil’s successful seizure of Verena with the Southerner’s experience with slavery. “Hasn’t he the delicacy of one of his slave-owners?” Olive wonders in anger; and Verena

replies that she doesn’t “loathe him — I only dislike his opinions” (363). In

explaining Basil’s obsession about abducting Verena, James writes:

139

When [Verena] laughed and said she didn’t see how he could stop her

[from pursuing her career] unless he kidnapped her, [Ransom] really

pitied her for not perceiving, beneath his ominous pleasantries, the

firmness of his resolution. He felt almost capable of kidnapping her.

(306)

Thus, when Basil does finally kidnap her with his “muscular force,” James

“not only argues,” to quote Bender, “that the primitive male force is indomitable, he also suggests that, in the psychological makeup of a certifiably rational male, the primitive force is to some extent hidden from his own view” (188). In fact, this marriage settles the reformist issue in step with James’s principles on the matter. After all those speeches and discussions about the improvement, the progress, and the autonomy of women’s lives, Verena finally chooses marriage and a husband that will reduce her to being married “beneath herself” (38), as Jacobson puts it; she, a woman who revels in pretty things and has the opportunity to be financially independent if

she chooses, decides to be the wife of a poor man (Basil, in all probability, will

remain a poor man), endangering the delicate balance between gaining and losing his

wife’s respect and admiration. The reform movement has ignored human nature and

the power of sexuality — Verena’s choice and fate affirm this human drive and

ridicule the ideology’s endurance. In this reading, The Bostonians is a poignant and

cynical novel.

Many are those (scholars, critics, students) that have wondered whose side

James is on in the novel; I believe that in The Bostonians James is firmly behind his

hero: When James displays Basil’s ideas on the differences between the two sexes,

concealed behind an inclination to treat him with humor or even sarcasm, a strong

feeling of respect is depicted for this man. Basil appears to have counteracted the

140

crude indecency, the lack of delicacy and refinement and the debasement of dignity

and privacy that prevail in the America of the time, and thus deserves the author’s

admiration and appreciation:

He was addicted with the ladies to the old forms of address and of

gallantry; he held that they were delicate, agreeable creatures, whom

Providence had placed under the protection of the bearded sex; and …

whatever might be the defects of Southern gentlemen, they were at any

rate remarkable for their chivalry. (151)

In this view, Basil is not a conservative caricature, but rather a noble person, still holding on to the notions of elegance, pride, credit, and dignity. And yet, the suspected element in this alliance with Basil is not the sudden praise of the young man, but rather its aspired veiling. Although Basil’s opinion on women seems to be simply reported by the narrator, still James subtly and discreetly argues (“it may be said”) that Basil perceives the notion of politeness more wholly than the suffragists, placing thus his reactionary ideology in contrast to the reformers’ bad manners:41

“[Basil thought] that women were essentially inferior to men, and infinitely tiresome when they declined to accept the lot which men had made for them … He admitted their rights; these consisted in a standing claim to the generosity and tenderness of the stronger race” (193).

These “advantages” granted to women when accepting the “lot” of uniting to the “stronger race,” were often given through the state of being married per se, and the term “advantages” does not always include literal marital bliss: with few exceptions, James’s novels depict marriage as the most practicable alternative for women, one that covers more domains of their lives than any other option. The fearful prospect of a woman remaining single, frequently leads his heroines to ruinous

141

marriages to the wrong partners, thus resulting to the tragic pattern of destructive marriages in James’s work.42

Consequently, Basil often sees, hears, judges, and feels through James, and

both author and character acclaim the same preferred aspects of art, press, race,

charm; the novel wishes for its readers to be fond of Basil, to support his career route,

to approve of his romance life, to admit the uprightness of his conventional

opinions,43 to admire him as a traditionally presented thinker. For Habegger in Henry

James and the “Woman Business,” James takes sides and therefore his crusty tone is

expected, since the author

has all along given tremendous scornful emphasis to the woman’s

unadmitted snobbery. Without seeming to know it, the author is

identifying with “the poor fellow” who triumphantly defies the

congregated reformers of Boston and forcefully wrenches away their

rising star. (189)

Even the criticism that James casts upon his hero is not aggressive, but rather

mild and superficial: the vulgarity of the reformers proves Basil’s antidemocratic

notions justifiable, and Verena’s choice of heart verifies his conviction that she does

not really care about the emancipation of women. As Habegger in Henry James and

the “Woman Business” states, “The reality James fabricates says that Basil is right”

(191), and he later concludes, arguing about James’s attempt to show and face the

aggressive male power: “Basil is a projection of James’s peculiar conservatism, and

even more of the external power that forced that conservatism on him and rendered

his embrace of it simultaneously compulsive and factitious” (193).

This divergence on an ideological and practical level between the male and

female dogmas is not as obviously manifested in Secret Engagements. Xenopoulos

142

does not discuss overtly the feminist movement, and he does not intend to depict an

authoritative hero willing to subdue a passive heroine; the plot presents an open-

minded male character, Anastes, who aims at imposing no power or will on the

heroine. The sole commanding figure is Stratides, Thalia’s suitor, who exhibits certain

patriarchal traits, but is barely given any space in the novel. The common ground for

comparing Secret Engagements to The Bostonians is the authors’ intention to apply

the patriarchal philosophy on their heroines’ evolution as characters in the two novels.

In fact, the “interaction” that James reveals to have with his hero is present in

Xenopoulos’s novel only in that he was indeed the protagonist of this autobiographically-based story. In every other aspect, no thoughts or views by the novelist are transferred to Anastes, as is the case with James and Basil.

Behind the plot’s treatment of Thalia’s destiny, therefore, lies the conventional side of Xenopoulos.44 Here, again, marriage is noted as the most viable option for the

heroine’s future and this conservative scheme for the fate of an aspiring, talented

artist, develops with the support of the entire social order’s rules. Despite the realistic

writing style, then, the novel reveals its instructive, moralizing purpose: to prove the

influence and command of the social and moral doctrine, which supports marriage

and domesticity to be the ideal way towards happiness for women.45 Therefore,

Thalia’s father is proud that Anastes has a high regard for his daughter’s painting

competence, but does not fully consent to the painter’s suggestion that she leave the

country to prolong her studies in Munich:

“Really?” Mr. Demades replied, satisfied. “But, of course, not just yet

… Let her finish her School first … we’ll see … ” And to shorten this

discussion that perhaps displeased him, since the old man’s plans, for

143

the time being, were to marry Thalia off to a fine marriage rather than

send her abroad, — he went on [changing the subject] (148)

James conceived the story of Verena, Basil and Olive, not as a dramatic

representation of a girl’s sacrifice to exploitation, but as a forceful indication that the reformers’ disoriented notions will eventually — though painfully — be replaced by the so far abolished “sentiment of sex” (Complete Notebooks, 20). This victory, however, as is indicated by Verena’s final tears, does not constitute the happy ending of the story; neither do the tears state a necessarily unhappy union between the couple. It certainly describes a natural ending, or, even, a union in accordance to

James’s reality, to the idea that all in human relationships should be accomplished through pain, duty and obligation. As the British Quarterly Review put it in 1886, the book’s aim is “to justify the life of women in the sphere most natural to it — the sphere of home and family influence, and to show how much is lost alike to her and to

the world whenever she makes any attempt to pass beyond it” (160).

The plot’s turn in Secret Engagements originates in the profusion of the

“sentimental stories” in the post-war Greek literary production. Accordingly, female

emancipation acquires the form dictated by the sentimental novel, where the urban

class frame of mind creates equivalent ideals on love and life. The socially outlined

standards suppressed women into definite roles, thus prohibiting them from pursuing

their personal dreams and inclinations. Thalia and Anastes eventually sacrificed their

feelings to the social duty, declined the fulfillment of true love to conform to their

responsibilities to their world at large, and they separated, in order to safeguard their

attachment to their social system, their community, and their circle.

In doing so, though, they put an end not only to their love story, but also to

their opportunities to flourish and thrive as artists, especially if they became a couple.

144

Anastes, then, becomes a respectable family man, always attractive but now with a

common and ordinary gaze, which is deprived of the artist’s sparkle and passion:

“The artist had faded in him, he had died. Now only the family man, the man of the world was alive. His dreams were now different, his ideals different, the pleasures different, the habits, life itself” (439). Thalia is now a celebrated lady of high society, recognized and admired for her beauty, style, and wealth, traveling around the same

Europe she had once visited as an art student. All in all, “Their lives had taken different ways” (440).

When Anastes and Thalia eventually meet after a long period of time, they realize that they have both wasted their lives and talent, to follow the dream of marriage and family, a dream imposed on them by others: “Why did you stop working?” Thalia inquires, to receive Anastes’s emotional avowal: “ ‘I left my Art … that is all I know’ … for the first time he too contemplated what he could have become, and what he really was … ” (444); and Thalia, the promising young painter that had impressed everyone with her exceptional gift, also acknowledges her degradation: “I could have actually become something. But I consumed myself in being beautiful and having fun. I was a person … and I became a beast, wearing diamonds and parading in cars!” (445). In the novel’s final pages the two lovers become conscious of the actual cause of their separation, (Ambrosia’s good-intention interfering), only it is too late to try and restore anything. Behind this “fictional” truth, however, lies Xenopoulos’s truth, the real objective of the plot he created: the capitulation of the woman artist into marriage, thus establishing the domestic ideal as the accepted and appreciated pattern of a girl’s life. Besides, as DuPlessis supports, it

is only by confronting the societal status quo that a woman can pursue her self- realization through art:

145

The woman artist is not privileged or mandated to find her self-in the

world except by facing (affronting?) and mounting an enormous

struggle with the cultural fictions — myths, narratives, iconographies,

languages — which heretofore have delimited the representation of

women. (274)

The tragedy that Anastes and Thalia experience in the end is explicated through the terrible misunderstanding that deceived them, and hence they blame Fate, not society, for their dreadful conclusion; the concealed message is, though, that the woman ultimately conforms to the social patterns, even though Anastes and Thalia appear overpowered by this obedience to duty: “Thalia lowered her head, as if embarrassed to have uttered these words, and ceased talking. Anastes observed her, bent as she was, and she seemed to him defeated, lost, miserable … — two tears leveled to his eyes” (445, italics mine). Holding destiny responsible for their lives’ turn, Anastes merely sheds tears “grieving over his lost life, his lost ideal, his lost happiness” (446).

In Secret Engagements, Xenopoulos does not directly reveal his prevailing ideology behind the treatment of the novel’s heroine. Similarly to James, Xenopoulos, as the narrator, withdraws, so as to permit the readers to draw their own interpretation about the incidents and ideas presented in the novel. Therefore, female emancipation is not depicted as a major issue that occupies the women characters; in fact, it is barely mentioned in the whole text; there appears to be no reaction whatsoever as to the lack of financial and personal autonomy of women, a fact that illustrates the discouraged endorsement of a feminist line. The woman’s marriage and raising of family is presented as the law of nature, a law that is imposed by the social order that women are expected to obey.

146

Thalia, then, is destined to marry, and supposed to marry well; and although the author portrays her as a dynamic and passionate creature, and, in particular, as an artistic, gifted nature, he eventually silences her into conventionality. The heroine is deprived of a chance to react, to protest, and to overturn her position; the author concludes the novel with an image of passivity, defeat, submission to destiny, and compliance to the rules.

Evasive in providing overt authorial remarks, Xenopoulos expresses his ideas and comments in a subtle and indirect manner, behind understated explanations and restrained observations that nevertheless reveal his conservative ideological orientation. In diminishing the outspoken and talented nature of his heroine,

Xenopoulos allows the traditional, patriarchal values to prevail, even in Anastes’ final turn towards the believed domestic, marital bliss: “Anastes did not now live but for his wife. He, who placed nothing above his Art, who had even loved Thalia through this Art’s force of love, spent all his time detecting, guessing, planning for and realizing Katie’s wishes … It was not a mere adoration; it was a passive submission”

(395). Xenopoulos sensibly admits that this was a strange reaction by an artist like

Anastes, but soon provides the same explanation that Stratides bestowed on Thalia, in clarifying the reason why the two lovers and artists were consumed by domestically oriented partners:

It was one of the miracles of Love. Not Anastes’s love, but Katie’s

love. Because she was the most dynamic, the most potent … Willingly

or not, Anastes could not but to be overwhelmed and to submit …

Katie was able to detach him from [Thalia], with the same force that

she would slowly detach him from his Art and from any other kind of

Love. He was now hers. (396)

147

In The Bostonians, despite the delicacy that James assigns to his declaration of his ideas about women, the reader can distinguish a design to downgrade their intelligence and competence; thus Basil observes: “[women] have no business to be reasonable” (216).46 James’s bias as author/narrator is made clear. The way he directs the novel’s attitude towards Verena, even though he does not resent her as a character, betrays a reluctance to acknowledge positive, admirable and respectful traits in her – and, consequently, in the women characters in support of the feminist movement in general.

At this point, Verena’s matured sense of self urges her to even mislead Olive in order to continue her relationship with Basil; but James does not allow her this growth: he either disapproves of, or fails to perceive the development of consciousness that occurs in Verena. Kearns points out that even in the final scene, where the young woman experiences intense contradictory impulses, James undermines the manifestation of her feelings. The powerful moments of her inner fight are denoted in her exclamations: “Oh, why did you come — why, why? And

Verena, turning back, threw herself upon him with a protest which was all, and more than all, a surrender” (345); and later: “ ‘Ah, now I am glad!’ said Verena, when they reached the street. But though she was glad, [Basil] presently discovered that, beneath her hood, she was in tears” (349-350). As maintained by Kearns, Basil “has won possession of the prize,” but James undervalues the conflict: “for him, as for Basil, it seems to be a matter of a simple contradiction between her words and her tears. Of what, or for what, is Verena glad? Neither man asks that question” (179).

In the same spirit Scheiber considers James to be more in support of Basil than the latter deserves it, presenting the young Southerner as a glorious — and occasionally even brute — force that saves Verena from the hands of an authoritative

148

uncanny feminist, whereas for Scheiber “it is Ransom — and not Olive — whose

restrictive, conventional view of Verena becomes the grindstone of her fate” (248).

Therefore, the female presence is once more belittled, since the focal point becomes

not Verena’s internal judgment, emotions, and thoughts, but the contender of the –

silenced — maiden’s future, Basil or Olive. The fact that Basil appears as the “savior-

prince” whereas he actually is “a greater evil” than the “wicked witch” Olive, is, as

Scheiber estimates, James’s ultimate effort to present the male authority as spotless and noble, and the reformist movement futile and unhealthy. But the situation is not

quite so, since, to quote Scheiber, “while one [Olive] may lead forward into a

fearsome moral wilderness, the latter [Basil] points the way to cynicism, stasis, —

and, finally, silence” (249).

Fetterley reports fatalism in the novel, expressed through Verena’s surrender

to Basil, which is attributed to the forces of the male and female nature: Basil is born

to be masculine, thus born to victory and power, born “to press, to press, always to

press,” and Verena (and Olive, too,) is born to weakness and defeat, born to please

and be exploited. Consequently, Fetterley supports, women’s condition is hopelessly

static and self-destructive — a point that reminds us of the fact that the true subject47 of The Bostonians is not love, but power:

[I]f these things are unchangeable facts, then women are indeed

doomed to be exploited and their talents doomed to be lost to the

general good and swallowed up in the private service of the individual

male. But the vision that results from James’s fatalism is even more

bitter than this … [the women] are doomed to find their fulfillment and

their happiness in so yielding. (150)

149

Nevertheless, to return to the issue of power as a given to Basil by James

himself, it is evident that most of Basil’s attitudes and ideologies on sexual, marital,

and political matters are accepted as right by James’s consciousness. As a thoroughly

conservative male,48 James had serious qualms about “the decline of the sentiment of

sex,” a decline rooted in the overall Victorian sexual attitude that promoted a protective and gallant treatment of the weaker sex. He therefore sprightly reveals his anger and concern about the progress and reform that the rhetoric in The Bostonians promises.

In fact, one of the reasons that render The Bostonians a special novel, apart from its humor and tangibility, its concern with and dramatization of social and political issues, is the fact that its setting, plot, and ideas portray the author’s consciousness of the world and himself. In no other novel did James reveal so openly aspects of himself, his society, his time, the human nature as it is trapped between the conflict of the progressively new against the traditionally old. F.R. Leavis regards it to be one of the most brilliant novels in the English language, and Lansdown describes it as

[…] a remarkably experimental modern novel, written by a man of

conservative values. It is judgemental about people with whom its

author identified, and lenient towards attitudes hostile to large areas of

James’s own intellectual and personal inheritance. The strength of the

contradictions embodied in the novel are a guarantee of the pleasure it

has to give. (xxviii)

Similarly, Secret Engagements is one of Xenopoulos’s most interesting and powerful novels; although the majority of his urban fiction contains autobiographical elements, this is the sole work actually based on a real-life incident. In Secret

150

Engagements Xenopoulos provides details about his inner dreams and expectations at

a critical time of his life, avows his intimate dilemmas, and reveals significant parts of

his most private correspondence with a known woman poet of Greek literature. With

honesty, humor, delicacy and emotion, Xenopoulos produces an exciting novel, with a

touching dramatization of life’s coincidences and open opportunities, thus underlying

the substance of pursuing one’s dreams, as opposed to society’s demands and

conventions.

The common attribute of both novels is, ultimately, the issue of power or the loss of it — may that be a man’s command of a woman’s will, or the authority of the

male-oriented mentality over a woman’s decisions. It is what Cixous calls “victory”

of man where hierarchy is concerned:

Organization by hierarchy makes all conceptual organization subject to

man. Male privilege, shown in the opposition between activity and

passivity, which he uses to sustain himself. Traditionally, the question

of sexual difference is treated by coupling it with the opposition:

activity / passivity. (232)

It is then defeat that the novels’ heroines experience, despite their apparent initiative

and active determination. Verena, in due course, does not flee from oppression, and

Thalia is subdued to a permanent loss of the person that could fulfill her as a person;

in line with the question of the identity of victory and power, Baym, in Woman’s

Fiction states:

When a woman turns to marriage or elopement as escape, she finds

herself enthralled to a tyrant even worse then the one she fled. Her trial

is not evaded, only reformulated. And … many heroines … hence

151 learn that they cannot depend on marriage for identity or meaning in their lives. (40-41)

152

Notes

1 Even the independent women who liked to flirt and tease, maintained the

perception that a woman’s natural life is marriage and family. In Carey’s Lover or

Friend (1890) the heroine is so altered by love, that she ceases to aspire to freedom; a

woman who persists on flirting and rejecting men ends up without friends or social

approval, even unmarriageable, as is the case of Cynthia in Gaskell’s Wives and

Daughters (1866). James transfers his flirtatious Daisy Miller (1879) to Europe,

where, oblivious to keeping up appearances, Daisy mocks hypocrisy and, although

unmarried, flirts: she maintains her personal virtue and essential innocence, – to her

death –, but she transcends the limits, dares and defies, and thus is not accepted by the

European community which prevents her from marrying up to the story’s ending with

Daisy Miller’s death.

2 Varika refers to the extremely high percentage of married women in

nineteenth-century Greece, a fact that proves the strong social disapproval of female

celibacy: in 1880 almost 97% of Greek women at marriageable age were married,

while in Italy and Portugal this leveled only up to 88% and 80%, respectively (94).

3 Kallirroe Parren (1861-1940), one of the first Greek feminists and the most

radical in the women’s fight for the elevation of their sex, also supported the necessity

of a special training that would prepare girls for their future tasks and obligations as wives, mothers, and hostesses. For further information on K. Parren, also see Varika

Eleni: The Revolution of the Ladies, 27, and n.2.

4 In Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley (1849) girls’ lives are defined by marriage,

which is indicated as the “ordinary destiny”:

Till lately I had reckoned securely on the duties and affections of wife

and mother to occupy my existence. I considered, somehow, as a

153

matter of course, that I was growing up to the ordinary destiny (158)

… “The great wish-the sole aim of every one of them is to be married

… They scheme, they plot, they dress to ensnare husbands” (348).

In Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South (1855) this “ordinary destiny” is also perceived as normal and essential, as one character explains, the woman’s innate aim of life being the family: “ as I have neither husband nor child to give me natural duties, I must make myself some, in addition to ordering my gowns” (417).

5 On the issue of female education in Greece, Eleni Lianopoulou reports

relevant sources in her dissertation “Greek Women Fiction Writers in the Mid-War

Period (1921-1944),” 20, n.7.

6 Some representative names of Greek women pioneers of the Greek Feminist movement are: Sapfo Leontias (1832-1900), Kalliope Kehagia (1839-1905), Ekaterini

Laskaridou (1842-1916), and especially Kallirroe Parren (1861-1940), who additionally made available for the Greek Feminists their first journalistic force, the

Ladies’ Journal, (Εφηµερίς των Κυριών) which became, until 1917, their main vehicle for their emancipating propaganda.

7 The deviation of women from the strict sexual restraint was condemned by

society, whose central members, such as the father, the husband, and the brother, were

to severely punish the liable female person.

8 See also Bakalaki and Elegmitou, 128-129.

9 The conduct guides, imported also in Greece from America and the rest of

Europe, imposed the rules for the proper behavior, both in the practical household

responsibilities, and in the sector of marital harmony. The decency referred to in these

manuals underlies the private part of the wedded life, which belonged wholly to the

woman. Being responsible for the care of the inner face of her family, the woman was

154

also accountable for the image this family presented to the outer world. Bakalaki and

Elegmitou cite a number of conduct guides’ titles that Greek women scholars translated into Greek: Rallou Soutzou translated the Advice of a Mother to Her

Daughter (Avis d’une mère a sa fille) by Madame Anne Thérèse de Lambert, first published in France in 1734; Ekaterini Soutzou translated the Dialogues of Phocion

(Entretiens de Phocion sur le rapport de la morale avec la politique), by Abbey G.

Bonnot de Malby, and Evanthia Kairi translated the Advice to My Daughter (Conseils a ma fille), published in 1811 in Paris by Jean Nicolas Bouilly.

10 A number of Greek fiction critics have noted that quite often in

Xenopoulos’ novels, despite the idealism with which his heroines are pictured, there

are morally corrupt traits attributed to them; they are then perceived as unable to

control their sexual urges, thus needing a male presence to guide and control them, so

that they are not lost in sin.

11 Henry James wrote to his brother William on 13 June 1886:

Let me also say that if I have displeased people, as I hear, by calling

the book The Bostonians – this was done wholly without invidious

intention. I hadn’t a dream of generalizing – but thought the title

simple and handy, and meant only to designate Olive and Verena by it,

as they appeared to the mind of Ransom, the southerner and outsider,

looking at them from New York (The Selected Letters of Henry James,

Vol III, 121)

12 James made a fresh start in his life and work when in the autumn of 1883 he

returned to London. He had been following the progress of the group of French

writers he had met in 1875, and especially that of Emile Zola, and in 1884 he visited

Zola, Goncourt, and Daudet. Daudet’s work L’Evangéliste inspired James to write

155

The Bostonians. In fact, the French group and the Naturalist mode in particular, influenced James in the formation of his major writings of the period.

13 James actually knew relatively little about the feminist movement, and

critics have found this lack of actual knowledge apparent in the novel. M. Jacobson

calls attention to the differences between James’s feminists in the novel and the actual

women of the 1870s (24).

14 The British reviewers practically ignored the book, holding it to be an entire

failure, whereas American reviewers criticized its unpleasant characters and its slow-

moving descriptive style.

15 James referred to the failure of the New York edition in one of his letters to

Edmund Gosse: “I should have liked to review it for the Edition — it would have

come out a much truer and more curious thing (it was meant to be curious from the

first) … I should have liked to write that Preface to The Bostonians — which will

never be written now” (778). Furthermore, James’s publisher (Osgood) declared

bankruptcy, thus leaving the novelist unpaid for the serial.

16 I. Kollaros Publications first published Secret Engagements in book form in

1929.

17 In Xenopoulos’s autobiography publication by Biris in 1969, it was stated that the real Thalia was the known poet Theoni Drakopoulou, the “Mirtiotissa,”

mother of the well-known actor Yiorgos Papas.

18 Some representative names of women writers of the 1850s and 1860s are

those of Louisa May Alcott, Anne Moncure Crane, Rebecca Harding Davis, Adeline

Whitney, and Elizabeth Stoddard.

19 The American feminism originated in the abolitionist movement when many

women decided to campaign for their rights as well as for abolition, after they were

156

denied speaking on the lecture platform. Post-war feminism was led by women like

Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward Howe and Lucretia Mott, whose earlier political experience had been an abolitionist one. After the war the feminist movement came naturally to assume the place in the minds of reformers that abolitionism occupied before.

20 Fulton comments on the contribution of Dr. Prance’s role in the novel’s

intention to question the women’s movement:

Not only does Dr. Prance value the sort of “real and quiet” work she

does in her office over the social activism that occupies Olive and the

others; her character serves to discredit the suffrage movement on the

whole as an enemy to women’s professional advancement as well!

(246)

21 The Bostonians was a work intended to compete in the mass market, thus the choice of the specific subject matter was an attractive means for James’s projection of a novel that aspired at attracting popular attention.

22 The number of dramatic oppositions in The Bostonians affirms the

presentation of America as a conflict-ridden nation, where the Civil War has not yet

ended. Thus in Boston, Miss Birdseye’s old-fashioned democratic humanitarianism

contrasts with the modern self-serving ideas of Olive Chancellor and Miss Farrinder.

In the area of cultural supremacy Boston competes with New York; North and South

are noted in conflict in the face of Basil Ransom, the refugee from Mississippi who

has come to New York, and that of Olive Chancellor; accordingly, the republican

manners oppose the aristocratic etiquette, and the liberal philosophies rival the

conservative ones.

157

23 This is a view that entails truth and reason, since the loss of men from the

North was grave, and thus The Bostonians’ Boston is illustrated with few and

ineffective men.

24 Jacobson refers to the Puritan-viewed human history as a long, dark period, which will be ended when God will conduct the human affairs and will put an end to

Satan’s work forever. In Olive’s mind, Jacobson states, only the names are changed: the history of mankind is the history of womankind, and Satan is the male sex. (34-

35).

25 Relationships between single women in late nineteenth-century New

England were common and called “Boston marriages.” James’s clever but unstable

sister, Alice, had, in the latter part of her life, formed such a relation with a woman

named Katharine Peabody Loring. Henry James was very fond of his sister and an

anxiety about this kind of friendships is spotted in The Bostonians.

26 McCall cites an academic dialogue between Daniel Aaron and Professor

Howe on the authentic force that drives Olive’s actions: is it her genuine concern for

the wrongs of women, or simply a lesbian desire? The question remains unanswered:

Professor Howe reports students asking him, “Did James know Olive

was a lesbian?” It’s a queer question. Olive is a lesbian, of course she

is — what is this nonsense about James not knowing? When he was

mapping out the plot, he said to himself, “The relation of those two

girls should be a study of one of those friendships between women

which are so common in New England.” (93)

27 Another suitor interested in Verena is Henry Burrage, son of a wealthy and authoritative American matron, and supporter of the movement. A collector of rare

items, Henry has a talent for arrangement and considering human beings as still-life

158

objects; he is fascinated by Verena with the enthusiasm he would feel for an antique or a precious drawing: he sees her as an inimitable article. (The Bostonians, p. 115)

28 “The great sisterhood of women,” Verena asserted, “should quench

[suffering], we should make it still, and the sound of our lips would become the voice

of universal peace” (50).

29 It is the equivalent of a School of Fine Arts.

30 Thalia’s wise cousin, Ambrosia, who believes deeply the union of the souls to be the prerequisite for a happy relationship, views Thalia and Anastes as the ideal

couple. When she contemplates that each coupled with another person by the end of the novel, Ambrosia laments:

Neither will develop the Self so as to achieve the perfect happiness;

because neither will be as useful to the World at large, which is of

outmost importance! This could be obtained only if Anastes married

Thalia and Stratides — for example — married Katie. This would be

the sole way to harmonize their Ideals, and look for the same Objective

in life … (381)

31 Miss Birdseye and Mrs. Tarrant are pictured as foolishly misleading

themselves, not ever attempting to realize their dreams, and Mrs. Farrinder, Mrs.

Luna, and Mrs. Burrage as maneuvered into administering devotion to some private

plan of theirs.

32 Tanner states: “Verena’s strength and her weakness is that she loves not too

wisely but too well. If Olive and Basil are too selfish in their different ways, Verena

fails in not being selfish enough” (163).

159

33 When Basil watches Mrs. Luna drawing on her long gloves, he mentally compares the scene to a woman’s drawing on her stockings (7); moreover, we later learn that he has been intimate with “a little variety-actress” (182).

34 Basil Ransom is modeled, as James himself has admitted, on Senator Lucius

Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, a Southern Senator known for his magnetism, oratory, knowledge, and political smoothness. In a letter of his, cited by Habegger in Henry

James and the “Woman Business,” James avows making use of the “noble Lamar” in

Basil’s portrayal, thus making it certain that his hero was never intended to be a parochial, rural, oddly small-minded figure (194).

35 Basil and Verena experience mutual warmth of feeling in their hearts, a sexual attraction, which is suggested by the phallic imageries that exist in the novel.

These are included in the references to Basil’s “penetrating” words, his feeling “the prick of shame” because he had “faltered for a moment,” his “ejaculation,” and especially when Verena’s notices his “tall, watching figure, with the low horizon behind … [representing] the towering eminence he had in her mind” (374, 416, 401,

375).

36 The same theme is also met in The Portrait of a Lady, where Warburton is attracted to Isabel Archer just because she is unlike the style of women he has grown up with.

37 For further details on the mentality concerning girls’ education and nurturing on marriage and career, see also: Ziogou-Karastergiou, Sidiroula. The High-

School Education of Girls in Greece: 1830-1893 (276-280).

38 However, James lays bare with boldness, which was striking for the time, the relationship between the feminist movement and its members’ psychology.

160

39 Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat who has been perceived as a

classic of political thought, wrote Democracy in America (1835-1840) where he

discusses the history-making events of his time. Boorstin refers to the main point of

the two-volume work, that democracy had created a new tyrant, Public Opinion:

Tocqueville’s twin purposes were to awaken his contemporaries to the

“providential” currents of equality, which they could only vainly try to

obstruct, and at the same time to awaken the beneficiaries of the new

currents to impending dangers. His book was to be as much about the

threat of the Tyranny of the Majority as about the Promise of Equality.

(ix)

De Tocqueville is not the only major influence on Basil’s conservative and confining

mentality. Another nineteenth-century intellectual, Thomas Carlyle, is mentioned in

relation to Basil’s respectful acceptance of him as right and true.

40In support of the female domesticity as a valuable and natural quality, G.

Barnett Smith, commenting on The Bostonians, writes about the woman question in

1886, admiring the illustration of the sexes’ “interdependence” in the novel:

The true woman knows well enough that her real sphere is the home;

enshrined in the affection of her husband and children, she wishes for

no other, and there is certainly no other in which she could wield half

her present influence over the destinies of the world. There have been

many cases, no doubt, where women have suffered from the

selfishness and brutality of man; but the millions of happy homes

which have existed from time immemorial prove that these are only

exceptions (153-154).

161

41 In attempting to explain Basil’s and James’s contemptuous attitude toward the women of the movement, J. A. Rowe states: “In their promiscuous attraction to causes and faiths — women’s rights, spiritualism, vegetarianism, mesmerism, free

love- these Boston reformers provide a synecdoche for the social hysteria and psychic

emptiness James saw as rampant in American life” (161).

42 A number of James’s novels are accorded this tragic dimension through the marriage plot: Watch and Ward, The American, The Europeans, Washington Square,

The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, The Tragic Muse, and others. In a 1868 critique of those who satirize match-making, James writes: “it is a very dismal truth that the only hope of most women, at the present moment, for a life worth living, lies in marriage, and marriage with rich men or men likely to become so, and that in their unhappy weakness they often betray an ungraceful anxiety on this point” (Essays on Literature, 22).

43 The ambitions and the revolutionary spirit of the women reformers

represented, for James, a threat for the social stability of the order of things; in accordance with Degler, women’s identity has been — since the Renaissance — tightly enclosed in the family, with all privileges given to the father or husband; consequently, the conservative aspect of privacy was linked to domestic womanhood.

Olive, Verena, and their supporters, then, reacted against this — endorsed by Basil — traditional and classic notion, since they presumed an existence outside the domestic realm (257-332).

44 The following passage is a characteristically patriarchal perception of

women, revealing Xenopoulos’s views expressed through Thalia’s lips: “ ‘Oh, I do

not have girlfriends,’ Thalia then admitted. ‘Girls are stupid, ridiculous, insignificant

162

creatures that I avoid as much as I can. I only have one friend, Lena Maranou. Her, yes, her I like. Her character is … male’” (79, italics mine).

45 For further information about articles Xenopoulos wrote where it is made

evident how conservatively he views the aspect of the “correct” marriage, also see

Amilitou, Eftihia. “Excerpts of Critique and Self-Critique in Gregorios Xenopoulos’s

Novels.” Gregorios Xenopoulos. Fifty Years since the Death of an Immortal. (1951-

2001), ( 220).

46 This is also the stand of Henry James Sr, who claimed in “Woman and the

‘Woman’s Movement’: “Learning and wisdom do not become her” (279). His son,

Henry Jr, held a strong sympathy for his father’s views on sexual difference, views

that included the notion that women belonged to different structures than men, and

they willingly enslaved themselves to the men, in order to contribute to the male social and spiritual fulfillment. James agrees with and takes further the paternal argument that the woman’s self-realization lies in the hands of men; accordingly,

Habegger in Henry James and the “Woman Business” remarks: “ In creating his sweet flower of femininity who abandons political independence once she finds she is in love, Henry Jr. was signing on to one of his father’s most vigorously pursued enterprises – setting women straight as to their real nature” (221).

47 Chandler reports another interpretation of the novel’s conclusion, deriving

by the force of mercantilism and its representative, Mr. Filer, Verena and Olive’s

lecture agent. Chandler refers to the commercialization of the lecture circuit that flourished in the 1870’s. With the change in the economic philosophies following the

Civil War, money became a significant source of power, and by the time The

Bostonians take place, this power had shifted from the speakers themselves to the hands of the lecture-brokers. Olive and Verena succumb to this method of modern

163

publicity and marketplace enterprise for the promotion of Verena’s speeches and consequently the movement’s causes but James actually exposes their tacit accommodation of the cheapened values of the age. For James, Chandler affirms, neither Olive’s nor Basil’s doctrine combines performance, publicity, and profit.

Thus, “New England reform movements and antebellum aristocratic culture would gradually give way to expanding capitalism” (47-53).

48 In Henry James: A Life in Letters it is reported that on April 6th, 1909,

James wrote to a suffragette friend of his: “ I confess I am not eager for the avènement of a multitudinous and overwhelming female electorate-and don’t see how any man in his senses can be” (478).

Chapter Two

The Portrait of a Lady and The Three-Sided Woman:

A Responsible Freedom—Following the Very Straight Path

The nineteenth-century American women who aimed at complying with the demands of the so-called “Cult of True Womanhood,” were to conform to the “four cardinal virtues” of piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. Cogan states that these were the qualities most highly valued in the general picture of the intellectual aspirations and ideals of women at the time, when the Victorian frame of mind imposed specific social characteristics on the female sex, and focused on theories that connected the woman’s biology and delicate nervous system to her inability to function as a serious thinker.1 The female presence was, however, essential to the

domain of appearances, as a symbol of social supremacy and consumption. Their

freedom of will and initiative was, nevertheless, still prohibited, narrowed down to

disallowing the women of a “proper” social class—especially the single ones—to

move around unaccompanied. Even in 1900 Athens women’s liberty and autonomy

was met with hostility and doubt, as stated by Varika.2

Along with the Cult of True Womanhood, it was held that a woman is

expected to find fulfillment in rearing children, accomplishing domestic matters, and

enriching her spiritual capabilities. Education was not an impossible alternative, but,

still, it was feared as detrimental to her health and physical function3 (65-68). Within

this Victorian sphere of thought, Cogan comments, it is surprising to discover that the

domestic novel as a genre amply portrays the ideal of a woman as a person with

reason and intellect, capable of using an equal-to-men discourse; what is more, the 165

domestic novel acknowledges the woman’s “God-given duty to develop her mind and

her social and patriotic duty to put it to use” (65). The development of the Modern

Greek domestic novel follows the Balkan Wars and the growth of the urban centers,

and rises along with the establishment of the urban social class, during the Mid War

period.

Following the True Woman, the “Real Womanhood” ideal offered broader

paths to women’s abilities of conquering intellectual levels. This aspect did not

threaten with dangers for women’s health,4 and pointed out that a rounded education

that provided with knowledge of philosophy, theology, foreign languages and

mathematics, helped in the development of the woman’s self-discipline, calmness,

and mature perception of things. Cogan remarks that the Real Woman is also depicted

in novels, as a pattern for the formation of young women’s characters:

Whatever genre they used –short story, domestic novel, advice book,

magazine article, or editorial- writers supporting the Ideal of Real

Womanhood all seem to demand that young women have a rounded,

fully developed liberal education with which to realize their feminine

obligations. (74)

“Education” as a term, however, does not include merely the different kinds of

knowledge that a person can acquire; when mentioned as part of the cultivation and

the personality of a woman, it also suggests a broad mind, a will for exploring the world and its possibilities, an independent spirit, a wish for freedom of choice and speech. Thus, education would be the woman’s asset for the right development of a romance, for the best fulfillment of her maternal duties, for a competent management of her household obligations and responsibilities, in other words, it would help a young woman to marry well and to be an admirable hostess and companion for her

166 husband. Moreover, it would provide her with cultivation and morality, with ability for self-support and, thus, economic independence, psychological balance and internal satisfaction.5

The Real Woman, therefore, had to retain a hard-won balance in attempting both academic and domestic education: the demands now expanded from home and family, to intellect and knowledge, and also to heart and soul. And if this ideal, — despite the expansion of the women’s sphere—became peacefully accepted, it was due to the fact that it served as the transmitter of a different, better culture: the liberally educated women would promote a moral, intellectual, and erudite culture, would refine and brighten the society around them through instructing the new generations towards humanity, ideals, literary standards, and elevated thought. Cogan declares about the importance of the Real Womanhood values on the aspects of everyday life:

In a society in which businessmen and their families were ruined

overnight, in which hurrying was a way of life, alcoholism a national

epidemic, the social avoidance of the less fortunate a habit, and

“culture” all too frequently represented by books by the yard in a

“library,” perhaps the values these writers sought to instill were

needed. (90-91)

The ideal of Real Womanhood gave rise to the “New Woman” in the 1880s and 1890s, an ideology that was soon combined with that of Feminism. Contrary to the less dynamic pattern of True Womanhood6 that was considered more feminine in its values, the New Woman demanded a right to her career,7 sought economic independence, and dared to question the authority and status of marriage. This type of woman, though, who claimed her power within the male sphere, who thrived in

167

challenges and wished to pursue her talents, was met with distrust and fear: the

delicate balance in marital and domestic harmony that was outlined by the Real

Woman type, was now threatened by the female desire for personal accomplishment, and professional action, on the report of Cogan:

With women joined in the crass and ignoble jungle battle for economic

advantage, the home without its guiding spirit and votary would cease

to be anything but a structure. As the New Woman closed the door on

a life of dedicated and primary domesticity and took her place in the

single human sphere of work, she would close the door as well…on

such necessary societal virtues as grace, gentleness, beauty, courtesy,

and piety. (259-260)

In accordance with the ideal of the New Womanhood, this chapter discusses two

fictional heroines, two New Women, the space given to them, and the resolution of

their lives’ course. Isabel Archer from James’s The Portrait of a Lady and Nitsa

Gazeli from Xenopoulos’s The Three-Sided Woman are introduced and studied as two young, lively, dynamic, talented (each in her own way), and educated women, with an independent thought and action that transgresses the boundaries of the female disposition of their time. Their spirit is autonomous and unconstrained, and is thus viewed as a drawback for the perspective of a good marriage, since it drives them towards risky decisions and deeds, or even urges them to reject marriage as a status that will endanger their independence and will restrict their liberal views.

Isabel and Nitsa do not actually look or think alike: again we meet with the different countries’ societies, standards, and situations, yet again the clichés that dominate both novels indicate resemblances between the two societies and derive from the same societal laws and orders: parallel fears and superstitions emerge against

168 each heroine’s tendency to deviate from the norm and experience new senses and feelings, and to dare decide for her life on her own. However, despite the influence of the New Woman ideals that antagonized with the time’s mores, Isabel and Nitsa succumb to the model of the passive, submissive, imprisoned woman, who is denied the accomplishment of her talents and aspirations, and allows herself to be trapped in convention. The heroines’ moral integrity and principles lead them to deny happiness and self-fulfillment: Isabel refuses to abandon her failed and tyrannical marriage, and

Nitsa, feeling guilty for her acquired experiences, almost leaves her country and the man who loves her.8

The point of this discussion is to examine, through these two heroines’ character presentation, what intervenes during the novels’ development so that the matured version of the two protagonists actually rejects the free-spiritedness that marked them as representatives of the New Woman in the beginning. Both Isabel and

Nitsa wish to decline marriage — or, at least, are not eager towards this direction — but in the end it is these same women that consciously stay in a ruined marriage

(Isabel) or use a marriage, though inspired by love, as a rescue from their dangerous, free spirit (Nitsa). This chapter will analyze the ways that the two authors, James and

Xenopoulos, force their female protagonists towards these decisions; it will indicate that it is their male authorship that directs the two autonomously-oriented girls to return, defeated, to the secure and conventional poles of traditional womanhood, ethical wifehood, self-negating motherhood. Although Isabel and Nitsa stand as examples of genuine independence, they do not evolve into real, New Women, despite the goals they set for themselves.

The aim of this chapter is to present the process through which two great novelists silenced a new kind of heroine, as she emerged from new conditions in both

169

America and Greece — conditions that developed simultaneously with the feminist aspirations of the women’s movement. An explanatory view for this attitude is given by Nina Baym in “Revision and Thematic Change in The Portrait of a Lady,” who maintains that the American girl arose in direct opposition to the comparatively old civilization that dominated up to then (629); therefore, although the fictional formulas had engulfed this new type of woman, a conservative, fictional answer was also given to the New Woman’s situation,9 and a modern version of the rescue story developed.

Thus, fiction now produced the fable of a bright and beautiful young girl, with an independent inclination and aspiration, who is “rescued” from these false notions, through love and marriage (629). Baym remarks, further:

When [the new woman] falls in love, the natural impulses denied by

her desire for independence assert themselves. She finds independence

incompatible with a woman’s way of living. But this is a happy

discovery, for the traditional feminine life fulfills her, and she learns

the error of her earlier aspirations. (629)

The young women of the novels in the current discussion are fresh, lively, and with a great desire for life, and for freedom to see it; yet, they are outlined as somehow naïve and vulnerable to the evil pitfalls of the “old world,” (PL, 375)10 thus are in need of a benevolent guide, a husband. The stifling and muffling effect11 of this male presence, whose protectiveness does nor appear threatening at first, yet turns out to be utterly restrictive, is presented as an understatement in the novels. In fact, the type of girl (American and Greek) that these novels portray, may be viewed as a restricted kind of heroine, within a controlled form of social milieu; their authors deprive them of almost any sense of physical passion and dynamic ability, although in the process they have proved their liveliness, skill, and significance.

170

James and Xenopoulos may have been well aware of the threat involved in the misuse or abuse of convention, tradition, and manners. Consequently, both Isabel and

Nitsa, in order to keep up with the standards of the consummate woman and complete lady, need to submit to the discipline of manners. Lyall Powers considers the loss of independence and of one’s genuine expression, as an inescapable compromise for the preservation of the social graces: “one’s personality, one’s ‘natural self,’ is necessarily circumscribed and perhaps diminished,” he states, and he talks of the

“perennial conflict between the demands of nature and the exigencies of civilized social order” (67-68).

Hence, the free spirit of the two protagonists, the liberty with which they handle whatever is strictly expected of them, their self-government and autonomy, all the dynamic and independent traits attributed to them by the authors, are counterbalanced by emotions of fear and insecurity that overwhelm them at some point later in the novel, thus acknowledging that peace and security are granted by obedience to the laws and requirements of society. Accordingly, Meissner holds

James to generally deprive Isabel from freedom of determination and to illustrate his heroine’s identity as carefully constructed by a ruling patriarchy: “(James) leaves us with no way but to acknowledge that much of what Isabel suffers is because she is a woman and as a woman not free to be herself, whatever that might have been” (88).

The Portrait of a Lady, published in 1881,12 was Henry James’s first long

masterpiece, the “larger success” he had been seeking “on a larger scale,” as he wrote

to W. D. Howells in 1879. With its imaginative presentation and its deeply real

substance, it is considered to be an outstanding example of realistic fiction. According

to Powers, in The Portrait James’s realistic subject — the social comedy of manners

— is enriched with the realistic elements of geographic setting, architectural

171 structures, social institutions, and physical posture of characters, enhanced by the simple and yet figurative language (60). For Habegger in Gender, Fantasy, and

Realism in American Literature, while the novel’s portrayal of The Man and its approving comment on the “central feminine myth” seem unrealistic, yet it is a realistic work, in that “it tests and finds wanting so many male and female fantasies and ideal types. It is realistic in portraying the pernicious effect of aggressive, supremacy-seeking men and the feminine substitution of the ‘maternal’ for the

‘wifely’ ” (79). The Perfect Victorian Lady and the independent American Girl may combine in Isabel’s representation, according to William Veeder in The Lessons of the

Master, yet he argues that this derives from James’s insight regarding the fact and fiction of the Victorian society: “the ideal of Victorian marriage, the dream of reciprocal mastery was culpably remote from the social reality” (171).

Xenopoulos’s The Three-Sided Woman was initially published in sequences in the Nea Imera newspaper, under the title The Crazy Girls, in 1917.13 It was republished as The Three-Sided Woman in the Ethnos newspaper, in 1922,14 and as an individual novel in 1924 and 1930 by I. Kollaros Publications. In his introduction, the novelist reports to his audience that the famous Greek actress Kiveli requested that he convert the novel into a play, so that she can perform Nitsa’s character.15 Farinou, in

Readers of Novels in Xenopoulos’s Fiction, mentions that a number of the time’s critics noted a resemblance between The Three-Sided Woman and the notorious and scandalous novel La Garçonne,16 a comment that urged Xenopoulos to an angry reaction (358, n. 43).

Believing that the novelist’s duty is to study and present the very essence and things of life, James felt impelled to illustrate the pressure forced upon girls who came to Europe with the wish to conquer life.17 George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda and

172

especially the novel’s heroine, Gwendolen Harleth, was the prototype for Isabel

Archer’s story,18 a young woman affronting her destiny. The idea that inspired him,

he states in his Notebooks, is that “the poor girl, who has dreamed of freedom and nobleness, who has done, as she believes, a generous, natural, clear-sighted thing, finds herself in reality ground in the very mill of the conventional” (15). The old story of courtship and marriage is met in The Portrait again, but here James explores the grievous fate of the heroine, without aiming at satisfying the readers’ fantasies: the popular fiction of the time most often treated unhappy marriages and since marriage was considered to be the predominant event in a woman’s life, the consideration of distress in wedded life touched greatly upon the inner fears and agonies of the main reading public of these novels, the women.19

The plot of The Portrait of a Lady centers on Isabel Archer, a young,

American, orphaned girl, who comes to Europe with her aunt Mrs. Touchett, to become acquainted with life and to acquire knowledge and new experiences. In her desire to secure and maintain her independence, Isabel refuses the marriage proposals of the English Lord Warburton and the American Caspar Goodwood. Her cousin

Ralph, a young man with a delicate health, is also secretly in love with her; he bids her his significant paternal inheritance so that as a rich woman, Isabel will be able to pursue her inner wishes and realize her goals. Her fortune, though, lures a fortune hunter, Gilbert Osmond, an expatriate American, elegant and self-centered, who is widowed and has a daughter, Pansy. Madame Merle introduces Osmond to Isabel with the purpose of charming her to marry him. It is only after the wedding that Isabel realizes her husband’s true nature and the ferocious role of Madame Merle as

Osmond’s former lover and Pansy’s mother. In the face of Ralph’s imminent death,

Isabel leaves her home in Rome and runs to England, against her husband’s wish.

173

There she meets Goodwood again, who, still in love with her, urges her to abandon

Osmond and pursue happiness with him; Isabel appears on the brink of finally parting with Osmond, yet in the end she leaves England and returns to Rome.

In The Three-Sided Woman, a young and independent girl from a wealthy family, Nitsa Gazeli, wishes to enjoy in Greece the autonomy and liberation in her social behavior that she had experienced during her stay in Switzerland. Her family allows her this freedom, and Nitsa becomes related to a group of modern and ingenuous scholars that are in turn influenced by the editor of a literary journal, which serves as a façade for her dishonorable house. But the modern Athens of the early

20th century is not prepared for this kind of progressive attitude from a young woman, and Nitsa’s beauty, brightness, culture, education and kindness can not excuse her emancipated conduct: in her quest towards an independent identity, Nitsa is entrapped by people that take advantage of her new-born female sexuality, and almost ruin her reputation and her honor.

But where her family’s male presences — her father and brother — prove inadequate to restrain and control Nitsa, another male figure, the architect Kleanthes

Zisiades, appears as a guardian and savior. Through his love-at-first-sight, the sophisticated young man protects, forgives, and finally saves the heroine from an overall catastrophe, by ultimately marrying her. While still at the first stages of his falling in love with Nitsa, Kleanthes experiences the traditional male urge to act as the woman’s rescuer from peril, to appear as a redeeming force that the “damsel in perpetual distress” needs in order to lead a happy and sane life: “Nevertheless, the first consideration, for the time being, must be to remove her and save her from the

‘vicious circle’ where he considered her wasted” (61). In his introduction to the novel

Xenopoulos explains why the 1900 Athenian society refused to accept Nitsa’s

174

demeanor and mentality, and condemns as perilous any course of ideas and actions that is directed against society’s norm:

Nitsa brazenly chooses to ignore the rules of society and we know that

society even when defeated and altered by its more progressive

members can take a very cruel revenge. Innovators are almost always

the victims. And Nitsa is one of the first … [In the Athens of 1900]

everybody had wrong ideas about this girl, who led a different,

unconventional life, and tried to take advantage of her. Some kissed

her suddenly and unexpectedly and others cleverly and cunningly set

traps for her … And each time … an inner struggle took place, a minor

drama similar to the greater, more tragic one that awaited her at the end

of this undisciplined, carefree and unhappy life. (8)

The two heroines discussed in this chapter exhibit blindness to their reality, and are driven by a romancer’s distortion of awareness: their dreams are inspired and creative, but prove to be beyond the possibility of achievement. The physical and social realities of life affect very little the young women whose ambitions are far from the conventional and nostalgic plot of marrying an esteemed man. What romantically determines these young women is their free and unconventional imagination that anxiously rejects restrictions and welcomes risks: “Her imagination was by habit ridiculously active; when the door was not open it jumped out of the window” (86),

James states of Isabel. Xenopoulos also depicts in Nitsa a blurry realization on her part, regarding the circumstances in her country and social circle; thus, Nitsa, influenced by the liberal standards of her life in Switzerland, takes for granted that she will be allowed the same independence in Greece as well:

175

“I don’t know where you get the idea that a girl may not be escorted by

a young gentleman. Whereas, in Switzerland …” Nitsa had studied in

Switzerland for a few years and often compared life there with life

here. In vain did her father tell her that she couldn’t lead the same life

in Athens as she had in Geneva. Nitsa would insist that it was the same

thing … “We’ll be the ones to change it [society]! It’s high time, it

seems to me, that it was changed.” (27-28)

Thus, the two heroines’ romantic way of looking at life is brought off through their idealism and the nobleness in the perception of the world around them: “ …

[Isabel] had a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of free expansion, of irresistible action … [She acquired] an infinite hope that she should never do anything wrong” (104). Nitsa too acquires an analogous unrealistic conviction for the reaction of the social order in face of a girl’s unconventional behavior. To her parents’ fervent advice not to provoke her community’s principles with her unreserved conduct, Nitsa reacts rebelliously:

“What would people say if they saw you constantly keeping company

with young men and flighty girls?” “It doesn’t matter to me! As long

as you trust me. And since you do, I’d like to discuss the matter: I want

my freedom. I want to live my own life.” (28)

James, however, in his portrait of a heroine who seeks both freedom and fulfillment, gives a woman’s characterization that appears common, everyday, and true: a young girl with an average education and higher goals, brave and innocent, contemptuous towards money and instinctive drives, but in awe of moral values and superior purposes, a girl struggling for her inner awareness and for the acceptance of her fate and suffering, a young woman discovering the difficulties between the

176

commitment to another person, and the commitment to her inner need for maintaining

her independence;20 the novel “portrays” the evolution of this girl in becoming a lady

under outstanding pressures. In the same route as Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice,

Madame Bovary, and Anna Karenina, The Portrait focuses on the question of a woman’s destiny within the prerequisites and terms of modern marriage.

Before discussing the three men that attempted to claim Isabel, it is necessary to turn to the gift that her cousin Ralph gave her to sustain her autonomy, to “put a little wind in her sail … to put money in her purse,” (235) a gift that became

Osmond’s motive for his interest in Isabel. Ralph confirms to his father the wish to offer to the young girl his own inheritance, hoping to render Isabel rich21 according to

his own version of wealth: “I call people rich when they’re able to meet the

requirements of their imagination. Isabel has a great deal of imagination” (236). In the

face of Isabel getting married, and with the risk of becoming a prey to fortune hunters,

Ralph announces to his father: “It’s just to do away with anything of that sort that I

make my suggestion. If she has an easy income she’ll never have to marry for a

support. That’s what I want cannily to prevent. She wishes to be free, and your

bequest will make her free” (236).

The fact that this fortune proved anything but liberation for the young woman,

and it actually led to the detrimental marriage to Osmond, is, to quote Kettle, “Ralph’s

one supreme mistake in intelligence and it is the mistake that ruins Isabel” (103).

Baym in “Revision and Thematic Change” doubts that Isabel, “brought up female,”

had a concrete “vision of an independent life,” since her “old-fashioned feminine

ignorance of the real world” prevented her from knowing how to use this

independence (631). Bell regards Isabel as “not so much choosing as chosen,”

suggesting that the money gives her a fate, and Ralph gives her a plot; on account of

177

the money she is motivated to marry Osmond, and Osmond is motivated by her

fortune to marry her (776).

Nitsa, in a parallel reading, is not free either, although she considers herself

so. She acquires an individual style in her external appearance, unusual for a Greek

girl in Athens,22 and she displays a personality that gives her the attribute of a “crazy

girl” (29). Nitsa, though, believes that she safeguards her boundaries of autonomy,

when she loudly declares: “After all, it’s my right!” (26). And it is this right, she

believes, that should permit her to stroll around with her male and female friends, at

night, disregarding her family’s traditional habits on dinner protocol, punctuality, and

respect. Feeling innocent and law-abiding herself, Nitsa expects everyone to perceive

her thus, ignoring the social etiquette that dominated people’s deeds and ideas:

What harm was there — real harm — if she did go to the Acropolis

with her friends and did not manage to get back in time for a meal?

None! She was answerable to the world. It was her own problem. And

since they had complete confidence in her, they owed it to her to grant

her the freedom she wanted: to be able to go out without asking, to go

wherever and, if need be, to return home … even after dinner. (28-29)

But according to the pattern of the ideal womanhood, Nitsa was not at all correct. Her unwillingness to comply with the rules of such a model, render her an

“anomaly” to the social order, in keeping with Varika, who also states that the woman

who exhibits a differentiated behavior, the woman who suffocates within her sex’s

predetermined role, contributes, “fatally,” to a state of social disorder, turning the

world “upside down” (119). Xenopoulos, in his Introduction, insists: “the time is not yet ripe for such things” (7). But Nitsa allows herself to be carried away by confusing this world’s standards and stereotypes with the ones that exist in more progressive

178

parts of Europe. Thus, before accepting a suitor’s proposal for a ride with a coach,

Nitsa rationalizes her defiance: “she immediately wondered why she hesitated to do something in Athens she would not think twice about doing in Switzerland. Wasn’t

that her objective? Wasn’t that how she wanted to live?” (98). As a result, Nitsa’s

morality is soon questioned, and rumors begin to spread. However, she and her

friends still disregard the societal power and judgment, blaming the narrow-

mindedness of their country: “We’re very backward in this country. People here are

incapable of seeing the difference between a decent girl and one of dubious character

at a glance. They are misled by some slight, superficial similarities” (105).

In The Portrait of a Lady, the first suitor to propose to Isabel — in Albany,

America — and the last to confront her in the novel, Caspar Goodwood, is seen from

the start as a major threat for the heroine. The embodiment of the dominant male,

Caspar inspires in Isabel a wish to be protected from the danger of “ the young man

from Boston [who might] take possession of her” (168). She sees him as a force

aiming at aggressively ruling her, a moral, fascinating, yet frightening force that

“seemed to deprive her of the sense of freedom” (168). Caspar’s dynamism, along

with his brusque single-mindedness leads to an intense relation between him and

Isabel when they meet. With his practical intelligence and imagination, his resolute

will, and his ability of becoming a leader and director of people’s wills, Caspar is a

masculine presence, expected to attract a young, sensitive woman with a heroic and

romantic imagination. He declares to be “infernally in love” with her, and Isabel fears

this energy of assertion and domination, fears that her freedom will be lost through his

erotic control over her. Although she objects to the expression of his “appetites and

designs,” (165) she understands that he is the person that Isabel would yield to fully-

and thus will always constitute an erotic threat to her freedom, even after her marriage

179

to Osmond. Holland recognizes Caspar’s complete assimilation in the business23 sphere as the “dividing line between himself and the intimacy of Isabel’s feelings”

(704) but he also admits that Caspar has achieved an at once intimate and confined relation to Isabel, due to an incompatible charm of his: “his manner presents a distinct combination of masculine vigor and the awkward and genuine assertiveness of the

American businessman” (703).

Declaring early on to Isabel “an unmarried woman — a girl of your age — is not independent. There are all sorts of things she cannot do,” (214) Caspar emphasizes his patriarchal stereotypes that restrict the woman’s presence and underline the male existence; even towards the novel’s end, Caspar maintains the positive interpretations for himself, and the negative readings for Isabel: “You’re perfectly alone; you don’t know where to turn. You can’t turn anywhere; … Now it is therefore that I want you to think of me … You don’t know where to turn. Turn straight to me” (634). In direct contrast to Isabel’s deeper yearning for liberty, Caspar offers a sustained inequality that undermines the woman’s position: “ ‘he [Ralph] left you to my care … ’ said Goodwood, as if he were making a great point” (633).

For Millicent Bell Isabel does not resist merely the patriarchal plot that Caspar wishes to impose upon her; she resists the social and narrational expectations, the conventions of character appointed to her by her culture, the selfhood that life and literature created for her as her role. When in his 1908 preface James refers to Isabel

“affronting her destiny,” (48) he means that she defies it, resists it, and fights it.

Nevertheless, Bell asserts, Isabel becomes victimized by the story-making of others, and is moreover the tragic victim of her own romantic expectations: “Fortified against a commonplace, foreseeable future, she still does not succeed in finding the enactment, the history that would bring this finer state about” (748). Consequently,

180

what Caspar offers her is only another version of the old forms she struggles against;

although under the conventions of the patriarchal frame of mind, these two resemble

one-another: they are both self-sufficient Americans, self-made, and proudly aspiring

to material and personal independency.

Caspar openly makes known to Isabel that he wants her to be passive and

submissive to him: “Trust me as if I had the care of you” (634). He persuades her that

“she had never been loved before” (634); therefore, Caspar is willing to bestow on her

his masculine love with its erotic content. His final arguments in the end of the novel

propose a deliverance from Isabel’s grim marriage and there is a powerful logic in

them, since, after all, Caspar proposes freedom. In this final meeting of theirs at

Gardencourt, Caspar’s overwhelming energy and influence on Isabel is revealed

through the kiss he forces upon her:

He glared at her a moment through the dusk, and the next instant she

felt his arms about her and his lips on her own lips. His kiss was like

white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed; and it

was extraordinarily as if, while she took it, she felt each thing in his

hard manhood that had least pleased her, each aggressive fact of his

face, his figure, his presence, justified of its intense identity and made

one with this act of possession … But when darkness returned she was

free. (635-636)

Habegger in Gender, Fantasy, and Realism recognizes in the young woman’s reaction the full length of male heterosexual love — its violent quest for domination and control, within the boundaries of the eternal battle for power between the sexes:

“This love seems to be by nature an aggressive act of possession that seeks to deprive the woman of her independence and stamp her with the man’s own identity” (76).

181

Thus, her response to Caspar’s kiss is interrupted by the frantic realization that a life

with him would endanger her much-desired independence, and would not provide the state of being her own mistress. The freedom that Isabel dreads of losing is the freedom of the mind to work unconstrained, the ability of her mind to have a life of its own, to be composed and yet separate from the erotic experiences; Mazzella estimates

Isabel to exist prevailingly on the level of pure mind, the erotic element acquiring the sinister role of possibly destroying that existence: “Goodwood threatens not so much her body as that annihilation of consciousness which comes with the intensely erotic; which would mean her ‘death,’ because for Isabel consciousness is the real center of her being” (611).

Stein believes that Isabel declines a full surrender to love and feeling for fear of corrupting the chaste self-righteousness by which she defines her accepted self:

“ For Isabel to give herself voluntarily in an act of love would be to lose the sense of deluded innocence by which she identifies herself” (182). Nevertheless, in this “act of possession” (636), as Isabel sees Caspar’s kiss, Andres reads “an exhilarating sense of liberation” that frees Isabel from “the materialist world that has denied her authenticity by treating her as a commodity and thereby undermining, on her part, any meaningful social activity” (50-51), whereas Tanner too, apprehends Isabel to be freed under the spell of Caspar’s sexual claims — a devastating yet releasing experience. Therefore, it is of minor importance to wonder about the course of her marriage to Osmond, because “Isabel has attained the most important kind of freedom, an internal one. She is liberated from her twisted vision and her confused values” (158).

Prior to the inner struggle that Caspar Goodwood’s propositions and deeds cause in Isabel, she has to face yet another prominent suitor, Lord Warburton. A

182

nobleman with an active career in Parliament, he offers the security of his wealth, a

specific “radical” ideological orientation, his definite, manly charm, and his love to

Isabel. Well-bred, greatly likeable, honest and sincere, with a simplicity that is not

expected from a representative of a multifold and varied culture, Warburton stands as

a brilliant outcome of an affected and feigned society that Isabel despises and casts

aside. Krook refers to Warburton’s entity as “the product of a highly artificial form of

social life — that secure and tranquil life in solid, handsome country-houses set in the

midst of a lovely countryside that had been lived for long generations by Englishmen

of Lord Warburton’s class” (29).

Consequently, he too alarms Isabel: when he proposes to her she feels that “ a

territorial, a political, a social magnate had conceived the design of drawing her into”

his “system” (156); Isabel recognizes the deep, genuine emotions that overwhelm the

young Lord, and she admits that he was “looking at her with eyes charged with the

light of a passion that had sifted itself clear of the baser parts of emotion — the heat,

the violence, the unreason …” (159). Still, she considers his suggestion of “taking the

common lot in a comfortable way” (186) as a “big bribe”(169). Isabel feels more at

ease and more honest with herself when she is not separated from her “common lot,”

from the “usual chances and dangers, from what most people know and suffer” (186).

Therefore, she declines Warburton’s proposal on the grounds that she cannot escape

her fate: “ ‘It’s not my fate to give up’. Poor Lord Warburton stared, an interrogative

point in either eye. ‘Do you call marrying me giving up?’ ‘Not in the usual sense. It’s

getting – getting – getting a great deal. But it’s giving up other chances’ ” (185-186).

Isabel appears to have conquered the point of knowing her strengths and her desires, and the paths that need to be followed in order to achieve her goals; this is what she calls her fate, the road that opens for her to “other chances,” for the

183

opportunities to fulfill her dreams. Warren, too, maintains that for her, “fate is the

undetermined, the open potential, and the imminent” (7).

Lacking in self-sufficiency and resolution, Warburton cannot escape — neither can he wish to escape — the scenario which fences his life; unlike Isabel, he will not contemplate giving up his property, Parliament seat, and elegant likings of culture and fresh theories, for a revolution in favor of new ideas. Bell affirms that despite his “new views,” Warburton will not “leave the structure standing and himself within it. He cannot be as radical as Isabel” (770).

A young woman with a precise delineation of existence as is Isabel, then, cannot but discard a personality like Warburton’s, and decline the marriage proposition of a Lord who will not break free from a predetermined and comfortable structure. Warburton, Bell remarks,

threatens Isabel’s rejection of such a definition of self. Among all those

she knows he is the character most clearly defined by the ‘system’ of

which he is a part …With her personal ideal of a selfhood unbounded

by cultural categories, she resists the conventional in him and imposed

by him. (771)

Thus Isabel refuses her two suitors’ marriage proposals, in an effort to safeguard her freedom from limitations, and to evade the feelings of uneasiness that they generated in her — Warburton’s aristocratic, complex, and overwhelming society, and Caspar’s force of masculine character: “‘ I don’t see what harm there is in my wishing not to tie myself. I don’t want to begin life by marrying. There are other things a woman can do’” (203). Experience and knowledge collide in her thoughts with the status of marriage, and Isabel resumes to her ideas in relation to this stereotype: “the idea [of marrying] failed to support any enlightened prejudice in

184 favour of the free exploration of life that she had hitherto entertained or was now capable of entertaining” (164). As for the absence of mutual love in this conventional story of courtship and marriage, Gard declares: “Isabel is really in love with her freedom … — and we can believe that her acceptance [of a marriage proposal] would involve for her a “cage” however vast … Isabel is original in that wealth and status are positive discouragements for her. She is an “American girl”, after all” (28).

Marriage to either Warburton or Caspar would not satisfy the young woman’s need for experience, for a liberty to see, to feel, to create. For Gass, Isabel is greedy for life’s adventures, a greediness that derives, as he states, from an affected pride:

“Neither Warburton nor Goodwood appeals as a person to Isabel’s vanity. She’s a great subject. She will make a great portrait. She knows it” (212).

Weistein, taking into account the heroine’s refusal towards two eligible husbands, comments on the austere terms that an idealistic and romantic vision of life may lead to: “Such an urgent quest for life may in fact imply an even more urgent though unconscious need to reject life on any but its ideal, impossible terms” (43).

Therefore Isabel turns down the solid offers of the men she felt would not allow her to follow her own free will, would oppress and constrain her, and in doing so she flees away from the stereotypical feminine life-pattern of her time, and refuses marriage, social position, security, safety. The simplest of reasons such as a lack of desire or love in the explanation of her two refusals, does not appear solid in the face of

Isabel’s pledge for freedom, which, according to Pippin, presupposes independence, as in “not being attached or committed anywhere, not being identified with a role or function, not, indeed, ‘being’ anything” (132-33).

In The Three-Sided Woman Nitsa wishes, like Isabel, to safeguard the freedom she has been accustomed to, and is thus presented as a sexually daring and

185

provocative young woman, living in a conservative society, within a strongly

traditional circle of acquaintances. Consequently, when she and her two intimate

girlfriends are asked by a womanizer artist to form a threesome that would constitute

for him the realization of the Three-Sided Woman ideal,24 Nitsa acts as the

emancipated and broadminded girl, when in a half-serious and half-teasing tone, she

suggests:

So why don’t we make it come true for him? …We could all three love

him and he could love the three of us. We could meet him all together

— not in the nude, of course — and put him in the middle … No more

than a kiss. Truly wouldn’t it be something … new? Completely

unconventional? (132)

Eager to introduce peculiarities to her society and to prove her unconventional

frame of mind, Nitsa sets off as a dynamic version of the liberated and qualified New

Woman, but along the way she seems to miss the essence, and winds up as a light

adaptation of the original model: “They staggered as they walked, as if they were

drunk. People they knew who met them were taken aback and said as soon as they

had gone by: ‘Did you see those silly girls?’” (148). Almost a pioneer in her ideas

about the equality of the sexes, and an initiator in her social rank of a woman’s wish

— and right — to earn her independence through a job, Nitsa also acquires the culture

and cultivation of an ideal role model for women’s emancipation. When exchanging

views on Kleanthes’s drawings, Nitsa displays all her good taste and her education,

earning the architect’s sincere admiration: “She went into details which were proof of her broad culture and made subtle observations which showed a discriminating taste unusual in an Athenian girl. Zisiades, although he had already guessed as much, noted it with some surprise and manifest pleasure” (220).

186

Especially in the social order Nitsa belonged to, young girls were severely trapped by codes and appearances, their family backgrounds and wealth being an inhibiting, — although polished — factor to their endeavor for a career, employment, or any gratifying yet unconventional occupation. In a tense disagreement with her father as to whether she was “enslaved” by the authority her parents had on her, Nitsa receives the following, revealing response:

We have authority over you because we feed you, we clothe you, we

put shoes on your feet and a roof over your head. Can there be

emancipation without financial independence? We stop providing for

you and there’s an end to the matter. That’s why you have an

obligation to do what we ask, whenever you can’t persuade us with

your arguments and fine words. (29)

But just before Nitsa becomes established as an acknowledged New Woman, the author alters the reader’s impression of the heroine, by presenting her as a breezy and superficial young girl, with innovative ideas, but too immature to elaborate and nurture the ground-breaking views she has been introduced to. The New Woman, hence, misses the option of being personified in Nitsa, since the latter proves to be no more that a “crazy girl.” For Alkis Thrilos, as she25 maintained in a newspaper article criticizing Xenopoulos’s novel,26 The Three-Sided Woman seems to express “a confusion of the Values and Ideas” (1) that exist in Greece, illustrating “the immaturity of the Modern Greek society to consciously accept new ideas.”(1). This is the reason why, in accordance with Thrilos, these fresh ideas are mocked at, described as a source of confusion in “ the struggle between society and the first young women that sought emancipation.”(1). And, in an effort to explain Nitsa’s failure to grasp the full meaning of the female independence, Thrilos adds: “The chains cannot be

187

released in one day, [at least not] without risking to harm those that were chained …

The first to lead the way are always the victims” (1). Thrilos considers Nitsa to be a bewildered initiator of independent ideas, having no definite orientation, no determined ideals, and views her as a girl carried away by her friends, disoriented and confused; ultimately, she describes her as “the girl that is perhaps pitied by feminism, but is certainly wholly rejected by this movement.”(1).

When Nitsa becomes acquainted with Kleanthes Zisiades, she impatiently wishes to introduce her independent ideas to him, hoping to reveal thus an important part of herself to him, but mainly to assert in front of the eligible architect her refutation on the subject of marriage. Hence, it is Nitsa who proposes to the young man to visit him at his home, so that he can grant her one of his drawings she is so fond of; to Kleanthes’s stunned reaction, Nitsa responds:

I know that you live alone and that your home is a bachelor’s flat. But

that doesn’t bother me. My way of life is different, freer and more

revolutionary. I can’t put up with the ridiculous restrictions society

imposes on girls of my class. And you mustn’t be surprised or get me

wrong if you see me call on you one day — like tomorrow — in the

same way I came and sat at your table today. (225)

When the young man protectively suggests sending or bringing the picture to her, Nitsa wonders “So you have the same prejudices?” but Kleanthes corrects her:

“Well, they may not be exactly prejudices, but…reservations” (225). To her ironic comment about her girlfriend’s devotion to her future husband, Kleanthes defines his own — traditionally valued — ideas about the state of a woman after being married: ‘

“But that’s what it always comes to. A girl’s freedom always ends in devotion … ” ’

(225). And he almost immediately adds, roughly quoting the author: “I admire your

188

daring. However, pioneers usually become victims because the society they scorn and

challenge is stronger than they are. And even when it doesn’t defeat them, it takes its

revenge. Thus, the pioneers, or innovators if you like, are made to suffer badly” (226).

But Nitsa, although already falling in love with this attractive and talented man, discloses, with vigor and energy, her wish to preserve and defend her prized independence, her autonomy, and her deliverance from narrow ideas and dictated conceptions: ‘ “Not always!” said Nitsa, interrupting him. “Mine, [my freedom] for example, will never end like that. I’m never going to get married!” ’ (225).

Resembling Isabel Archer, Nitsa Gazeli wishes to remain free, unmarried, and sovereign, always her own ruler, in command of her own life only. The New Woman meets Nitsa in the force and zeal with which she supports her liberty, and dares to oppose the powerful pattern of a respected marriage for any respectful young woman.

Nitsa declines marriage at this point, with the same vitality that she risks her reputation within the Athenian upright and respectable rules of command.

Therefore, following a reading of Isabel’s personality, Nitsa too shows a strong, free will in opposition to the stereotypical prototype of marriage, rebuffing the forged, illusionary clichés of decency and propriety. As she becomes continuously acquainted with the real world, she realizes its falsity and pretence,27 and thus decides not to go along with its deceptiveness. She considers it ridiculous, then, to struggle for propriety and decency, in such an improper and indecent society:

She decided you were happier being mad or living in a crazy fashion

than being sensible. It even occurred to her that this was the way she

should live her life too, since that was how all of them lived, including

her father. Even if she had wished it, she was unable to find the

strength to resist this maelstrom of madness she was caught up in.

189

(152) … She felt she was no longer pure, no longer chaste. She had

taken the fun and games of the “Three-Sided Woman” with the other

girls lightly. But the way they had carried on today saddened and

mortified her … Then, it all began to make her cross and hostile and to

get on her nerves. (167)

In The Portrait of a Lady, after refusing her two suitors’ marriage proposals,

Isabel is left agonizing over what to do with her self, how to please her “sublime soul,” until she meets Gilbert Osmond. It is peculiar how this woman, conscious that being in love is equated with a possessed and helpless awareness, an awareness that brings forth an “invidious and remorseless tide of the charmed and possessed condition,” (78) marries. But for Isabel marriage to Osmond is a life with consciousness, it secures “a future at a high level of consciousness of the beautiful”

(82), an embrace of the ideal of beauty — a romantic, theoretically viewed beauty that

Osmond appears to properly acquire. An American artist and dilettante living in a villa in Florence, “thinking about art and beauty and history” (312), being the epitome of taste, “with eyes at once vague and penetrating…expressive of the observer as well as of the dreamer,” Osmond is a presence that Isabel easily succumbs to. She feels free when she is not being conventional, when she flirts with the risk of the dangerous and unpredictable in life, and, therefore, the air of freedom that characterizes Osmond attracts Isabel; besides, her marrying Osmond manifests unconventionality, and Isabel assumes that he is not tied to or guided by standardized stereotypes, and that, as stated by Pippin, Osmond “can embody an older form of moral and aesthetic purity — disinterestedness” (133).

Auchincloss pities the woman’s easy and false apprehension in Osmond as

“the independence of a great mind which has cast aside the trappings of the workaday

190

existence of busy American industrialists and of politically minded British peers”

(725). It is her idealist’s mind, though, her side ruled by fantasy, that renders Isabel

quite understandable here: she intensely rejects the traditional conventions of

prudence, respectability, social codes, and bestows indifference to the security of a

good reputation;28 she is thus lured by the bohemian side of Osmond, a side she

considers resembles more her own frame of mind. Consequently, the theorizing,

idealizing side of Isabel is predisposed to belong to “Osmond’s collection,” as Tanner

labels his authoritarian and overbearing attitude; and she affirms: “The lady is half

willing to be turned into a portrait …[Her becoming a work of art] offers a reprieve

from the disturbing ordeals awaiting the self in the mire of the actual” (147).

Osmond proves to be a ruthless hypocrite,29 a cold-hearted and egotistic

person who conceitedly uses his great charm to entrap Isabel into his shrewd designs.

But Isabel marries him because until then she could see only his expertise and knowledge, his modesty and his superiority towards those who doubt and condemn his important mind and refinement. Aloof and unusual, Osmond intrigues the young woman with his complexity and apparent nobility, and most of all, he shows no intention of invading Isabel, of trespassing her individuality and freedom.30 He seems, as even Ralph admits, “the easiest of men to live with,” a person that acquires “tact and gaiety,” a “delightful associate. His good-humour was imperturbable, his knowledge of the right fact, his production of the right word, as convenient as the friendly flicker of a match for your cigarette” (xxix, 355).

This is the man who, after the threatening validity of Warburton and

Goodwood, urges Isabel to “be happy — be triumphant,” and for him triumph is

“doing what you like” (359). Osmond demands — at this stage — nothing of Isabel:

“you can do exactly what you choose; you can roam through space” (357). He only

191

advances her autonomous perceptions, and a relaxed and less downright Isabel

accepts his declaration of love: “ ‘I’m absolutely in love with you.’ He had repeated

the announcement in a tone of almost impersonal discretion, like a man who spoke for

his own needed relief” (360). Isabel becomes empowered to defend her choice of him

as her husband, in the face of her friends’ hostility and skepticism towards him,

especially Ralph’s direct mistrust. Osmond’s perfectly accomplished speech manages to give space to Isabel’s need for unconstrained decision-making, and to simultaneously make her fears vanish: Osmond claims nothing of Isabel, thus feels entitled to claim Isabel herself: “For me you’ll always be the most important woman in the world” (361). Herron agrees that Isabel’s sexual responsiveness to Osmond is what lured her into the marriage that would later demand of her a resignation of her self-respect and of the right to a free personality. Herron claims that the woman’s sexual attraction to Gilbert Osmond is

the error that causes her to lose her independence. Clearly, Osmond

and Isabel possess each other’s bodies, but she misjudges her ability to

treat him as her “property,” and their relationship becomes a battle of

wills in which she loses her independence; Isabel had not counted on

having to submit to his will. (137)

But the side of Osmond that best suits his genuine, darker self, is indicated in a dialogue with Madame Merle, where the true intentions are expressed, along with the impression Osmond has from the intellect of this otherwise “fine creature.” Far from being liberal and undemanding, Osmond displays his ruthlessness regarding the woman he plans on marrying:

“I like her very much. She’s all you described her, and into the bargain

capable, I feel, of great devotion. She has only one fault.” “What’s

192

that?” “Too many ideas.” “I warned you she was clever.” “Fortunately

they’re very bad ones,” said Osmond. “Why is that fortunate?” “Dame,

if they must be sacrificed!” (335)

Osmond projects a cold and calculated dominance here, and he regrets and rejects Isabel’s independent mind and being, which he wishes to possess. Thus, when, in the context of Ralph’s final stage of illness Isabel decides to visit her cousin in

England, Osmond fights this attempt: “If you leave for Rome to-day it will be a piece

of the most deliberate, most calculated, opposition” (582). This sounds like the wish

of the master of the house, which represents, James himself senses, something as

solemn and unmitigated, as “the sign of the cross or the flag of one’s country. He

spoke in the name of something sacred and precious — the observance of a

magnificent form” (583).

“You were the last person I expected to see caught,” Ralph points to Isabel,

concerned about the prospect of her marriage to Osmond. “ ‘I don’t know why you

call it caught.’ ‘Because you’re going to be put into a cage.’ ” (392). It is what he

appears to be rather than what he really is, that helps Osmond achieve his malevolent

designs; therefore, a potential wife of his, would appear free to define her own life,

while in reality she would fall into the traditional pattern of marriage: “Her mind was

to be his — attached to his own like a small garden-plot to a deer-park … It would be

a pretty piece of property”(481).

“The cage she runs into is much smaller than she anticipated,” Baym asserts in

“Revision and Thematic Change,” and adds that Isabel’s “first free action was to put

herself into it” (632). In fact, even from the pre-wedding instances, James reveals his

own desire to dominate his protagonist’s liberal spirit and to limit her insight into

Osmond’s authentic side. Thus, he sees that her spirit is stifled from the beginning: he

193

pinpoints the risk in the desire for independence and the dangers that such a visionary

and romantic expectation could be met with. Hence, the quest for autonomy is

condemned and overpowered. Isabel, to quote James, at some point “awakes from her

sweet delusion” and comes “face to face with a husband who has ended by conceiving

a hatred for her own larger qualities” (Notebooks, 15). Only late in the novel is Isabel

allowed the bitter realization: “she had had a more wondrous vision of him, fed

through charmed senses and oh such a stirred fancy! She had not read him right” (PL,

476). Bell considers it dishonest to force Isabel to accept the consequences of her

actions, since the very fact of her marriage to Osmond was not even her act: Madame

Merle and Ralph actually “married” Isabel — thus “she had not chosen but been

chosen” and any form of resistance as part of Isabel’s struggle for an independent

personality “is more absent than present in the text”(778).

On the other hand, Krook aims at saving Isabel from “being condemned as a

mere simpleton who deserves what she gets for being such a fool as to marry a man

like Osmond” (41). Therefore, Krook excuses the girl’s captivation in her grim

marriage, by establishing morally sufficient reasons for her entering in that adventure;

the first one is that the desire to cultivate her mind and expand her sensibilities, “to

give direction and form to her vague aspiration after knowledge and virtue —

‘experience’ in the largest, noblest sense of the word” (42), was in Isabel’s nature.

The second is, also according to Krook, Isabel’s avid desire to serve31, to use her money for a useful and also an imaginative cause, to help someone she loves and trusts; and Gilbert Osmond is the person who enjoys the gifts of her noble nature, and the man who betrays her delicate hopes of self-fulfillment (44-45). F.O.Matthiessen holds Isabel to be doing “the wrong thing [marrying Osmond despite the unanimous

194

disapproval of her friends] for the right reasons. She has a special pride in marrying

him, since she feels that she is not only ‘taking,’ but also ‘giving’ ” (85).

Isabel also longs for the stability of a shelter: seeking the steady protection and

safety that was missing from her life,32 Ash asserts that, psychoanalytically, Isabel’s

quest for affection and family solidity prompts her to become a mother. Moore,

accordingly, suggests that Isabel’s attraction to Osmond is based on the appeal of the

older, wiser, vigilant and mature man, to the young and inexperienced maiden:

“ … there is something of the pupil-teacher, father-daughter relationship that can be

so effective when combined with (however refined) sexual possibilities” (19). Smith

affirms Isabel’s role as a subject to be seized by a number of paternal objects: “All the men in the book want to own Isabel … This desire is frequently expressed through a

paternal medium of precious objects and is considered benign” (205). Isabel’s

rejection of Goodwood and Warburton and her preference to Osmond, however, do

not prove to be a wise route to follow, since, Smith asserts, she is not ultimately saved

from obliteration: “What she has not understood is that the aggressive Goodwood, the

aristocratic Warburton, and the benign Osmond all belong to the same paternal order”

(206).

In The Three-Sided Woman, this female inner need for a stable source of –

male — protection and authority, is outlined as a form of telepathy, a kind of sixth

sense that Nitsa experiences at various points in the novel, and especially when she is

in danger. An independent and dynamic character, with a strong sense of self-worth

and determination, Nitsa does not bring to mind Isabel’s abandonment by her

immediate family, does not resemble Isabel’s hesitation and sensitivity, and is not

easily turned into a victim — and when she does, there is always the full support of

her parents offered, and her social position to defend and resurrect her. However,

195

Nitsa not only is in need of a comforting presence that will eventually suggest no guidelines in her life, but is also portrayed in need of a domineering figure, so as to direct, control, and ultimately protect her. In fact, it is the form of a “protector” that this sixth sense of hers acquires, this “Power” that she feels surrounding her in all her crucial moments:

In the midst of her worries, fears and feelings of guilt, she was filled

with a sense of peace, tranquility and serenity. It was as if somewhere

she had someone she could trust, a friend, someone to protect her who

was so strong that she need never fear anyone or anything ever again!

… there was nobody she knew who could be this protector (101)

Nitsa’s freedom in her everyday life, in her sayings and her deeds, lead her very often to risky situations, where she endangers her security and her reputation. It is not to the knowledge of her father or brother that Nitsa meets with various men at her old friend’s double-faced house, or that she unreservedly flirts in the Athenian streets with people who acquire a different impression of her from that of the upper- class, refined young lady that she practically is. Nitsa ends up living a two-faceted life, carried away by a shallow spontaneity and a crude sexual instinct. But every time she realizes the gridlock she has let herself in, every time she panics at the thought of her uncertain future, the feeling of peace and security overwhelms and calms her.

What turns out to be Kleanthes’s reassuring voice, eventually maintains Nitsa’s peace of mind, and — very conveniently — urges her to do whatever her heart desires: “It was as if somebody had tapped her on the shoulder and whispered in her ear: “Don’t be afraid! … Do whatever you like! … I am beside you!” (119).

Kleanthes’s voice and his subsequent behavior, though, are not characteristic of the male perception of women’s conduct and appearances of the time. Xenopoulos

196

himself portrays this unconventional type of hero that consents — or, at least, accepts

and forgives — the emancipated pattern of Nitsa’s reality, but he (the author)

simultaneously develops the plot in such a manner, that Nitsa in the end remorsefully

regrets and condemns her former conduct, and decides to become the model of a

devoted and committed wife. If Kleanthes forms an exception to the rule of the

average stereotypical male figure, this was not the stereotypical perception of things;

Varika reports that in the traditional Greek society women were not even welcome to

appear in public, since “the world” continuously threatened to distort the female chastity, “a chastity that will sooner or later turn into a perversion each time women seek an autonomy parallel to that of men, each time they attempt to define on their own their personal needs” (121). Consequently, Varika states, Nitsa, in her effort to affirm her personal credit, violates her domestic boundaries in order to become the

“symbol” of an independent person; but eventually she denounces this autonomy,

asserting the paternal — or male — authority as the sole means for securing female

propriety (121). Thus, Nitsa blames her father, the same father she demanded her

emancipation from,33 for allowing her to “fall” by not being strict enough:

“You warned me!” broke in Nitsa. “And you think that was sufficient?

You think you’d done your duty when you gave me a few lectures and

were – supposedly— strict with me? It always ended in you climbing

off your high horse! And I’m suffering now for your weakness!

Anyone who’s weak shouldn’t have children, and especially not girls.

Take Katina’s34 parents. They’re what I call parents. They grabbed her

by the hair, beat her black and blue, shut her up and saved her. That’s

what you should have done!” (262-263, italics mine)

197

Likewise, in The Portrait of a Lady, besides the emphasis on Isabel’s freedom,

there is also the impression of a danger that awaits her in the future, a precarious

destiny that derives from her ideas on marriage. Mazzella specifies the roots of this

danger to the fear of sexual possession that Isabel suspects could annihilate her

consciousness: “this sense of danger…becomes a fear of a special kind of

annihilation: that of the mind by the erotic. And it is this fear,35 as we shall see, that ultimately influences … Isabel’s decisions” (601). As a result, Isabel views marriage as a harmful and hazardous element, and men as “a ruinous expenditure” (106).

Bender calls attention to Darwin’s theory36 of sexual selection, directly

connected to the sexual possession that intimidates Isabel: consistent with Darwin,

Bender claims, the natural female will choose the most dynamic, the most efficient,

the most active and beautiful male; this, among civilized human beings, is interpreted

as the selection of the man with wealth and/or social position, criteria that deliver both

Warburton and Goodwood as ideal mates — yet Isabel chooses Gilbert Osmond.

Bender wonders about James’s intention and explores the source of Osmond’s

attraction on the part of The Portrait’s heroine: Gilbert Osmond proves James’s point

that “he certainly is a member of the species of men who have evolved through

natural and sexual selection” (145-149). Accordingly, he “captured” Isabel, as she

herself apprehends during her vigil, with his “beautiful mind,” the “exquisite

instrument” or “organ” that she “knew … perfectly now” (632), being “the finest —

in the sense of being the subtlest — manly organism she had ever known” (477).

Through Isabel’s thoughts about marriage James presents a sexually mature, or, at least, a sexually aware Isabel, resisting her two suitors out of “something pure and proud in her” (55) that may be depicted as a “cold and dry” refusal, but stems out

of a sensual, womanly soul, conscious of her own sexuality. So James portrays Isabel

198

definitely lured by Osmond’s sexual power of beauty and his “erect” personality, thus

adopting Darwin’s theory that celebrates the male’s absolute power over the female.

But, still, Bender remarks, James seems oblivious to the “free choice” that Darwin

attributed to the women of civilized nations, and he [James] “emphasizes Isabel’s

inherent psychological weaknesses such as her unstable imagination, her awe of

power… her …being outwitted and captured by Osmond.” While the author often

presents Isabel thinking about her freedom and right of “choice,” Bender comments, it

is “Osmond, not Isabel, [that] exerted the power of selection” (150). The realization

that the young woman had actually wasted her life in the delusive assumption of having an option, can be read as James’s punishment for her pride, his “complete brutality with which he subjects Isabel to the mechanical forces of nature,” (151) as maintained by Bender.

Thus, her prerogative to choose, in fact becomes a limitation instead of a liberty of will, and the self is left constrained and deprived of its potential. In marrying Osmond, Isabel succumbs to her sexuality that she knows could destroy her independence; but she decides to decline her power to have her own mind, starting from refusing to make decisions over the use of her money. Besides, Izzo states, only

Isabel’s imagination is illustrated as literally active; in contrast to her mental activities, her actual deeds only reinforce her passivity. And Izzo adds: “it follows from Isabel’s idea of self and freedom that only passivity can ensure freedom, since every action is a choice and, therefore, a limitation of one’s self” (37). In fact, Isabel’s

attitude is typical of the submissive female psychology under patriarchy: in a culture demarcated by the command of male desire, it is only natural that she accedes, even assists, in her own oppression and self-alienation.

199

In The Three-Sided Woman Nitsa’s vibrancy and forcefulness may not inspire

people to nurture and look after her (as is the case with Isabel) but she is also innocent and naïve, as is proven by the course of her actions. She combines conflicting traits that render her an intriguing character and an interesting young woman, embodying in a way the contradictions existing in the Greek society of the nineteenth century; torn between impudence or decorum, determination or passivity, Nitsa appears confused and perplexed, although Xenopoulos does not hesitate to portray in her some of the best qualities a heroine could have. She is pretty, intelligent, educated, wealthy, and kind, all the gifts and graces that Kleanthes admires in her: “What wonderful eyes!

What a sweet girl! And certainly ‘intellectual’ too … her many qualities would be

obvious — her spiritual beauty, her artistic appearance, her charming vivacity, her

almost masculine energy, her pleasant voice, her evocative recitation” (60).

But Nitsa also acquires an uncertain destiny; one based on her rebellious perception that she is liberated from society’s constraints, and is oblivious to the world’s opinion of her. Varika estimates that Nitsa is “as autonomous as any other young man in her age and social position,” (120) and consistent with this statement,

Xenopoulos comments on his heroine’s feelings when one of the characters touches

Nitsa’s most sensitive chord, her scorn towards society’s stereotypes:

“So what’s stopping you? The idea that it’s a house of ill-repute? How

can a girl like you, with your brains and in your position, entertain

such ideas and preconceptions?” … He had touched on her weak spot.

Nitsa would rather die than admit she had preconceptions!37 (166)

Frangoglou underlies the hidden alliance that Xenopoulos acquired with the

conservative social notions of decency and propriety and he states that Xenopoulos

himself had characterized the original novel, “The Three-Sided Woman,” as “obscene”

200

and pornographic (15); In the end, Frangoglou adds, “the narrator [through whom

Xenopoulos’s ideas are revealed] defines as contemptible and despicable the — uncommon to the Greek social mores — sexual freedom” (15).

This sexual freedom is, therefore, the peril that awaits Nitsa in her future, and has taken the form of a quest for her autonomous identity; this quest, however, leads her to the underworld of the Athenian society, to corruption, disgrace, and debasement. Xenopoulos explains this force that almost proves to be fatal for Nitsa, by pointing the finger at the uninhibited and unreasonable female sexuality, which requires a male-oriented control and influence, so as to evade a total obliteration of the woman. Consequently, it is her future husband, in whose wise authority the heroine will save her self-worth — and, mainly, her virginity — the one that offers the direction that Nitsa lacked by her father and brother. What is then dramatically illustrated as a fatal force that will lead Nitsa to destruction is nothing more than a striking way of presenting what is socially unacceptable and condemned: the freeing of the female sexual instinct.

For that matter, Varika supports, female emancipation developed only under certain conditions, and as long as it did not accentuate the threat developed through the emerging “female sexuality.” With women’s sphere expanded outside the domestic realm, Varika continues, their moral strength is cast doubt upon, and it is perceived as an “ outcome of male protection, a result of their [women’s] ignorance of corruption” (121). For that reason then, Nitsa is characterized by Xenopoulos in his introduction to the novel as “not depraved or degenerate” but as a “girl of flesh and blood, a sensitive creature with all the ardor of youth, the curiosities of virginity and the joy of life” (8). Nitsa’s uncontrolled sexual instincts are especially disclosed in the presence of Thales, the poet that initiated her and her friends into the sullied Three-

201

Sided Woman mentality; Nitsa feels a revolting attraction towards this man, while she

simultaneously experiences remorse: “And the strange thing is that, as her sense of repugnance grew, so did his attraction when she was with him … the further away she went, the more fervently she rushed back to him” (111).

Isabel Archer, on the other hand, as she walks from girlhood to womanhood, is transformed into an adult, married, changed woman; the brisk, alert and lively girl has now become a patient, frozen, solemn woman. She, who defied the limitations of conventional womanhood, is now pictured crushed and tamed by the same restrictions she once challenged: “The free, keen girl had become quite another person; what he saw was the fine lady who was supposed to represent something. What did Isabel represent? Ralph asked himself; and he could only answer by saying that she represented Gilbert Osmond” (444). “For the American girl to become a lady”

Habegger comments in Gender, Fantasy, and Realism, “ means the suffocation of her heart’s desire, a final acceptance of an absurd set of constraints, an endless checkmate with a husband who hates her and whom she hates in return” (69). Isabel insults

Osmond by attacking his ethics, his ideas, his attitudes. Egotistical and vain, he cannot stand her criticisms against him, and thus directs an inexorable, bleak hatred

against her, as Isabel perceives it: “He believed he should have regulated her emotions

before she came to It … there was nothing left but to hate her” (475).

Krook emphasizes the fact that Isabel is rejected and despised for her best

qualities –her open mind, her morality, her desire for the good and the noble, but ends

up hated and betrayed by those she loved and trusted the most (56). In chapter 37

Isabel is described for the first time since her marriage to Gilbert Osmond: “She had

lost something of that quick eagerness to which her husband had privately taken

exception — she had more the air of being able to wait. Now, at all events … she

202 struck … as the picture of a gracious lady” (321). As a gracious lady, then, she would never abandon her husband and would never fall off to a divorce.38

However, before Isabel’s final decision is discussed, along with the novel’s closure, it would be enlightening to study first the distressing relation in the heroine’s mind between independence and marriage, especially before marriage. Isabel’s liberal disposition, the very frame of mind that led her to reject marriage, is made clear from the beginning: she may have accepted the protection and support offered by Mrs.

Touchett, but she is not, she declares to Ralph, “a candidate for adoption.” On the contrary she announces, “ I’m very fond of my liberty” (74). In the scene where

Caspar Goodwood proposes for the second time, after Isabel has just refused Lord

Warburton, the novel’s theme concerning the lady’s portrait is clearly defined: she plans on expressing herself according to her own mode of existence.

“The world — with all these places so arranged and so touching each

other — comes to strike one as rather small.” … “I like my liberty too

much. If there’s a thing in the world I’m fond of,” she went on with a

slight recurrence of grandeur, “it’s my personal independence” … “I

can do what I choose — I belong quite to the independent class” … “I

try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I think, is more

honourable than not to judge at all. I don’t wish to be a mere sheep in

the flock; I wish to choose my fate” (213-214)

Isabel, then, grown as a person, does not perceive marriage as the mode that will unite her to the broader society. Actually, she regards men as a “ruinous expenditure” evoking feelings of confusion in her, so strong, that she believes in the possibility “to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded person of another sex” (106). Contrary to the prevailing narrative structure,39 Isabel does not

203 wish to marry so as to avoid earning her living; thus, she revolts against the conventional pattern: “Isabel’s originality was that she gave one an impression of having intentions of her own” (116).

On the other hand, her questioning of the marriage-plot appears non- pragmatic, taking into account that Isabel has no intention of acting as a radical feminist, but rather wants to remain an upper-class girl. A lady’s true destiny was to get married and thus gain the world’s approval since her social and personal needs for a place in society, for love, for completion, would be fulfilled through the presence of a man in her life. Accordingly, Isabel is willing to “give herself completely” (107), one day, out of a need to follow the norm, but also out of a desire to feel safe within the guarded boundaries of a controlled life, since, to quote Vopat,

dependency, while terrifying, is definitely attractive: to be able for

once to relax; to be secure; to be taken care of; to be free of suspicion,

fear and defensiveness; to be at peace. Yet the actuality of such

surrender and trust is so disturbing that it must be covered over with

romantic and speculative language. (50-51)

Hence, although Isabel aims at an alternative plan for her life, James’s story proclaims the only form her future can take: Isabel must marry. She is thus permitted to choose a husband, but she chooses wrong; Bell estimates Isabel to be entrapped in her design for a self-fulfilling plot, and considers this plot to

[…] submit itself to the conditions of a world which only permits her

to imagine — falsely — that she has found this opportunity in marriage

to a man … whose lack of “position” and income alone would make

him ineligible, and whose only “romantic” appeal is precisely in his

having no role in society. (754-755)

204

So Isabel marries, and soon realizes that she has ultimately judged wrong; thus

she has to suffer the consequences, however painful and costly. Her dynamic, free

spirit is not merely imprisoned in a confining relationship, it is also guided by Isabel’s moral idealism, a sense of duty and compliance to the obligation of a made promise

— to Osmond in public, and to his daughter Pansy in private.40 The description of the

lively and autonomous girl now turned into a reserved lady bound to commitment,

offers more than an unhappy ending; it indicates the worth and value of dignity and

integrity, manifested by a young woman, out of her own, personal moral sense: “

“One must accept one’s deeds. I married him before all the world; I was perfectly

free; it was impossible to do anything more deliberate. One can’t change that way,”

Isabel repeated” (536).

The moral idealism that Isabel displays is also depicted in Nitsa; and if, in

Isabel’s case it ruined her future by altering her priorities and the substance of her life,

it almost wrecked Nitsa’s as well; but, luckily, she was delivered at the final moment.

Nitsa leads an undisciplined life and at the same time is conscious of its immorality,

understands how erroneous it appears in the eyes of her family and the people of her own social rank; she despises the patterns and rules of this social rank, disregards its standards, and does not hesitate to passionately support this claim in front of the traditional Kleanthes:

[O]ur uncivilized society, … barbaric and reactionary, will not tolerate

such freedom. But what if it must tolerate it? What if the time has

come for it to become civilized and progressive, at last? Didn’t

someone have to make a start? Well, my friends and I were the ones

who made it. (226)

205

These arguments direct Nitsa’s life until the moment she wishes to be

appreciated according to the exact conventions she rejected, which is when she falls in

love with Kleanthes Zisiades. Up to the moment of their acquaintance Nitsa has often

experienced guilt and shame for her conduct, but she continued to be a prey to her

own passion, since she felt debased mainly in her own eyes, having no deep

appreciation for any individual she had so far met, that could eventually motivate her

to become a better person. However, Kleanthes inspires in Nitsa a sense of dignity

and refinement, an impression of cleanliness and virtue, an aspiration of strict decency and self-respect –qualities she realizes had been sacrificed to the kind of life she had been leading: “she … was somewhat impressed by his serious air, his refined handsome features, the austere elegance of his dress and, in particular, his air of bewilderment and surprise as she turned and looked at him. The gentleman had been startled by her laughter, it seems” (154). And it is then that Nitsa feels that she lacks the morality required in order for her to be coupled with a man of Kleanthes’s social stand, fame, name, talent, and graciousness:

Was she fit to be the wife of someone like Zisiades? Would her

conscience forgive her and allow her to do such a thing? … He was

something superior, very superior to anything Nitsa had known up till

now. The look from his usual blue eyes was not the kind she could

ignore. It obliged her to stop laughing, it held her in check, humbled

and crushed her. (215-216)

From that moment on, Nitsa is no longer the dynamic, independent, progressive New Woman who looks down on marriage and desires to uphold to her valuable freedom; she now is a woman in love, and Xenopoulos artfully turns the myth of the liberated woman into the tale of the bride who wishes to live happily ever

206

after. Hence, the marriage pattern overwhelms the heroine, who, defeated, expresses

her remorse for her indecent life by becoming an idealist of morality, thus willing to

sacrifice what she now considers her entire happiness, — her marriage to Kleanthes

—because she does not feel worthy of this man and the life he offers:

“What have I done! My God, what have I done!” From now on, she

wasn’t going to do the slightest thing wrong … But what was the use?

How could she lighten the load she felt on her conscience? How could

she ever look into the innocent, honest blue eyes of the man who loved

her, without remembering and feeling ashamed? … She would never

tell him she loved him! Never accept him as her husband! And perhaps

she would never dare love him (230-231)

Kleanthes, with his virile serenity, his serious approach to life, his restrained display of emotions towards Nitsa, and also with his honesty, kindness, and substance, manages to appear as the forceful male presence that is capable of controlling and guiding his life, and the life of the woman he chooses. Nitsa believed that she understood the world better when she displayed her liberal ideas and behaved with disrespect towards the stereotypes of the society that nurtured her; but her experiences proved her wrong: Xenopoulos sees the “revenge” of society against the insurgent of its laws, and thus the heroine is perceived as a measure of the price of experience – an experience on personal, not societal, terms. Hence, Nitsa is forced to choose the point where her course must stop, where her process will finish, and her essence of individuality will end. Her personal development, however shallow, superficial, or risky, is based on her personal requirements of life, yet Nitsa is led to admit failure and accept with pleasure another scheme of life, one in accordance with the established and time-honored standards of her society.

207

Xenopoulos does not lay guilt upon his heroine. He manages to stifle her first

bold steps towards independence, simply by declaring her inconsistent-with-her-time

demands; thus she is forced to suppress her desires and comply with the social rules.

Nitsa, in more than the first half of the novel embodies the freedom of choosing one’s

own life pattern, and exhibits a lively zeal for knowledge and experiences, but she

lacks the necessary practicality and wisdom to make her way through the world. This

world, for Nitsa, was the principled society of Athens, which required submission to

its rules of breeding, decorum, and appropriateness, treated women with a possessive

attitude and was entitled to suppress them to any lengths. Nikos, Katina’s brother, one

of Nitsa’s close girlfriends, reacts with violent anger and severely restricts his sister41 when he realizes that she is on friendly terms with liberal girls and young, unknown to his circle men:

He hurled injury upon injury at her and at her first slightly impertinent

answer, he seized her by her pigtail and beat her black and blue. Then

it was the turn of her father and her younger brother who both beat her

soundly … “The rotters! The rogues! The cheek! How dare they go out

walking with my sister! Did they ask me? Did they get my permission?

Do I know them? Have I ever met them? You may well ask how they

are to blame if my sister’s like that. They’re just making the most of

my chances, as I would myself if they had such a brainless sister. But

I’m going to seek them out so at least they don’t think we’re closing

our eyes to the matter!” (177-178)

Isabel, in turn, proves to be very stoic in her acceptance of her suffering and her fate, perceiving that the failed and unhappy marriage is her inevitable lot, and her faith to the vows she has given is mandatory: “she should never escape, she should

208

last to the end” (608). F. O. Matthiessen reads Isabel’s emphasis upon the sacredness

of a promise as an expression of her conservative, Puritan upbringing and

conventionally proper demeanor, suspecting that her submissive attitude is dictated

mainly by James’s unwillingness to permit her to be free from the demands of

propriety and tradition:

James knew how little she was free, other than to follow to an

impulsive extreme everything she had been made by her environment

and background … He had shown that she was completely mistaken in

believing that “ the world lay before her — she could do whatever she

chose.” (86-87)

Isabel’s consciousness represents, in fact, the superior American values that an

American Girl acquires, never disclaiming her moral responsibilities, but still being

“free to follow a good feeling,” as Isabel describes her attraction to Gilbert Osmond.

Her upbringing and environment have shaped her in accordance to particular Puritan

standards that urge Isabel to believe in the inevitability of a destiny, and also to accept

full responsibility for the consequences of her actions. In line with Auchincloss, she

senses that she has to prepare for her destiny — whatever that may be. Yet “[she]

does not for a minute assume that it will be happy. Indeed a certain anticipation of her

doom appears to hang about her from the beginning. It is this which gives her her

especially American flavor” (724).

In her youthful innocence and benevolence, Isabel is described as an easy

victim of the fate she assumed would satisfy her. Her grand aspirations were

answered, but the knowledge and suffering she expected, were given to her in a stern

version, and Isabel reacts with a sense of sacrifice and surrender to duty. She therefore tells Ralph that she does not “think anything is over” (507) between her husband and

209

herself. Chase estimates that Isabel is made to suffer without being guilty of

anything, but because she has to yield to the disciplines of traditional ethics:

“conventional morality imposes on her its punishment for a sin of passion. For better

or for worse, Isabel remains scrupulously virginal” (157). Blackmur in his article

“The Portrait of a Lady” calls her firmness to moral duty a “suicidal obstinacy” and

wonders about morals (and money) in James’s novels: “will they be instruments of

freedom or of destruction?” (248); in The Portrait of a Lady, however, Blackmur, in

the same article, sees the heroine’s will become effaced, her self deceived, her

illusions turn to disillusions, and her intimate, marital relation, become destructive

(251-252). Thus, the money her cousin had offered her as a means to set her free,

prove baneful to Isabel: the wind in her sails turns out unable to meet the

requirements of her imagination, and Isabel is “sold” into slavery.

In her final opportunity to escape her bondage, Isabel’s pride and convention

intervene, and prevent her from leaving Osmond. Thus she declines the possibility of

separating with her husband, since she is in fact unaware of how to live independently; she chooses instead to act ignorant, oblivious to and unmindful of the

unhappiness that prevails in her marriage, until the moment when the conspiracy against her is revealed, and Isabel finds out that she had been manipulated into the marriage. But even then, divorce42 is not an issue: “She seemed to see, however, the

rapid approach of the day when she would have to take back something that she had

solemnly given. Such a ceremony would be odious and monstrous; she tried to shut

her eyes to it meanwhile” (510).

Consequently, Isabel not only “shuts her eyes” to the prospect of a divorce,

but she also strives to become essential in Osmond’s life, this way accepting her part

in the typical female plot, where women function through men. But despite her

210

patience and firm endurance, Isabel does not succeed in transforming Osmond into a

good and caring person; thus, James does not apply here the conventional happy

ending that prevailed in popular fiction, where the husband either responded to his wife’s love and faith, or died. In The Portrait the unloving husband remains so until

the end, and the novel then becomes, as stated by Hadella, “the first realistic portrait of marital discord in American fiction” (3). Bell maintains that James accedes to this conventional mission of Isabel, where she willingly effaces her self, so that her husband determines her existence: “She would rather act through delegation, by

marrying. Osmond will do her doing for her. If he is guilty of regarding her as an

object, she is guilty, also, of thinking of him as an instrument. And James, the artist,

identifies with this delegation” (768).

Habegger in Henry James and the “Woman Business” holds Isabel’s ideas

about liberty to be “empty,” since she decides to put herself in chains — or, at least,

she is not presented as fighting for her release from the chains — and he questions the

value the author gives to female independence, since, he states, “the emancipation of

women… is worthless. The freedom that interests James is the internal kind, where

the manacles do not get taken off the hands but the spirit — somehow — spreads its

wings” (180).

Although Isabel sees the deceit and the entrapment, she understands that she

has also made a choice and must accept its value and results: “She should never

escape; she should last to the end” (608). Accepting her choice, however, does not

presuppose that she is afraid of Osmond; rather, she is anxious and intimidated by the

prospect of publicly declaring her broken marriage, of confessing to the world that her

marital life has not been successful. The result is a confined, repressed, and unhappy

Isabel, yet for Auchincloss, her commitment to her promise demonstrates a “high

211

style:” “ … she has agreed to be his wife before the world, and this she will be while

she has breath in her body. For better or worse. That was to be a lady in her time”

(726).

Nevertheless, the book’s ending illustrates James’s distrustful attitude towards

Isabel’s faith in her freedom: she has finally acknowledged it is a mistake to believe

in her own infinite possibilities, and thus discourages Caspar’s last appeal to this faith:

“The world’s all before us — and the world’s very big.” “The world’s very small”

(435), Isabel states, and returns to Rome. The reasons for this return to a dead-end

situation are diverse: she has promised Pansy to return and protect her; she is too

proud to make her failure known, and too respectful to her oath to go back on it; and,

finally, she is preconditioned to value the keeping up of appearances and the social standards’ etiquette, and therefore to carry herself and her life with decency, dignity,

and good grace,43 to follow those conventions that will help her “seem right:” “ ‘You must stay here.’ ‘I should like to stay — as long as it seems right.’ ‘ … as seems right? … Yes, you think a great deal about that,’ ” a dying Ralph remarks (622).

Warren sees Isabel’s return to Rome as “structurally ordained” by her sense of moral

worth and estimates that the price she pays determines her presence and future,

deriving from a misleading understanding of the past: “By leaving for Rome, Isabel also leaves the others — most notably Goodwood — behind, holding the damnable

key to patience, a postponed future, and a false notion of the past” (13).

Consequently, Isabel abandons the dream of self-fulfillment, and conforms to a way of life defined by social convention and duty, wanting in personal gratification.

Hence, the unconventional American girl develops, into “a lady,” to quote Habegger

in Gender, Fantasy, and Realism, “tightly corseted in a prison-like home” (76), a lady

that expresses the traditional “womanly fear of rebellion against what had been fixed

212

principles,” as an article in the Californian of January 1882 mentions (140). In respecting the freedom and rights and wishes of others, Isabel is actually annihilating

her own liberty and desires, she bestows a “supreme altruism,” as is stated by Myers,

but James declines to avow this confinement he has imposed on his heroine; in fact,

he portrays Isabel’s self-effacement as the only means to acquire inner freedom: ‘ “I

enjoy things when they’re done, but I’ve no ideas. I can never propose anything”

(436) … She had no opinions — none that she would not have been eager to sacrifice in the satisfaction of feeling herself loved for it’ (478).

The world around her does not interpret “justice” in terms of the innocent brotherhood and sisterhood that Isabel proclaims, and the membership to this society

— Isabel needs to belong there — presupposes concession to the system’s

determining of the individual’s conduct and ideas. Thus Isabel knows that “she had

allowed herself easily to be arrested” and that when she defies Osmond to go to

Ralph, she is practicing an act of “violence:” “ … yet they were married, for all that,

and marriage meant that a woman should cleave to the man with whom, uttering

tremendous vows, she had stood at the altar” (586). Isabel has accepted society’s

principles as logical, unconditional ideals, and so obeys these stereotypes out of

respect for the people she is committed to. In Ralph’s final moments she admits that

despite her occasional rebelliousness to the prevailing moral rule, it still summons and

directs her actions, decisions, ideas; this way everything remains in place and a

mistaken promise cannot be repudiated justifiably: “She had not known where to turn;

but she knew now. There was a very straight path” (636).

James’s involvement with his heroine can be interpreted on the basis of his

admiration for her integrity and moral worth, but he is also perceived to disapprove of

her presumption and her nerve to “affront her destiny,” (48) as he says in his preface,

213

her audacity to provoke her fate. Consequently, James’s imposition of a cruel future

on Isabel can be explained on the basis of his fear for this young, independent female

character, whose aggressiveness and daring cause alarm and insecurity to his male

authority.44 Baym in “Melodramas of Beset Manhood” reports that celibacy is viewed

as the “frustration of the female nature,” and unmarried women are perceived as

“untrue to the imperatives of their gender, which require marriage, childbearing,

domesticity” (74). Hence, the liberal Isabel who rejected marriage, not only marries,

but also marries erroneously. Holland affirms James’s own decline of “matrimony”

when he cites the novelist’s remarks45 on the issue of marriage. James confirms his

intention not to marry, but still, he underlines the importance of this institution as a

serious and weighty commitment.

James understood that unless he portrays his heroine as a rising feminist or as

a male, he couldn’t present a character that sets out to adventure with victorious vigor;

thus, he gives the figure of a sheltered young woman, meant to be secluded within the

female domestic world, excluded from serious social action. Therefore, female

selfhood as it is depicted in the novel cannot aspire to noteworthy tasks or projects,

and is condemned to social inactivity. Accordingly, Isabel is described as an innocent

maiden, prey to intriguers who, lured by her fortune and benevolence, entrap her into

the marriage plot, a plot she had tried to escape: “[Isabel] held that a woman ought to

be able to live to herself, in the absence of exceptional flimsiness, and that it was

perfectly possible to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded

person of another sex” (PL 71).

Isabel partly concedes to her imprisonment, since James subtly believes that she actually needs a domineering figure in her life, someone to control and direct her, just like her father would do, had he been around in his daughter’s world.46 And if the

214

price to pay for the presence of a masterful person is submission, then, an American heroine of James — though proudly declaring her freedom — is willing to accept it.

Habegger in Henry James and the “Woman Business” claims that Isabel prefers to be

repressed, because she thus assures her security and confirms her rejection of passion,

and he also suspects James to have forced his heroine to betray her self and her beliefs

in freedom, because she was too unconventional for his standards: “In the end he

produced a diminished picture of human freedom: Isabel’s treacherous servility leads

to a very conservative sort of responsibility, which finds freedom only in the acceptance of traditional forms” (159).

The perceptions and expectations of the other people around Isabel47 — and of

the author, mainly — define her being. She may be initially presented as a dynamic

and forceful character, but is ultimately portrayed as a blank sheet of paper, on which

everyone can write his/her own story: her father, her aunt, her cousin, her uncle, her

suitors, her husband. Lee Clark Mitchell, in his article “Beyond the Frame of the

Portrait of a Lady,” holds Isabel herself to be contributing powerfully to that

development, yet he recognizes the creator’s/author’s intervention to this process as

well: “Contrary to her adamant protestations…she is willing to accept the narratives

others make of her … [Isabel’s] character is created, the inner self integrated, through

a series of projected views” (94).

In The Three-Sided Woman Nitsa is also willing to sacrifice her personal

desires for her sense of duty which is intense in her, as it is in Isabel. In line with

Isabel Archer, then, Nitsa is too self-righteous to broadly admit her defeat in her

attempts towards independence, and thus prefers to decline being married to

Kleanthes, explaining to him only the reason for her refusal. Albeit she is portrayed as

an emancipated young woman, Nitsa acquires a deep respect and sense of value for

215 the social standards and the conventions that render her “correct” within her community. Having evaded these patterns, she feels compelled to disclaim her chances for personal fulfillment, which would be her marriage to the man she loves and admires: “[Nitsa] is also scrupulous enough not to want to marry the man she loves, on account of her escapades and her poor reputation. But he understands her, feels for her, chooses to ignore her past and persuades her to forget every unpleasant detail,” Xenopoulos remarks in the novel’s introduction (8-9).

But Nitsa forcefully refuses this union, although she recognizes that it is her sole opportunity for happiness; the reason for this supreme self-surrender on her side, is that Nitsa ultimately desires to be an esteemed member in the society she initially disregards, she wishes to be a part of the same social circle that the man in her life belongs to and respects. Therefore, Nitsa conveys her intention to concede to the system’s rules of conduct, and to conform to its dominant ideology; thus the rebellious Nitsa of the novel’s beginning, has turned into a dutiful woman who obeys stereotypes and regrets her mistakes. Consequently, she punishes herself according to the prevailing moral code, by refusing to marry a respectable and admired member of the upper class, whom she deeply cares for. Nitsa follows Isabel’s “straight path” that includes the necessary subordination of women, while Kolodny cites Jean E.

Kennard’s view of the symbolic nature of the marriage with which novels usually conclude, as “ ‘the adjustment of the protagonist to society’s values, a condition which is equated with her maturity’.” (147). Kolodny, in line with Kennard, gives voice to the exact structural demands that call for the heroines’ sacrifice of their independence and individuality, suggesting that the important issue in a fiction is not

“whether it ends in a death or a marriage, but what the symbolic demands of that

216

particular conventional ending imply about the values and beliefs of the world that

engendered it.” (147).

Despite Xenopoulos’s initial admiration of Nitsa’s personality, culture, and

spirit, he proves to be disapproving of her nerve to “affront her destiny,” to provoke

her fate and dare her security offered by her family and her wealth. Demonstrating the

traditional insecurity of the male authority in front of the female aggressiveness and

independence, Xenopoulos fears Nitsa’s audacity and confidence, and thus makes her

dream of marriage and family and children, but also punishes her almost immediately

by rendering this dream inaccessible to her. Nitsa, then, eventually wishes to become

sheltered within Kleanthes’s protective arms, to feel secure from any danger in her

guardian’s initiative and control, even if this presupposed isolation in the domestic

world, exclusion from any meaningful social action.48 Hence, Xenopoulos supports,

the young, basically innocent yet sensual girl needs a domineering figure in her life,

and he thus revises the impression that Nitsa has given for the greatest part of the

novel, that is, the unconventional woman, in fact too unconventional for her author’s

standards.

In the newspaper Ephimeris on May 3rd 1914, Xenopoulos, as a response to a

woman reader’s question “Don’t you believe that the behavior of a woman is a man’s responsibility and her dishonesty is also his dishonesty?” quotes: “As long as a woman is not a self-existing entity and is economically dependent on man […] man has to be responsible for her behavior as well and unfortunately her dishonesty is also reflected on him. Moreover I believe that in the current way of life, it is the man who forms woman […] he is the one that has to give all his attention so that woman does what she is obliged to do and thus his subordinate does not decline from her loyal path.”

217

Xenopoulos is not a feminist in the contemporary sense, since he does not equalize women with men. This is reflected in one of his letters to Ethnos about the similarities in his works “I Garsona” and The Three-Sided Woman. He quotes: “The similarity of “I Garsona” and The Three-Sided Woman is only in the subject, in a way that both of the subjects are equally moral as they reveal that a girl today cannot live freely and do whatever she desires avoiding the consequences just as a man can do”

(Ethnos, issue no. 3596)

Known for his consideration towards women, Xenopoulos offers us another example here of all the fears and reactions that originate in a man’s subconscious from the behaviors and also from the way of life of a small number of women who demand a greater autonomy in Athens in the beginning of the 20th century. After all, these behaviors are acceptable to the progressive part of the Athenian society.

The Three-Sided Woman refers to a French pornographic novel whose hero

“had persuaded himself and those unhappy women that the three of them together constituted perfection, the ideal of beauty.” The characterization of those women as

“unhappy” predisposes us about Xenopoulos’ negative stance towards these kinds of works. In the very next line he considers this novel “dishonorable” […] the narrator considers freedom in love so unusual for Greek customs, unacceptable and deplorable

… These characters (in his work) give him the opportunity to add a moralistic tone in his work, because the corruption of those people reaches such a degree and is described in such dark colors that their placement in society seems impossible.

(Fragoglou, “To Laiko Esthimatiko Mirthistorima …,” 15)

Xenopoulos presents the woman in one instance as a victim to man’s avails and societal restrictions, and in another the reader believes that “his work will be nothing more than a satirical attack against feministic ideas, that Mr. Xenopoulos will

218

turn out to be unprogressive, but later on we see that he also takes Nitsa seriously, that

he presents her with sympathy and as a forerunner; an emancipated woman.”

(Newspaper Democracy).

Forced to suppress her passion and to reject her much-desired freedom, Nitsa

is nevertheless not given Isabel’s morbid fate. Kleanthes, unlike Osmond, does not

perceive her as an object to be added to his collection, nor as a possession to control

and exploit; Nitsa is loved and valued by Kleanthes, who maintains the same feeling

for her even when she discloses her whole past to him. Her worth, however, is

doubted by Xenopoulos himself, when he presents Nitsa to be skeptical and cynical of

her own status and worth, considering herself a pariah within the respectable and

upright social order she belongs to: “Well, I assure you I deserve the reputation I’ve

got. It’s not just a misunderstanding and slander. I’m a real hussy, I am” (257).

Xenopoulos forces upon Nitsa a strict conscience that leads her to a self- effacing attitude, and urges her to obliterate her personal wants by following the conventional and narrow stereotypes. Trapped by her own independent ideas, which are masterfully proven wrong, Nitsa falls victim to the immoral schemes of strangers and to the superficial perceptions of her friends, and concludes her struggle by admitting these people’s impact on the subordination of her self-importance and on the limitation of her world: “Just look at me now and be proud of yourselves!” she exclaims to her parents. “ For people who know us to ignore me in the street and for strangers to come up to me and make advances! Yes, yes! That’s what it’s come to!”

(263).

In The Portrait of a Lady, Isabel, despite her initial energetic appeal for freedom, fails to meet the requirements of her imagination and ends up accepting the position the author gives her, to be part of the Osmond collection49 and the Osmond

219

museum. Instead of enduring in her aspiration to become a creative, artistic person,

she assumes the position of an object that belongs to someone else, and not her self.

For Meissner, Isabel hastens with her own actions the effacement of her individual

standing, and thus weakens the importance with which she perceives her persona: “By

choosing stasis over kinesis, finished product over process, sterility over vitality,

Isabel precipitates the end of her personal development and thus betrays one of the

most vital requirements of a life of the imagination which, by necessity, is always in

process” (119).

While struggling to broaden her impact within a male-oriented society, Isabel

cannot escape from the inclination to wish to please others, to be approved, admired,

respected, and applauded. Thus, it is illustrated as one of her characteristics, that she

“had in the depths of her nature an even more unquenchable desire to please than [her

sister] Edith” (88); furthermore, when she is described as confined in her baneful

marriage, James reveals his intentions for her future, by describing Isabel’s inner

traits, which, in turn, guide her decisions: “It was astonishing what happiness she

could still find in the idea of procuring a pleasure for her husband” (619) Besides, it is

affirmed —by Osmond— that “ ‘a great lady … wishes, above all, to please’” (624).

Along with the romantic idealism that dominates the heroine’s story, the

version of the superior male’s authority also directs the plot; James conducts the story

so as to suggest that the female protagonist — and all females, whatsoever — is

ultimately not free to decide on her fate and husband. Isabel appears free to choose

and to receive the responsibility for her judgment and yet for all her inheritance and

liberty, her selection proves the most unforeseen and most erroneous. Although Isabel

makes efforts to resist this entrapment, she cannot escape from being read as actually favoring and approving this enclosure to liberty, since she is not allowed the space to

220 directly and forcefully express her resistance. On the contrary, she can be perceived as a commonplace woman with cliché-ridden views on marriage and its requirements:

“[Osmond] was not one of the best husbands, but that didn’t alter the case. Certain obligations were involved in the very fact of marriage, and were quite independent of the quantity of enjoyment extracted from it” (626).

James has been constrained by his own prejudice and thus presents a repressed heroine, with ideas that do not bear limitations, but that also cannot exist outside the social reality. This reality contains ordinary notions of the desired marriage and the unthinkable divorce, narrowing a woman’s dreams and horizons to the barriers of

Victorian moralizing. Accordingly, the self-sacrificing wife was part of the moral vision proclaimed by the time’s culture, where the woman’s passive acceptance of a hellish marriage was a proclaimed ideal, or, as Hadella puts it, “a misogynistic idea about wifely virtue that disguised itself as a tribute to womanhood” (10).

Accordingly, Nitsa acquires the position given to her by the author, and accepts, even if she does not fully realize it, that she does not entirely belong to herself, but is to a great extent prey to society’s demands on her. Thus, she displays a rigorous disposition to please others, including Kleanthes, her parents, but mainly her conscience, by denying what has turned to be the most desired outcome for her, her marriage to Kleanthes. Nitsa considers that through this sacrifice, she can annihilate all her previous transgressions and appear spotless in front of the society she so fervently hitherto resisted. But the author’s fondness of his heroine presides over the plot, and Nitsa is delivered from her punishment, but only because a superior male intervenes and directs the plot: Kleanthes is illustrated as the solid and forgiving male figure, whose authority empowers him to release Nitsa from her past and obtain a future with him. When in the end Nitsa decides not to insist on her sacrifice, it is

221

Kleanthes’s view of the world that transforms the young woman into a new, rational

person, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the New Woman ideal that initially dominated Nitsa:

Now his words, his reasoning and his arguments ran through her mind.

Yes, he was right! Beguiled, deceived, maddened and intoxicated by

the wine of youth, she had not understood what “life” was and had

excused her own frivolity — the games which had no true value —

but no dire consequences, either. (292)

However, the influence and the power the young architect exercises on Nitsa

is not diminished by his loving feelings towards her. Her impulses are controlled

when she thinks of Kleanthes, and her superficiality is weakened by his mere presence:

At the sight of him, the foolish girl was conscious of two things. First,

she felt a surge of shame and restraint that made her stifle her laughter

in a second. And at the same time — once again without warning —

that feeling of peace and security which, lately, seemed to sweep over

her (153)

Kleanthes is not, though, presented as a controlling and suppressing type of man, but he constantly states his pliability wherever Nitsa is concerned; the author, on the other hand, suggests that his female protagonist is not free to choose her own fate, unless a man allows her some free space, and even when this happens, she opts for the confinement of the marriage plot. Xenopoulos’s prejudice is made evident in his representation of a heroine with ideas restricted by the social realities of her culture,50 especially when she was introduced to us as a young woman battling against these exact realities. “A girl,” the author asserts in the Ethnos newspaper in 1924, “cannot

222 live in a great liberty today, acting her own mind, without the consequences a boy would experience”. And the cost of Nitsa’s liberty is her bad repute in the respectable

Athenian society: “Nitsa began to get a bad name and some families with daughters of their own broke off all relations with the Gazeles family” (209).

The vision of marriage, then, is as desired and acknowledged as the prospect of a divorce is dreaded;51 and the vision of the self-sacrificing, submissive wife is the moral ideal for the Victorian mindset in both novels; when Nitsa is near Kleanthes, she envisions the tidy, respectable, highly regarded and loving life that he stands for, and her moments with him acquire a sense of solidity, security, decency, and permanence, a conviction that, at last, Nitsa will be accepted by society:

everything was in its place — secure, fast, firm, sensible, eternal …

Sitting beside the young man, in her usual place, where she had so

many times misunderstood herself, Nitsa felt that at last she was really

living her life — a wonderful, free life, as acceptable in Athens, as it

had been in Geneva. One that would be accepted everywhere! (222)

Frangoglou remarks that, keeping up appearances was vital for a family’s position in society, and the power of the public opinion determined who would be accepted or cast off by the social order. He also reports that the social environment

refutes the pacesetters, the leaders of novel ideas as the woman’s self-

rule, and eventually an extreme conservatism is infused [in those

innovators]. The case of Nitsa Gazeli in The Three-Sided Woman is

characteristic [of a girl] who initiates a life opposing to the male-

oriented ideology, but ultimately acknowledges the viewpoint of

Kleanthes Zisiades, that it would be preferable if another woman, for

whom he cared less, would instigate this kind of change. (77)

223

In both The Portrait of a Lady and The Three-Sided Woman, James and

Xenopoulos provide the readers with captivating ladies, in, to quote Porte, a

“traditional and conventional tale of young innocence betrayed”(25).52 The social significance of the “woman question” and its role in explaining the circumstances that were developing, render the two novels works to be constantly into focus. According to my reading in this dissertation, I perceive James and Xenopoulos as authors who occupy themselves with a female heroine, but deliberately efface her dynamic persona in the end, thus erasing the primary feministic elements and the voices of energetic independence within a Victorian setting. In accordance to this view, Budick cites the perception of some critics in whose eyes James (and in this study’s case, Xenopoulos, too,) appears to be “silencing the woman, thus duplicating the very crime of patriarchy” (157). In any case, Isabel and Nitsa will always remain fascinating heroines of engrossing novels that inspire the discussion of whether male authors can or cannot convey female consciousness. Despite their efforts to escape from it, the two heroines may finally submit themselves to patriarchal society, but they still manage to impress and affect it by lending it their personal touch and air.

224

Notes

1 Cogan quotes Smith-Rosenberg and Rosenberg’s article “Female Animal”

(Dimity Convictions, 334-35), about the way nineteenth-century scientists and

physicians perceived and studied woman’s nature and mentality in relation to her

biology.

2 Varika mentions that when a woman was not obliged to go out of her house

unaccompanied, but had the luxury of a servant or an available husband to escort her,

this was an indication of her moral and social stand (76).

3 Cogan also quotes Dr. Edward H. Clarke, M.D., the writer of Sex in

Education; or A Fair Chance for the Girls (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., late

Ticknor and Fields and Fields, Osgood and Co., 1873) and a major True Womanhood opponent of female higher education.

4 Cogan refers to Dr. Van De Warker and the physiologist Samuel Gregory, as

supporters of a cultivated, intellectual, and simultaneously healthy woman (72).

5 In fiction, a well-rounded academic education often proves to be valuable to

the heroine, who, her bluestocking background provided, makes wise decisions about

her personal life and her professional future. In Augusta Evans’s St. Elmo (1866) the

scholarly protagonist Edna Earl remains feminine and attractive, along with her high-

level education; Ellen Montgomery from Susan Warner’s The Wide, Wide World

(1851) achieves true contentment in her books and in her informal tutor, John

Humphreys; Mary Jane Holmes links the unenlightened Carrie Livingston of Lena

Rivers with a failed marriage, whereas her educated cousin Lena marries a suitable

match; and in Meadowbrook, Holmes presents the schoolteacher Rosa in a blissful

bond with a wise and noble husband.

225

6 Ryan names a number of representative writers’ names, whose literature captured the Cult of True Womanhood: Lydia Sigourney, William Alcott, Mrs. E. D.

E. N. Southworth, Catharine Beecher, and Harriet Beecher Stowe (189).

7 Real Womanhood heroines worked outside their home because it was necessary for them to do so, and not to satisfy their inner needs.

8 Nitsa actually finds happiness at the end of the novel, but only after the dynamic intervention of her loved-one; her former decision to abandon all prospects of personal bliss is motivated by her having violated in the past the high standards of the Real Woman ideal.

9 A recurrent theme of the late nineteenth century was that of the New Woman

–the female emancipation, which included women’s rights to education, to earning and retaining one’s own income, the ability to make decisions, and the participation in the democratic and social matters through the right of the vote. Nevertheless, in the novels and plays the emancipated New Woman is portrayed in a confusing way, either as denying her authentic and natural gender role, or as deeply needing the love of a strong man, thus intermingling the spiritual, carnal, and sheltering versions of an erotic relationship. In this context, the 1890s woman often questioned the issue of marriage, especially if she were educated or financially independent, but often fell for an overpowering male figure.

10 For practical reasons, the novel’s title (The Portrait of a Lady) may occasionally be referred to, abbreviated, as “PL”.

11 The differentiation in the plots should be once more underlined here: Nitsa’s husband has had a positive influence in her life, and is not ever portrayed as threatening or oppressive; the common denominator of The Three-Sided Woman with

The Portrait of a Lady is that Nitsa is conventionally “saved” by her future husband,

226

while being on the verge of injuring her maiden honor and reputation, just like Isabel, who believes that she protects her moral integrity and performs her ethical duty by staying married to Osmond.

12 In 1906 James revised the novel and in 1908 the new The Portrait of a Lady

was published for the New York edition, a selection of James’s writing, which

appeared from 1907 to 1909. The novel’s revised version is stylistically and

thematically closer to the author’s later aspects, written in a more complex and

metaphorical manner, and dealing mainly with the theme of the private consciousness,

thus rendering Isabel Archer’s inner life the focal point of the novel’s reality. The

1881 and 1908 editions represent two separate texts, and have been studied as such;

therefore, I have chosen to discuss and to use quotations from the revised text of the

New York edition of 1907-1909. James wrote a preface for the new work, underlying

the themes of perception and awareness that the novel now centered upon, and

instructed the reader regarding the interpretations and critique attributed to his work.

13 April 9 to July 3, 1917.

14 April 28 to August 8, 1922.

15 The play was performed on September 16, 1924, yet the text has not been

saved.

16 It is a novel by Victor Margueritte, written in 1922, and distributed in

Greece in 1924.

17 James’s first important story about the American Girl was Daisy Miller: A

Study, and it dealt with a bold, independent and immature young woman who

despised and neglected the system, and died. By creating Isabel as Daisy’s cultivated

and scrupulous version, James positions the American Girl within the woman’s sphere

–despite the fact that he himself suppresses her later.

227

18 In 1870 James’s young cousin, Minny Temple, died of tuberculosis and although it remains unclear whether the novelist was in love with her, his pain for her loss had not been concealed; many critics argue, though, that her memory stood as the inspiration for the central figure of several of his novels, including The Portrait of a

Lady and The Wings of the Dove (1902).

19 Hadella foreshadows an explanation to the novel’s concluding scenes, by reminding the praise awarded to those novels that “reminded women that it is

essentially the wife’s Christian duty to ensure that a faltering marriage corrects itself”

(2) and, in support of this notion, mentions an approving critique about a novel

[Harriette Bowra’s A Young Wife’s Story (1878)] that managed to transfer to the

audience the ethics — acquired by women — of duty, patience, faith, and

commitment:

The heroine marries in the fourth chapter; the rest of the book is

occupied in giving an account of the first year of her married life. By

her fidelity to duty under trying circumstances she wins the love of an

unloving husband and the allegiance of stepchildren who have been

studiously prejudiced against her. The closing sentence of the novel —

“Trust in God, and do right”—gives the moral, and the first clause of

the sentence is in the story quite as emphatic as the last clause. (2)

20 James quite often uses this “marriage versus independence” formula — it is

also met in novels such as Washington Square, The Bostonians, and The Tragic Muse,

where his fiction treated current social material. A similar nineteenth-century story

pattern that also contains The Portrait and is depicted by Habegger in Henry James and the “Woman Business,” is that of the independent orphan-heroine in search of the father-lover. According to Habegger, Osmond is the paternal lover and Isabel the girl

228

in an unprotected state, forced to cater for herself, who finds consolation in marrying a figure connoting her poor, afflicted father (154). The only turn of mind that

Habegger realizes in this novel is that although James has his heroine experience the advanced independence through an older husband, Isabel’s feelings are to the full: “If all the precociously independent heroines would insist on falling for a middle-aged monster, all right then, his own heroine would do so with a vengeance. And if it was not possible to renovate the old masterly lover, then he should be made as quiet and sinister and poisonous as possible” (156).

21 In James’s novels the millionaires and heiresses serve a specific, dramatic

cause: they symbolize humankind in the modern world, while they function as

emblems of power and status in their society. They represent, that is, the prevailing

paradigm of human possibility in that society, in the sense that their agonies, pain,

joys, and success, could also happen to other people, and are moreover ideal and

helpful to the purposes of drama.

22 This is how Xenopoulos gives the first impressions Kleanthes had of Nitsa:

At first, he took her for a foreigner, but after a closer look, he realized

she was Greek and, without doubt, an Athenian. She had that air about

her, that style the young man had so yearned for all those years in that

cold, bleak foresight land … she had a charm which no artist could fail

to recognize at once as something rare and special. (13)

23 Caspar Goodwood is presented as a young Bostonian, the son of a

prosperous cotton industrialist, who has been running the family business for some

years.

24 The womanizer artist, who initiates the idea for the fulfillment of the Three-

Sided Woman, is Thales Photides, a wealthy young socialite, dark skinned and

229

elegant, who considers himself a poet. Although not appreciated for his art, Thales arouses Nitsa’s sexual instincts, and she accepts to enact the idea of the novel that he loans her:

At that very time, he had been reading a French book — a licentious

romance, illustrated with photographs of naked women, where the

hero, a libertine, had succeeded in getting three tarts to be in love with

him at the same time … He had persuaded both himself and these

unfortunate girls that the three of them together formed the Perfect

Ideal of Beauty which the libertine had failed to find in one woman

alone! It was this salacious novel entitled The Three-Sided Woman

Thales brought to his mind now. (82)

25 “Alkis Thrilos” is the (male) pen-name of the female writer Eleni Ourani.

26 Alkis Thrilos in this article actually criticizes the novel’s version of a play,

first performed on September 16, 1924, at the Kiveli Theater.

27 Nitsa is shocked and extremely disappointed to find out that her own father,

a preacher of propriety and decency, is having an extra-marital affair with a poor girl

from the neighborhood. From this point on, Nitsa becomes angrier and more resolute

to defy the hypocritical society she lives in.

28 The indifference and imprudence that Isabel displays at this point towards

the conventional codes of proper behavior, desert her in the second half of the novel,

when a changed Isabel makes important life decisions with serious respect to the

social patterns of propriety and decency.

29 The façade of modesty appears quite a paradox when Osmond reveals his

vain, preposterous and absurd aspirations. When he talks about his early life as a

young gentleman, he states:

230

There were two or three people in the world I envied — the Emperor

of Russia, for instance, and the Sultan of Turkey! There were even

moments when I envied the Pope of Rome — for the consideration he

enjoys. I should have been delighted to be considered to that extent,

but since that couldn’t be, I didn’t care for anything less.

(315)

Kazin describes Osmond as “decadent and shallow-hearted” (230) and calls attention to the fact that with his behavior, Isabel’s essence of being is threatened by cultivated superficiality: “Gilbert wants just to know what the powerful think. The real threat to the soul — to Isabel’s, for Gilbert is past saving, — arises from an excessive worship of the fine surface” (231).

30 According to Daugherty’s reading, the masculine control that Osmond authorizes on Isabel is also indicated in the overbearing impression she had of his house: “There was something grave and strong in the place; it looked somehow as if, once you were in, you would need an act of energy to get out” (PL, 304). Even when

they both declare their impressions of St Peter’s cathedral, Isabel fails to deduce

Osmond’s threatening frame of reference: she perceives the cathedral as “very large

and very bright,” whereas he condemns it as “too large; it makes one feel like an

atom” (PL, 345). (67).

31 James says in the novel:

The desire for unlimited expansion had been succeeded in her soul by

the sense that life was vacant without some private duty that might

gather one’s energies to a point … She could surrender to Osmond

with a kind of humility, she could marry him with a kind of pride: she

was not only taking, she was giving. (PL, 403)

231

32 References to Isabel’s childhood in Albany describe her as the motherless daughter of a charming, but unreliable, neglecting father.

33 When her father, in the beginning of the novel, reacts to Nitsa’s frequent

outings with her friends, she angrily wonders if she is his “slave” and speaks of a

“tyrannical” authority on her parents’ part (34).

34 Katina is Nitsa’s friend who was imprisoned by her family when she was discovered to walk around with boys and girls that her family did not approve of.

35 Tanner speaks of another kind of fear that possesses Isabel, her fear of

herself: this self has misinterpreted Osmond and led her life to a disastrous path by the

mistaken choice of Osmond as her husband (143).

36 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man.

37 At this point in the novel Thales proposes to Nitsa the indecent house of

their old woman-friend as the place for their secret meetings.

38 Bell states that the alternative of a divorce was not supposed to be an option

for upper-class women, no matter how horrible the insults by their husbands. In fact,

divorce was even legally difficult, until the 1870s and 1880s, when the English law

took measures in favor of women as the injured party (755).

39 The familiar plot-development initially presented a young, pretty, and

economically helpless heroine, who suddenly has to decide among several suitors that

claim her, and also claim the position of a life-savior.

40 Isabel considers her duty to cater to Osmond’s young daughter, out of pity for the lack of a noble paternal figure in the girl’s life, and out of her own tender feelings to the innocent, good-hearted creature. Van Ghent considers the figure of

Pansy of “great structural importance” for the progression of the plot, since “(Pansy) shows the full measure of the abuse that Isabel resists, and it is to nourish in her

232

whatever small germ of creative volition may remain- to salvage, really, a life- that

Isabel returns to Rome and to Osmond’s paralyzing ambiance” (125).

41 Nikos felt that, as a dutiful brother willing to preserve his family’s honor, he

was obliged to sternly confine his sister, treating her as a captive, imprisoned in her

own home:

It was, however, the strictest confinement, absolutely pitiless and

without the slightest concession. They did as they had threatened and

did not let the unfortunate girl set foot outside the house or scarcely

even go to the window… She was no longer allowed to read or write,

since they were convinced that books and learning had turned her head.

Now it was only sewing and rough housework, to make her into a good

housewife. No two ways about it. What! Novels and albums, French

lessons and other nonsense, to learn how to traipse about the streets

with strange young men? Enough was enough! No more! It was a pity

they had trusted her. (178-179)

42 Thomas cites details concerning a “marriage contract” which was granted by lawyers in the late nineteenth century. According to this contract, marriage is

understood as an imposing relationship that the Supreme Court called “the foundation

of family and of society”. This important link, though, was not simply an affair of the

domestic realm, but it also required a public nature: “the state concerned to guard the

morals of its citizens, by taking care that neither by collusion nor otherwise, shall

divorce be allowed under circumstance as to reduce marriage to a mere temporary

agreement of conscience or passion … ” (63).

43 Late in the novel Isabel discovers — among other things — that Madame

Merle was Osmond’s ex-mistress and is Pansy’s mother. And she proves to be a Lady

233

in the higher sense when, in one of her visits to her ignorant step-daughter in the convent, Pansy tells Isabel: “Madame Merle has been here … I don’t like Madame

Merle!” to which Isabel regally replies: “You must never say that — that you don’t like Madame Merle” (603).

44 The cult of the pious, submissive womanhood also entailed the cult of

martyrdom in fiction, which is defined as a culturally admired persistence on the part

of women, to hold on to tyrannical marriages, as a proof of their fidelity. Two

representative titles of novels with this “misogynistic” bent are Frank Lee Benedict’s

Mr. Vaughn’s Heir (1875), and Marie Sophie Schwartz’s The Wife of a Vain Man

(1871).

45 The remarks are from letters James wrote to his brother and Grace Norton,

in 1878 and 1881, on the subject of marriage.

46 Vopat refers to Isabel’s confused childhood in Albany, and relates her

experiences as “an eager-to-please, motherless daughter of a charming but

irresponsible father” to the girl’s later sense of self, that is expressed as an abandoned

daughter who wishes to be perfect so that she avoids being deserted by either father or

husband. Thus, Isabel develops in her “a profligate father’s version of the perfect

child: a child whose much-praised ‘cleverness’ and ‘independence’ would preclude

any demands for attention, direction, protection or love; a child with no needs or

wants; in short, a child without feelings” (38-39).

47 In The Portrait of a Lady James uses a combination of two methods,

according to Kelley: the first is that of using his mind as his glass, (portraying the

facts and thoughts filtered through the hero’s perception) and the second is the direct

approach method (where the plotting of the other characters is stated, and the heroine

is looked at from both the outside and the inside). This way, the perception of the plot

234

is more flexible, and the reader is offered an indirect preview of Isabel’s state of mind through the awareness of those around her, before revealing it directly in her midnight vigil. And Kelley adds: “All this shows the hand of an artist and a master as well, for though James trusted the stage of others temporarily, the glance of author, characters, and reader is kept focused upon the mind of Isabel (57 – 59).

48 Avdela and Psara report that the working woman, with the economic

independence that she has obtained, feels the need to actively participate in her

political emancipation, also demanding social and moral autonomy. Consequently, the

feminist struggle opposes female dependence that render them enslaved and

humiliated. (75).

49 “(Osmond) perceived a new attraction in the idea of taking to himself a young lady who had qualified herself to figure in his collection of choice objects”

(PL, 354).

50 The realities referring to the domestic realm are not based on totally proven

facts, since the private sphere is not depicted in references about the time’s actualities.

Most studies are dedicated to the literature and the culture of the period, but the

everyday life, the mentality guiding people’s routine, the social relationships between

the two sexes have not been scientifically discussed. Consequently, the references to

the time’s realities are based mainly on information derived from the already-existing

sources of literature and sociology.

51 Varika reports that in nineteenth-century Greece the life of a divorced

woman was not an easy one: she was constantly suspected of being immoral, she was

deprived of her children’s custody, and she had to deal with her social circle’s

hostility. “The divorced woman, even when she belongs to the upper-class

bourgeoisie, the class that acquires almost exclusively the advantage of divorce, was,

235

to quote Penelope Delta, ‘a pariah within the then- hypocritically humble society.’ ”

(96).

52 Porte meant this comment for Isabel Archer, but I believe it is applied here

to Nitsa Gazeli as well.

Chapter Three

The Tragic Muse and The Actress’s Husband:

the Capture and Objectification of the Female Artist

To discuss the behavior of women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and their reaction to certain circumstances, in fiction or in real life,

presupposes knowledge of the model that directed this behavior, as well as knowledge

of the truths that were accepted by men and women in their everyday roles. Thus, the

title “American woman” entails specific stereotypes and images that are essential to

the understanding of the portrayed picture of the devoted mother, the virtuous

individual, the uncorrupted female citizen, the willing queen of the domestic realm, the simple, weak, easy-to-control being who depended on the male presence for strength, safety, guidance, even survival.

These limiting stereotypes produced the constrained figure of the American woman,1 a creation of the male establishment in order to safeguard the power and

status granted to them until then. Resulting from the long tradition in history that wanted men to dominate and control in every aspect, the roles attributed to women were confining and restricted. The societal standards were widely recognized as correct and fulfilling, beyond any doubts or oppositions on the side of women regarding the imposed on them domesticity, weaknesses, and nature. Therefore,

despite their dreams, hopes, ambitions, and talents, these women found themselves

obliged to accept these formulas, eliminate any previously desired patterns of life,

conduct, or thought, and turn into the broadly welcome and admired role of the “true”

American woman. 237

Riley reports specific historical, political, and economic events that

contributed to a new development and formation of the woman’s position: In the

second decade of the nineteenth century, Riley states, an air of growth and

development encouraged investments in new industries, people from the countryside

and from other countries overwhelmed the American cities in search for jobs, and the

changes due to industrialization and western migration altered the face of the nation:

the traditionally perceived separate spheres between men and women (the public and

the private,) were defied by the need for women’s participation in employment. The

restrained image of women’s confined lives changed into a vivid participation to

production and profit (63). As Riley affirms “industrialization transformed household

production, created social classes for women, and drew huge numbers of women from

their homes into paid employment” (63). In Greece, the situation appears parallel to

that in America: in the 1920-1930 decade, Greek women have left the home territory

and require their place in the job industry. But the problems and the barriers they face

are numerous; the big number of women that seeks an occupation, along with the vast

economic crisis that Greece faces after World War I, aggravate their wage

opportunities, their prospect to advance in their job, and the hostility with which

women are dealt with by male unions. Consequently, the working woman feels the

need to be organized so as to safeguard her right for paid work, as well as for

political, and thus social and moral emancipation, as Avdela and Psara state (74-75).

Nevertheless, those women who did not leave the home-place to enter the workplace, focused devotedly on child rearing, perceiving this responsibility as a

moral duty, as an obligation for the creation of an ethical, righteous family. It was the

mother’s utter calling and high mission to shape the children’s souls and to generate

in them the principles and values required for a responsible and decent character. 238

Specialized guidebooks, popular women’s magazines2, and etiquette manuals aimed at helping women to form their lifestyles, notions, and behavior according to the ideal

of the “lady” who would be responsible for the proper management of the home and

its people. Advice towards women to “turn their talents to instilling virtue in children,

men, and servants,” and “marry, both for happiness and economic survival,” (67) are

mentioned by Riley as examples of the demarcation of the properly decent sphere for

them. Likewise, the equivalent Greek conduct books instructed the rules of appropriate demeanor, along with the performance of household duties. The young women’s obligation to their country and their family entailed virtues such as piousness, obedience to their life’s male figures, domestication, serenity, altruism, and restraint. Women appeared to accept their isolation and seclusion within the domestic realm, considering themselves in charge of the morality of the home through a self- effacing wifehood and motherhood.

The supreme pattern of the good woman, which is associated with the good daughter, wife, mother, and house lady, also established a whole cultural ideal in

Greek society, referred to as the “domestic ideal.” Considered as the foundation of ultimate femininity, the domestic ideal actually conflates the figure of the good servant with that of the perfect Victorian daughter and wife, as Bakalaki states (128-

129). Therefore, in the modern Greek reality, a system analogous to the norm called

“The Cult of True Womanhood” that formed women into perfect, immaculate, true ladies,3 aimed at shaping the idealized notion of “the home,” thus constructing a new dimension in women’s social role. The domestic realm was considered an

autonomous sphere with its own guardian angel, the “Angel of the House,” the

woman. This female presence was presumed to embody the kindness, selflessness,

and love anticipated in the familial structure; the idolization of the domestic values 239

was further triggered by an increased interest in the child-rearing domain, which, as

maintained by Varika, resulted from a turn towards private life and family bliss (82).

Consequently, the woman rises to a pedestal, treasured as a creature that “was or,

rather, could become, a mother,” this precious role actually binding her with “the

sentimental ties of her oppression in the Modern society,” straps inspired by men (82).

The philhellene American diplomat, George Higgins Moses, notes back in

1915 a lack of essential core in Greek women, who are “controlled by parents and brothers, while marriage means for them merely changing their master” (27-28).

Consistent with Moses, Cott refers to marriage as the beginning of the woman’s professional labor, labeled as the start of her reigning in her house:

Legally and economically the husband/father controlled the family, but

rhetorically the vocation of domesticity gave women the domestic

sphere for their own, to control and influence. Motherhood was

proposed as the central lever with which women could budge the

world, and, in practice, it offered the best opportunity to women to

heighten their domestic power. (84)

Nevertheless, the ultimate authority was placed in the male power, and

patriarchy was, in actuality, always controlling the familial matters as well. The

woman was called to lead the major role of stabilizing the ambitious and material-

oriented standards, with the moral character that she, as a mother, would generate to

her children. Her field of reign, then, focused on the home and its function as a shelter

from life’s dangers. “The canon of domesticity,” Cott asserts, “answered by

constituting the home as a redemptive counterpart to the world” (98).

The acquisition of such a spiritually high and essentially feminine role, then,

situated the woman on that mythical pedestal the commands of which she could 240

hardly escape: the stereotypical expectations the woman had to meet with, and the taboos she was not to violate, created a prison and a trap out of the true lady’s legend:

any discussion or interest in issues of sexuality was forbidden, personal sympathies

were to be experienced through theoretical romancing and not physical contact, and

the maternal love was the only widely approved feeling. Disobeying such standards

could cost a woman her power as a spiritual, wise, and feminine individual.

Accordingly, a romance story was to be completed through marriage, presupposing

that the bride was young, honest, beautiful, simple-minded and pure.4 The ultimate

mission of women could be realized only within marriage, an institution that provided

them with the man’s sheltering presence, but moreover with his own status, and thus

power. Therefore, women were secured within a traditional frame that persevered

their moulded roles as ideal wives and mothers, while deifying them for consenting to

function according to others’ wishes. Hoekstra comments:

In the stories, women tended to take traditionally conservative

positions in the depiction of relations between the sexes, affairs of the

home, and responsibilities of parenthood. In the overwhelming

majority of these stories, [the romantic plot of the early twentieth

century stories] women remained on the pedestal where the nineteenth

century had placed them. (58)

The proper role of the American woman as was dictated by the demands of

this pedestal was the annihilation of the woman’s personal needs and the

subordination of her dreams to those of her husband’s. Acting according to this norm,

she proved her devotion to her family union, since she was willing to frustrate her self

and her ambitions of a potential career, for the sake of her home, husband, and

children. 241

Following the Cult of True Womanhood came another pattern of “good” woman, the Ideal of Real Womanhood. Although the basic requirements of these two formulas were similar, their disagreement lay mainly on the way they viewed the possibility of woman’s employment. A Real Woman, unlike the True Woman, perceived more deeply the moral, economic, mental, and social reasons that led a woman to seek employment, and refused to accept the passive economic dependence on men, as this was dictated by the True Womanhood. Nevertheless, the type of work that was suggested as “proper” by the supporters of Real Womanhood, can hardly link this Ideal to a genuinely feminist frame of mind:5 Cogan reports that two were the forms of employment assumed as proper for a woman: charitable and domestic.

Consequently, no salary — and thus no economic independence — could result from work at home or work out of good will (201).

The woman’s ability to work, however, as well as the moral benefits that would derive from such an occupation, were not questioned; moreover, the changing economic, social, or marital situations helped the woman to realize her multi-formed dependency, and to seek self-reliance –in or out of marriage. In her 1898 work

Women and Economics, Charlotte Perkins Gilman discusses the female quest for economic independence, and underlines the economic bondage of women to men, since the domestic activities of the first actually serve and facilitate the progress and productivity of the second. Gilman states with indignation the helpless attachment of women’s form of life to men’s economic status, and comments on the restrictive role assigned by society to the woman, thus “limiting her ideas, her information, her thought-processes, and power of judgment … But this is innocent in action compared with her restricted expression, the denial of the freedom to act” (5,66).6 242

In Greece, as well, the concept of paid employment initiated the notion of a

Mid-War feminism that perceived new possibilities for women’s equal treatment in

society. Working outside the domestic boundaries was the answer to women’s

aspiration for independence. Held prisoners to years of prejudice and social

conservatism that exacted from them servitude and submission, women sought to

overturn their total dependence on men, by earning their own money. Avdela and

Psara note that a financial liberation is followed by social and moral independence

(75) and hence women rebelled against their humiliating enslavement by the male authority.

The values of the Cult of True Womanhood were then soon challenged, even rejected. The dominance of the Protestant command for piety had weakened, and the

authority of the moral values no longer derived from a religiously based purity. The

new ideology of individualism rejected the submissiveness of earlier generations, and

the economic changes brought forth employment opportunities for women; those of

them who were young and single, were also eager to enjoy the chance of

independence offered to them, and to flirt with adventure and excitement. The wife

was still economically reliant on her husband, but the new standards now enabled her

to a private, though limited life, independent of her partner. Hence, the True/Real

Woman gave place to her more dynamic and effective version, the New Woman. This

pattern of woman did not reject domesticity, but aimed at combining marriage to a

career, not of course without any compromise. The active and socially independent

New Woman, had to pay the price of public comment for her attempted emancipation,

and was often led to withdraw to the previous accepted and secure form of

domestically measured life. Daniel refers to the New Woman’s autonomy, which

often had to concede to the traditional notion of a proper family life, focused on the 243

husband and the children, and not on career aspirations: “Completing school, she

secured a job … She met and dated males who were unknown to her family, but in the

end she quit her job, married one of these men, and submerged herself in home and family” (21).

The social demands and standards, therefore, dictated a very specific role for

the woman, confining her to the duties of household and of motherhood. A married

woman’s needs were answered by her husband, thus there appeared to be no practical

basis for her to seek an employment: “A married woman must not and does not have a

reason to work, since her husband protects her,” Avdela and Psara remark, and they

also comment on the controlling power that this protection acquires, because the woman whose action is limited to her family and home only, “undergoes a situation of

dependence and submission, where the man’s will dominates, and she is deprived of

an opinion even for the future of her own children” (24). Even then, however, the

woman had to be patient and tolerant since she had, after all, succeeded in

accomplishing marriage. And this means, as Veloudis considers in “The

Contemporary Popular Novel” that she has conquered the set of “love - marriage –

happiness” (44). Being married meant being legally happy, and this was the ideal

completion of a love affair.

The requirements imposed on a woman in order to achieve an honored and

blissful marital life were severely limiting her freedom of choice and were tightly

attaching to her a domestic character. The male and female social roles were clearly

defined, with the man standing as the sole self-governed person, and the woman

always being determined, guided, and supervised by the man. The “cult of

domesticity” did not officially recognize the restrictions that were imposed on the

woman’s life, but it rather represented an ideal that was believed to proffer happiness 244

and fulfillment to the female actuality, as Baym maintains: “The domestic ideal meant

not that woman was to be sequestered from the world in her place at home but that

everybody was to be placed in the home, and hence home and the world would

become one” (27).

When, however, a woman wishes to flee from this confining pattern and tries

to separate the unison between the home and the world, by seeking a profession, or by

deciding to turn to art to find completion, then a major crisis arises, in both reality and fiction. A woman working outside her home, and especially a woman working as an artist, (an actress, a singer, a dancer,) no matter how qualified or excellent she proves to be, is a disgrace for any respectable, domestic-oriented family and social circle. In fact, those dedicated to art and to artistic professions form a separate category of women and fiction heroines,7 because they illustrate an unwillingness to marry

according to the expectations of the ordinary, commonplace, and tedious way of life.

Women artists usually chose to remain single8 rather than fight to combine the

demands of marriage to those of an exigent career. Besides, a woman artist would not be gladly accepted by a society that embraced the secure living and the lifelong commitment to the family. The protection of the family was a primary principle of the social order, and thus work was marked as the substantial way for a person to provide

financially and morally for the family; yet in essence it applied only to men: the

beliefs that a working woman endangered her femininity, her task as a wife and her

mission as a mother, forced a negative attitude towards the female profession.

Accordingly, Gorsky holds work to bestow respectability on men but not on women,

thus causing a complication when women desired to work in order to ameliorate their

life: “The middle-class woman who needed to work usually experienced frustration if 245

not despair; choosing to work could precipitate a family crisis. The hobgoblin of respectability planted a huge obstacle in women’s path to better jobs” (122).

In literature too, men are expected to work hard and to enjoy the sense of

social and spiritual worth offered by a creative labor, but women are to stay behind,

inside the home. Torn between women’s desire to work and to experience fulfillment

through productivity and talent on one hand, and the society’s standardized,

conservative notions about the indecency of female employment on the other,

literature appears undecided as to which side to present realistically. Besides, Gorsky

maintains, the woman’s role had to be kept on a higher, dignified, and idealized level:

“Work might be good for everyone else, but not for the Angel of the House” (124).

The demand for “respectability” was actually one of the means through which society

imposed its social constraints on women, since it warned them that defying the

stereotypes would lead to intense conflicts. The job that granted the highest form of

uprightness to the woman, along with a sense of moral, spiritual, ethical, and practical

worth, in both literature and reality, was that of the “Angel of the House,” the reliant

woman in the subordinate yet honored role of mother, housewife, nurse, teacher, all

without any charge. Gilman in Women and Economics marks the undefeated

endeavors of women –in reality and in literature– to find a source of self-fulfillment

along with a way of economic survival: “They have ideas and purposes of their own;

and even when … the efforts of the heroine are shown to be entirely futile, and she

comes back with a rush to the self-effacement of marriage with economic

dependence, still the efforts were there” (150-151).

The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate exactly the position of Henry James

and Gregorios Xenopoulos in the face of independent and autonomous characters, as

Miriam Rooth in The Tragic Muse and Rosa Tournakes in The Actress’s Husband are. 246

The purpose is to lay bare James’s and Xenopoulos’s agreement with what is really expected of a girl, despite her own sovereign thoughts about her future: to marry, and especially to marry well; to orient her dreams and ambitions toward the creation of a family, and to experience completion through rearing her children and sustaining her husband. Through their eligible suitors’ marriage proposals and the girls’ personal

struggle over their final decisions, the traditional expectations of society are

presented, and along with them the authors’ own conservatism, well hidden behind

their dynamic portrayal and (genuine) fondness for their heroines. “If we study

stereotypes of women, the sexism of male critics, and the limited roles women play in

literary history,” Showalter affirms, “we are not learning what women have felt and

experienced, but only what men have thought women should be” (130).

Miriam, though, does not succumb to these stereotypes, while Rosa does, in

the end, and the novel’s closure finds the former married to a man of the theater, a

person of her own choice, who is in harmony with her preferred way of life and her

vision of the future; thus Miriam ultimately resists the conformist plot of the “good

woman,” whereas Rosa is consumed by it, declaring the domestic ideal as the best

setting for a woman’s happiness. Although the stories of Miriam and Rosa end

differently, this discussion intends to achieve a parallel reading of the two novels,

based on the one hand on the strong attempts of the heroines to succeed as New

Women and set their mark as self-directed individuals, and, on the other hand, on the

ultimate intention of the two authors, James and Xenopoulos, to initially support, but

eventually silence the endeavors of the two women, and to force them into a long-

established, conventional, secure, and acknowledged state of domestication.

Therefore, the present study attests that the two novelists portray a conservative and 247 conformist attitude, and are proven less open-minded than they appear at the outset of the novels.

Consequently, both authors seem to support that the woman who deviates from the preconditioned mode must be prepared to accept social isolation as the unavoidable consequence. For the heroine of The Actress’s Husband, the reaction of the upper class part of the society, is representative of the reaction any woman who does not comply with the norm has to deal with; in one of her theatrical tours to the aristocratic island of Corfu, the protagonist, an actress, meets with the despise of the noble families, just because they would scorn any woman who abandons the traditionally domestic and decent route, to express her creative urges:

None of the good, upper-class houses invited her to show their

hospitality. Only just a couple of urban houses, owned by music-loving

scholars. For the Counts and Countesses of Corfu, Rosa was but an

actress. They were not familiar with the Skourtes name, they did not

care about her fortune, and neither did they ask about her family.

Never mind! A family that allowed her girl to go out to the theater

world, what kind of family would that be? And what about her always

absent husband? Why did he allow her to walk around all alone? Even

this made a bad impression. (246)

The endeavors of a young woman to be devoted to a profession and the aspirations of this woman to work and succeed as an artist as well, are described in the third novel by Henry James discussed here, The Tragic Muse. Run through seventeen issues of the Atlantic Monthly during 1889 and 1890, The Tragic Muse is one of James’s longest and wittiest novels. The reader is being traveled through Paris salons, artists’ studios, London stages, and meets painters, sculptors, politicians, 248

diplomats, aesthetes, ambitious actresses, beautiful women. The author was quite

unsure, though, about the reception of the novel by critics and audience, and in a letter

to his brother William, soon after completing it, he wrote: “I have no opinion or

feeling about it now – though I took patient and careful trouble (which no creature

will recognise) with it at the time: too much, no doubt … my feeling as to what may

become of it is reduced to the sordid hope it will make a little money – which it won’t” (Correspondence, 247).

But James was wrong about the reviews of The Tragic Muse. Hayes cites brilliant responses of the time to the new novel, which found in it “freshness of feeling and vigor of treatment … The impression that one receives is that the story is a tour de force of a very accomplished and brilliant man,” reported the Christian Union reviewer; The New York Times praised the book with vigor: “Mr. James’s former work appears to have been a schooling for this latest book, which takes its place, for the present at least, as a masterpiece.” Moreover, The Manchester Guardian perceived in The Tragic Muse a “ brilliant rendering of the kaleidoscopic effects which play on the surface of society life” (xvi).

James aimed for The Tragic Muse to be his last novel, having decided to begin a career as a dramatist and thus enter a new phase in his route as an artist. Therefore, it could be said that this novel about the stage was a prologue to his course as a playwright. Edel, who finds in this novel “James writing at the top of his form” (viii), explains the reasons why the theater became the inspiration around which the novelist built the whole story of the book:

He knew the theater intimately; his prolonged saturation in Racine and

Molière and the art and traditions of the Comédie Française, his

intimacy with the French players during their visits to London, his 249

whole stage-haunted ambition to be a great playwright, gave him an

unusual authority in writing his story of Miriam Rooth. (xii)

Today, though, The Tragic Muse is considered James’s least often read novel, and, according to Macnaughton9 in “The New York Edition of Henry James’s The Tragic

Muse”, his “least well appreciated, despite the attempts of some critics to create an audience for it” (19); perhaps this negative impression is connected to the novelist’s later failed attempts at writing plays, right after the completion of the book.

Nevertheless, the author, in the preface he gave his novel in 1908,10 expresses an

apology for what he considers as faults in this work: mainly, the lack of a single

organizational core in the novel’s plot, and the insufficient presentation of his male

protagonist, Nick Dormer (13).

The Actress’s Husband was first published in the newspaper Athinaika Nea from July 1 up to November 11, and from November 14 up to 21 1940. A significant number of Xenopoulos’s novels, among which is The Actress’s Husband, were being published in daily journal sequences, with the author often being pressed by time and professional commitment. Pefanes cites the negative criticism that Xenopoulos received, since the demands of his task frequently affected the quality of his work.

The author himself, however, never admitted to a reduction in the worth of his

writing, declaring that with professional ethos he labored for months over a novel,

before this was given to the newspapers for publication (328). In any case, though, the

novel reveals Xenopoulos’s experience and mature thought, and it is acknowledged as

another example of his close observation and judgment, his vivid imagination, and his

ability to study in depth the psychology of his heroes and heroines.

In The Tragic Muse preface, James prepares his readers for a discussion on

artistic problems that would be involved in the story. There are, though, two main 250

themes that James combines in The Tragic Muse:11 what he calls “my political case»

and “my theatrical case” and (3). His political case involves the story of Nick Dormer,

fervent painter of portraits, and son of a late Member of Parliament. Tied by a

deathbed promise to his father, Nick feels obliged to remain in politics too, and is

pressed by his mother and his family tradition to marry the wealthy, attractive, and

politically ambitious Julia Dallow, whom Nick loves, but also sees as a threat to his

desire for an art-devoted life. The theatrical case is built around the story of Miriam

Rooth, the bright, crafty, selfish, young Jewish actress whom Nick meets and is

attracted to, and who is supported by a British diplomat, Peter Sherringham.

Dedicated to his career, Peter loves the theater, and in time, loves Miriam as well, but

in asking her to marry him, he demands the termination of her extremely promising

acting career. After a period of grave inner torture, Miriam ultimately rejects her

suitor and chooses to remain true to her vocation rather than choose the position of a

wealthy married lady; she thus escapes being consumed by the commonplace and

comfortable version of a life-scenario, declines to be a prosperous married woman,

and prefers to aim at becoming a consummate actress. Miriam’s ultimate success on

the stage validates her option, as is also supported by Godey’s Lady’s Book, that

states: “the artistic temperament … is stronger than any other worldly influence,

and…as it can resist such temptations as love, wealth, and worldly position, so it can

overcome all unfavorable surroundings” (The Contemporary Reviews, 228).

In The Actress’s Husband, the plot12 actually revolves around the story’s

actress rather than her husband, and the novel describes the Athenian theatrical life

and development, as these are viewed through the gaze of the protagonist, the young and talented actress Rosa Tournakes. A promising student of her town’s Drama

School, Rosa meets there Phoebus Skourtes, son of a wealthy and respected family in 251 the town. The couple decides to marry, and Phoebus, strongly in love with Rosa, appears initially willing to support and encourage his wife in her dramatic aspirations.

The two of them move to Athens, and soon Rosa becomes acquainted with the artistic and first-class Athenian society. Struggling through triumphs and failures, accomplishments and difficulties, the young actress sets her marks in the drama world, until her husband finally expresses resentment and distrust to her liberal – yet faithful – deportment, and wishes for his wife a more traditional behavior; in the end, his jealousy is violently expressed against Rosa, who, alienated from her husband, continues her much-loved course, until she realizes that, in order to really succeed in the theater, she has to lead a very different life than that of a well-off married lady.

Planning on re-marrying a young aristocrat in love with her, Rosa finally returns with the latter to her hometown, where, disappointed and unsure of her artistic worth, she urges all young women to avoid the theatrical world, unless they are willing to fall prey to injustices and complications. Thus, the novel ends with Rosa’s transformation from an actress with great potential, who sets off with a triumphant dedication to her art, to a disillusioned and saddened woman, now dedicated to her marriage, and eager to respond to the social graces that form a woman’s decent reputation.

In this novel, as in the majority of Xenopoulos’s novels, an abundant use of dialogue is employed, which emphasizes the dynamic and direct presentation of the characters. Along with the exciting variety of the narrative scenes and the plot’s alterations, the novel displays a rich number of descriptions of actual theatrical scenes, thus enabling the reader to enter easily into the dramatic backstage and onstage atmosphere that overwhelms the heroine’s psychology. Besides,

Xenopoulos’s own theatrical experience as a playwright and drama critic, provided 252 him with sufficient elements when illustrating the creative ambiance and passion of the theater world. 13

The characters’ dilemma and ultimate preference for art over love,14 their inclination toward the creative side of life rather than the romantic/erotic/social one, is depicted in both novels, yet in the case of The Tragic Muse, this stirred major criticism by the novel’s reviewers regarding its passionless disposition, its absence of romance and amorous implications. Horne acknowledges the “unpalatable truths” the novel faces its readers with, but also admits that there is no place for a love story, and the characters’ intricate structure does not call for romance and loving feelings:

“Romantic love doesn’t here enjoy its usual preferential treatment: ‘lovers’, though that hardly seems the term, are realistically shown as complex individuals with all sorts of strong conflicting needs beyond the one they feel for each other” (xxi). Pfitzer agrees with Edel in supporting that James was consistent with an attitude of personal and fictional self-discipline and moderation, and that he depicted the need of a true artist to detach the worldly satisfactions from the prominent and grand art-principles:

James simply chose not to advance relationships beyond a certain point

because his art was more important to him; he chose not to write about

sexual matters because they were a distraction from other themes

which he viewed as more central to his artistic life … Could they [his

readers] not understand the need for a true artist to forsake pleasures

of baser kind for the sake of higher artistic ideals? (45)

What seems to mostly concern James in this novel is this exact predicament of the artist in having to actually select one course over another.15 Edel cites a letter

James wrote to the English novelist Mrs. Humphry Ward,16 where he illustrates what attracted him to his subject: “The private history of the public woman, the drama of 253

her feelings, heart, soul, personal relations, and the shock, conflict, complications

between these things and her publicity, her career, ambition, artistic life – this has

always seemed to me a tempting, challenging subject” (x). The subject of the artist in

search of his/her own individuality and in conflict with a society that attempts to give

a pre-determined shape to this artist’s self-knowledge and self-fulfillment is often

encountered in James’s novels.17 What he mostly wishes to underline is that the

opposition between art and the world is on a spiritual basis — the immaterial quality

of art, against the vulgar materialism of the world at large. The artist’s impasse, then,

is positioned, in compliance with L. H. Powers, “ [in] the need to distinguish clearly between what he is or desires to be and what the world wishes him to do” (114).

The most appropriate response in dealing with this public imposition is, according to James, to react against society, and defend oneself, even if this means going against the wishes and approval of the social order. Rejecting the status quo,

however, was never a course followed by James himself: As Edel puts it, James is

“devoted to the society which nourishes him” (xii); he thus avoids to propose a vital

change, he simply touches upon this issue, delicately suggesting insubordination to the family conventions and the societal institutions, but up to the point where this

defiance does not propose the risk of self-destruction. In line with this mentality is the story of The Tragic Muse, where Miriam Rooth is initially presented as the New

Woman, one of the most emancipated of all Henry James’s female characters, a woman who strives for her career, who wishes to carry out her ambition, to accomplish her dreams, who seems to acquire the rare quality to dream and to become, all with ingenuity and hard work. In this process Miriam declines marriage, social position, and the social standards that render a woman decent and respected, and follows her inclination. This heroine development, though, deviates from the 254

typical treatment that the other Jamesian heroines received, since Miriam manages to

succeed, although she does not marry and has never really aspired marriage.

Nevertheless, James’s intention to confine this heroine, too, as another character that

surrendered to the social perceptions and laws of propriety is made clear. Miriam

receives the necessary pressure, but in the end she forces her own will upon her life-

development.

Xenopoulos, likewise, recommends a similar noncompliance to the typecast

formulas, but, as is his pattern in the previously discussed novels as well, when this

rebelliousness comes to crossing the line of the societal rules of propriety and ethics, he reverts to the conventional version of the docile woman. Hence, he bestows on his heroine characteristics applicable to the New Woman, a type of woman that is spotted

in society and in history for her affluence and kindliness, and yet for her strong sense

of herself, her abilities, and her individual needs. Young and single, Xenopoulos’s

heroines deny the marriage plot as the sole scenario for their lives, reject the social

conventions, and react when these standards are imposed on women only. These protagonists are introduced to the readers as women who fight idleness and decline, determine their own fate, but who also suffer the consequences of their autonomy.

Examples such as Rosa Tournakes and Miriam Rooth, indicate women who reject the conventional female roles, mainly in the career field, who assert their right to a fulfilling occupation, and who dare acquire evident power of achievement.

The domestic ideal, however, that proposed a submissive, docile woman, obedient to the male authority figures and compliant with the stereotypes that direct her life, still remained the preferred female model in The Actress’s Husband. The prospect of marriage, of wealth and of a respected reputation is perceived as overwhelming all other possibilities of a woman’s direction in life. Proud of his name, 255

fortune, and marriage proposal to Rosa, her future husband thinks of her wish to work

in the theater: “I will make her love me. It does not seem difficult to me. And love

will conquer her theatrical inclinations, and everything. Rather than becoming an

actress, even a great one, she will prefer to become Mrs. Skourtes” (17). Even her

drama teacher, when Rosa announces to him that she will pursue her talent even after

her marriage, wonders: “with all the riches she would obtain, why did Rosa wish to

deal with the agonies and bitterness of this ungrateful occupation? And it would be

fine if she turned out to be a great actress, her glory would comfort her for everything.

But, in the theater, can anyone ever be certain of becoming great?” (36).

The inconsistency between an unconventional and liberated ideal such as art,

and a fixed and protected notion such as marriage, is depicted as the typical

incompatibility between art and love-leading-to-marriage, and becomes the main field

of disagreement, inner struggle, and choice-making that is involved in the main plot

of the two novels. Based on a central Jamesian notion that love and passion are a

threat for the artist’s solidity, the artists in The Tragic Muse either deny the prospect

of marriage, or are destroyed by the domestic alternative it proposes. Powers calls

attention to the “respect for individual integrity” that prevails in James’s “ethic,” and

considers this reverence to direct his novels’ line: “Many of his novels and tales are

metaphorical reiterations of the belief that marriage or carnal love symbolizes denial

for the artist, in one way or another, of his absolute devotion to his art” (196).

Consequently, this is James’s pattern for The Tragic Muse — the artist is to remain

single,18 the inspiration purely private, and the relationships either matter-of-fact

(non-erotic) or spiritual (merely mental) —; carnal love cannot be combined to the sacredness of art. Thus, if Nick Dormer is to succeed in politics, he will also marry

Julia; but if he abandons the political life for the pursuing of his art, he loses Julia and 256

gains Miriam as his muse; this way, to cite Powers, “the individual integrity of the

artist is not disturbed” (197).

On the other hand, though, the theme of the career that has to be given up for

marriage becomes, when compared to Nick, more complicated in the case of Miriam,

the professional actress of the end of the nineteenth century. The figure of the female

performer is closely connected to the notion of temptation, of enticing exposure, and

of seduction; the woman on stage who appears in public and acts for an audience,

suggests a danger for the social establishment and the time-honored beliefs, since, as

Hochman maintains, the actress’s personality cannot be easily separated from her

physical presence (79).19 Thus, the female artist is perceived as depraved of pure and

chaste values, hence unsuitable for leading a wholesome family; she then has to

decide which option to pursue: her career as an artist, or her domestication as an

honored woman.

Bordering on Verena Tarrant in James’s The Bostonians, Miriam Rooth

projects her self to the public too, at the risk of being consumed by it, both as a body

and as an endowed voice. Verena in due course becomes obliterated from the public

arena and silenced, although she had exhibited a splendid talent as a speaker and as an

attractive lady, while Miriam successfully defies the force that wishes to control her

and to remove her from the stage. Nevertheless, she too, as this chapter will

demonstrate, is presumed to surrender to the limitations imposed on the woman, even

though she has proven — as Isabel and Verena have — to be the New Woman, free

from the fantasy of romantic love, the commands of old, true, upright womanhood,

and the obligations deriving from institutional legacies.

Before discussing Miriam, though, and the oppressive discourse of marriage and domestication that should presumably direct her life, it would be useful to turn for 257

a while to the way Nick approaches art and the human relations affected by it, since

this also represents many points of James’s mindset regarding this issue. Hence,

Nick’s strong involvement in portrait painting is not clearly marked as the “passion”

that it really is for him, but it is rather suggested as his “little hobby” (62). Nick is

presented as unwilling to completely give in to art, although he strives for its

recognition as more that a leisure pursuit. A man that permits others (Julia in

particular) to carry him to “his doom,” (171) Nick is depicted as a prey to the dreams

of his family, friends, fiancée, his dead father’s memory, while struggling to decide

whether he is an artist or an aspiring politician. “Nick thus masquerades as the public

man the others want him to be while furtively pursuing his ‘little hobby’ in the

privacy of his studio,” McWhirter remarks (465).

For the same reasons that Peter later exacts from his future wife not to work as

an actress, Nick hesitates to track his true desire and exist within his painting: the

cultural concept that art is immoral20 has dominated even the perception of its most passionate followers, so when Julia realizes his ultimate inclination and inherent love for the art of painting, Nick feels blameworthy: “You love it, you revel in it; that’s

what you want, and it’s the only thing you want! … you’re an artist: you are, you are”

(278-280). For Nick, McWhirter claims, Julia’s apprehension constitutes “a verdict of

guilt, a sentence of doom, but also, unmistakably, … a longed-for liberation” (466).

Both his fiancée and his mother — representative figures of the established

moral and upper society — view art and the artist’s life with fear and doubt, and when

their political and social hopes for Nick seem to evaporate for a future in painting,

Lady Agnes and Julia Dallow end up loathing and disdaining art, considering Nick’s

preference inconceivable.21 The young painter’s explanation of this attitude places

their negative reaction within the boundaries of a traditional, narrow culture: “She 258

[Nick’s mother] has the darkest ideas about [art] — the wildest theories. I can’t

imagine where she gets them; partly, I think, from a general conviction that the

“esthetic” — a horrible insidious foreign disease — is eating the healthy core out of

English life” (361).

In the manner of this arguing over the moral, ethical, and honorable value of

artistic professions,22 Miriam’s acting vocation is suspected to challenge the limitations between the acting job and real experience, between performance and

reality; Storm points out James’s concern for the reliability of an actress, but most

specifically for the “actress-muse, who can, in her various representations, suggest an

inquiry into the trustworthiness of theatrical art in the broader, more generalized

sense” (145). The option of a principled family life is then erased in front of the threat

imposed by a creative occupation, an inspired yet inappropriate practice. Jolly

remarks James’s awareness of the hostility towards art, which results from the British

philistinism, and she adds: “the philistine’s moral and social antipathy to art was often

allied to the old evangelical distrust of the imagination and its influence on the

perception and conduct of life” (72).

Both Nick and Miriam are caught between the public demands, a different

load for each, yet always a load supposed to confer material awards, and their

personal affinity to be artists.23 In fact, The Tragic Muse consists of two parallel

developments of the same theme, only that the price each character is called to pay is

different: Nick would have to give up a public career, and Miriam rejects the bid of a

private domestic life. Tougher than Nick, Miriam manages to enforce her presence in

the theater, a path shown to her also by another character in the novel, the friend and

esthete Gabriel Nash:24 one of James’s most appealing characters, Nash is often read

as the agent of James’s opinions about the place of the artist in his society, and places 259

the utmost significance in being rather than doing.25 “Nash,” Powers affirms,

“functions in the novel as the representative or perhaps the very manifestation of the timeless essence of art” (108-109). Nash urges both Nick and Miriam to continue their artistic quest, in order to be true to the fine qualities that exist in their souls, to be true to themselves, to “the conscience that’s in us – that charming conversible infinite thing, the intensest thing we know” (251); Nash insists that they follow their instinct that guides them towards the painter’s studio or the actor’s stage, even if this combats the political or social duty.

To turn now to the private story of Miriam Rooth, the novel’s Tragic Muse, would mean to center on a woman who disregarded social duty – a duty that dictated the domestication and not the professional ambition for a woman — turned down a grand marriage with a refined, educated, and sophisticated young diplomat, Peter

Sherringham, and preferred to remain an actress rather than become the wife of a future ambassador. Through the story of Miriam’s ascent to a theatrical eminence and

recognition, and through her relationship with her lover Peter,26 the discrepancy

between inner desires and societal expectations are studied. The good-looking yet

unpolished young actress is determined to succeed in the theater, and is set to

accomplish this goal through a strong and firm willpower, disregarding her lack in

social graces and her minor theatrical culture. With hard work, unbendable decision,

unlimited force, and a focused command of her experiences, Miriam succeeds in

writing her own success-story, that of an ambitious and meticulous girl who rises to

fame.27 The novel’s first glimpse of Miriam is given through the eyes of Nick’s sister,

Biddy, who sees Miriam as a lady accompanied by Gabriel Nash:

[Miriam] had a pale face, a low forehead, and thick dark hair. What she 260

chiefly had, however, Biddy rapidly discovered, was a pair of largely

— gazing eyes … in this attitude she was striking, though her air was

so unconciliatory as almost to seem dangerous … Biddy had a

momentary sense of being a figure in a ballet, a dramatic ballet (29-

30)

Starting as a not so good an actress, Miriam is resolute on being instructed, improved, and guided to victory. Hence, she willingly undergoes an audition in the drawing room of a famous old French actress, Madame Carré. Miriam’s performance was given “… in exactly the same tone — a solemn, droning, dragging measure suggestive of an exhortation from the pulpit and adopted evidently with the ‘affecting’ intention and from a crude idea of ‘style.’ It was all funeral, yet was artlessly rough”

(92). Her presentation is altogether a failure that created awkwardness to those around her, and led her supporter, Peter Sherringham, to acknowledge that her appearance

“offered no element of interest” (92). After crying out of disappointment, Miriam stands and speaks, her posture at that moment reminding Peter of the great French actress Rachel in Gérôme’s portrait of her as the personification of La Tragédie:

Her face, under her level brows, was pale and regular — it had a

strange strong tragic beauty … she frowned portentously; … the eyes

themselves, in shadow, stared, splendid and cold, and her hands

clinched themselves at her sides. She looked austere and terrible and

was during this moment an incarnation the vividness of which drew

from Sherringham a stifled cry. (90)

This image makes Peter turn to Nick, and say: “‘You must paint her just like that …

As the Tragic Muse’” (90-91). 261

The portrayal though of Miriam Rooth almost a year and two hundred pages

later, offers a distinctly opposite sense to readers and people present: as “Constance”

in Shakespeare’s King John, Miriam, in the same drawing room, impresses and

electrifies. This performance of hers now has the proficient quality of an expert; the

young actress now strikes everyone, even her teacher who watches her with her “hard,

bright eyes, polished by experience like fine old brasses” (214), and is valued by Peter

who rests amazed:

Peter listened intently, arrested by the spirit with which she attacked

her formidable verses. He had needed to hear her set afloat but a

dozen of them to measure the long stride she had taken in his absence;

they assured him she had leaped into possession of her means … She

was now the finished statue lifted from the ground to its pedestal. It

was as if the sun of her talent had risen above the hills and she knew

that she was moving and would always move in its guiding light …

Sherringham’s heart beat faster as he caught it in her face. (214)

These two diverse scenes designate the space Miriam has covered in her advance into becoming a great tragic actress. Logan, back in 1890, explained this growth of the young girl as the result of confidence, poise, toughness, and business-intellect,28 and

declares the Tragic Muse to be “by far the most brilliant and faithful representation of

the successful modern actress than has ever been achieved in English fiction” (240).

For a young woman to traverse so intensely the borders of propriety, to dare to

become not just an actress but also a celebrated one, and to render herself a critical

figure in the lives of two worthy men, it takes more than self-assurance or daring. It

presupposes the acquisition of a liberty of mind, away from the standardized

perceptions of the “upright” and the “decent;” and Miriam, in her first steps, receives 262 the relevant guidance from Madame Carré, who states to Miriam’s mother regarding the “respectable” parts she hopes her daughter will solely perform:

To be too respectable to go where things are done best is, in my

opinion, to be very vicious indeed; and to do them badly in order to

preserve your virtue is to fall into a grossness more shocking than any

other. To do them well is virtue enough, and not to make a mess of it

the only respectability. That’s hard enough to merit Paradise.

Everything else is base humbug! (89-90)

According to Blackmur, in his “Introduction” to Henry James: The Tragic Muse, the teacher’s ideology “charged the body of the young girl,” and caused her to be

“terrible” for the course of the two men (6). Besides, according to Madame Carré, there is only one standard for the good actor- to be “formed by work, unremitting and ferocious work” (132),29 and underlines that what actually lies behind acting is the

“instinct put in its place” (206).

Consequently, Miriam’s production on stage, in the part of a vague, beautiful and imaginary woman of past age, illustrious and epic, who utters a speech void in meaning and context,30 generates a result “irresistibly real and related to one’s own affairs” (425). Miriam’s performance brings about a unique sensation to her audience; the ethical issue dramatized by her, becomes a communal experience between the actress and her spectators, thus serving the ultimate social purpose of drama, enabling the public

to feel a fine universal consensus and to recognise everywhere the

light spring of hope. People snatched their eyes from the stage an

instant to look at each other, all eager to hand on the torch passed to

them by the actress over the footlights. (423) 263

Through her art, Miriam discovers a completion that no other field can offer her; she feels whole in this chosen form of life, and she therefore resents having to bargain it for a supposed marital bliss. Jobe believes that in Miriam’s “disciplined consciousness” James wishes to present a committed fervor that directs her life’s course: “James depicts a mode of life that is at once self-sufficient and exemplary.

For, Miriam discovers in the demands of the theater a ‘logical passion’ that transcends all individual and temporal limitations” (33).

These limitations nonetheless, come eventually in conflict with the young woman’s personality, and the impact of this inconsistency reaches all the people around Miriam, particularly Peter. The refined diplomat is drawn by the multiplicity of her character, and by the personal power deriving from such diversity, a power that delights and torments Peter. Miriam’s brisk ascend to distinction reveals her artistic side and her personal traits, outlining the genius of a resolute, stubborn, unyielding woman, hard and merciless equally as an artist and as a person. Her prominent beauty is combined with energy and vigor, often concealing the arrogant crudity of her nature. Still, Miriam’s most prominent asset is her breeziness, her “good humour” as referred to by Krook (93), her confidence in her self, her capacities, her future, her command. Deriving from the artist’s wit and self-reliance, Miriam’s feeling of superiority over everyone and everything, overwhelms all sections of her life, except the area of her art: this is the point where Miriam still feels deficient, and is thus willing to bury her condescension and limit her poise. Nevertheless, Miriam primarily acquires the good-humor and the lightheartedness that adds significantly to her personal attraction, and hence the contempt she expressed, the perfect self-confidence, the genuine command of her art, even her unprincipled use of her supremacy, all contribute to the creation of an “interesting psychological sequence” provided by 264

James, in order to shed light on “one of the most persistent (and most fascinating) features of the mind and temper of a great actress,” as is stated by Krook (93).

The human side of Miriam Rooth, however, is deeply connected to and affecting Peter, who is the person expected to take in the consequences, the anxiety, and the pressure brought about in being involved with a theatrical brilliance; as

Gabriel Nash put it, “You can’t eat your cake and have it, and you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs …You can’t be a great actress without nerves” (354).

Peter himself admits that to succeed, one has to make personal sacrifices, even though this forecasts bitterness for him; and yet he appears ready to acknowledge the cruel and unfair side of Miriam as part of her profession: “ ‘We can’t have everything, and surely we ought to understand that we must pay for things … You must forage and ravage and leave a track behind you; you must live upon the country you traverse.

And you give such delight that, after all, you’re welcome — you’re infinitely welcome.’ (228).

Miriam’s unusual beauty and her talented apprehension of her dramatic gift impress and attract Peter who, according to Macnaughton (“In Defense …”), “begins to play Pygmalion himself,” carried by her “vulnerability and willingness to exploit it

(Miriam recognizes the appeal of the vulnerable to Peter” (8). Miriam’s own approach to the acting process then, inspires Peter to regard her career with devotion, since

Miriam gives outstanding performances out of pure intuition; she always knows by instinct what to do, unable to consciously perceive how she has operated this way. As a qualified theater-critic, Peter ardently explains, directs, suggests, but Miriam’s understanding of his remarks is weak and incomplete. Yet she always appears to seize the ultimate meaning and carry out flawlessly what she has been advised. James, then, presents an acting genius by denoting the mystifying and inconceivable process of an 265 actress’s mental powers when producing a remarkable piece of theater, working through

the perfect presence of mind, unconfused, unhurried by emotion, that

any artistic performance requires and that all, whatever the instrument,

require in exactly the same degree: the application, in other words,

clear and calculated, crystal-firm as it were, of the idea conceived in

the glow of experience, of suffering, of joy. (216)

Miriam never mistrusts her skill and never hesitates to look ambitiously to the future; even when she recognizes the intention of her benefactors to facilitate her course, she remains self-reliant and solid, in command of her actions and her potential. Rowe speaks of Miriam’s victorious combination in being “modern without being vulgar, … enthusiastically professional without being meretricious,” and believes her to triumph over every personality and situation, attesting her artistic grace (76).

However, Miriam’s theatrical personality creates uncertainty and reservations to Peter, who doubts his girlfriend’s ethical and emotional limits: Miriam appears unable and unwilling to set the boundaries between the real world and the stage;

“there were hours … in which she wore her stage face in the world” (382), he remarks, and he experiences qualms about her honest feelings and plans:31

It struck him abruptly that a woman whose only being was to “make

believe,” to make believe that she had any and every being that you

liked, that would serve a purpose, produce a certain effect, and whose

identity resided in the continuity of her personations, so that she had no

moral privacy, … but lived in a high wind of exhibition, of figuration

— such a woman was a kind of monster, in whom of necessity there 266

would be nothing to like, because there would be nothing to take hold

of. (126)

“Exploring the labyrinth of Miriam’s personality and situation,” Gordon and Stokes

remark, “Peter becomes trapped himself” (114).32

Goetz perceives Miriam to disturb the ethical standards, when, in response to

Peter’s observation on her dishonesty (since she continually acts, on and off stage),

Miriam replies: “Yes, perhaps … But I’m very honest.” (Goetz, 159 — TM, 139).

However, Goetz sustains the actress’s statement, by supporting that Miriam portrays on the stage characters that “ [represent] herself in a variety of roles,” rendering herself “the only thing on exhibition” (158). Jolly considers Miriam to distort the edges between truth and fiction, between her private and public performances,

“[upsetting] the categories of the literal-minded who rigidly oppose truth and fiction,

world and stage” (76), and fusing “personal and professional, technical and moral

terms … in this expression of triumph over limiting dichotomies” (77). Miriam, then,

repudiates the formally accurate categorization of true and false, just as she denies

giving up her splendid future to Peter’s narrow-minded discriminations.33

These prejudices manifest yet another Jamesian point, the failed

communication between men and women, in this case with regard to the issue of

marriage requirements. For James, a novel about an actress presupposed a conflict of egos, since the artistic self-centered personality will resist the male, conquering

egotism. Accordingly, Miriam is not depicted as the endorsement of a fine,

marriageable, restrained lady, but as the controversial version of an anti-Victorian

heroine.34 Socially unknown, from a Jewish origin that rendered her an outcast among

public circles valuing tradition and class, unpolished and coarse, Miriam challenges

the popular stereotypes of social division, and for that reason disturbs the prevailing 267

order of things. Simply possessing liveliness and charming assertion, qualities not adequate to position her within the range of the elegantly restrained Victorian ladies,

Miriam nevertheless acquires the decency and integrity that provide her with the suitable worth, resulting in a marriage proposal by a distinguished man. But it is mostly her mother that wished to marry her daughter well; Miriam herself expresses an indifference to anything unrelated to her acting, seeking to be above all an actress, and not a significant lady: “One must see everything — to be able to do everything,” she declares, echoing Isabel Archer’s wish to travel and acquire experiences (234).35

Accordingly, she defies Peter’s marital offer, by urging him to dare follow her onto the stage he himself worships, thus abandoning his career, and proving his declared love for her: “Surely it’s strange,” she remarks, “the way the other solution never occurs to you” (434). What Miriam really wants, though, Schneider observes, is

Peter in the role of a “counselor,” a “humble servant, as she rules over her own little kingdom, the kingdom of art” (9). For Peter, naturally, the facts are perceived on a different basis: “the cases are not equal,” he protests, to add: “You’d make of me the husband of an actress. I should make of you the wife of an ambassador” (434), substantiating with this statement the divergence existing between him and Miriam about the value of art and diplomacy. In line with the prevailing values of social life, art is apprehended as inferior to politics, just as the woman is understood in a weaker position than man, and as the creative talent is held as less significant than a socio- political title. Peter’s understanding is founded upon the perception that his accomplishments in the Foreign Office matter more than Miriam’s triumphs on stage, whereas the actress has a different view of the situation, and considers herself to have achieved great goals, and Peter to have been appointed to a “little hot hole in Central

America” (373). 268

It is not merely an artist’s devotion to her art that Miriam exhibits, but also a

loyalty to herself and her personal desires; the fact that she has been so engrossed in her theatrical art that the others believe her to be constantly acting, is not reason enough to condemn Miriam, Rowe asserts: “unlike so many frauds in James’s fiction,

Miriam is in this manner only more true to herself” (86). The close-circle restricted notions shudder in the face of Miriam’s influence; according to the stereotypical perception, hers is the immoral body of a vulgar actress presented daringly on stage, and, most significantly, threatening the dominating vision for a future of fortune, position, stability, and propriety. According to the 1890s New Woman model,

Miriam’s independent spirit expresses a genuine passion and dynamism, not hesitating to advance towards self-commanding directions – New Women rode bicycles, played tennis, revealed more skin beneath skirts, and loosened their corsets,

reports Rosenberg (54). However, marriage and family is not to be denied by the New

Woman, and Miriam is not unwilling to marry and have children; she is married by

the end of the novel, but she wishes to autonomously decide the circumstances under

which she will marry – she opts for the ability to have a life ahead of a house, to

pursue a career and self-fulfillment. Besides, the New Woman, Rosenberg claims,

wanted “to belong to the human race, not to the ladies’ aid society to the human race”

(54). Hence, New Women had professional aspirations, and desires aiming at

gratifying the soul; thus they refused to limit themselves to household duties,

protested the suffocating protection by men, and intended to create with their male

partners a free and equal collaboration on every issue concerning their daily lives.

However, Peter’s relationship with Miriam is not formed on these grounds of

mutual consensus and compatibility: he loves her on account of his own well being,

on behalf of his regard for himself, and wishes to absorb Miriam in his personal plans 269

for the future, so that she leaves her artistic designs and follows his life-diagram. In

fact, Peter, despite his efforts to upgrade the level of the rising actress, ultimately wishes for Miriam to fall short, so that he can marry her. Thus, when Miriam triumphs, Peter feels distressed: “It might have seemed that since the girl’s performance was a dazzling success he regarded his evening as rather a failure” (TM

490). Miriam ultimately enthralls Peter, but is not enthralled by him to the degree of renouncing her intentions and submitting to his designs. The “special language” that

Miriam speaks, as Peter explains to his sister, (243) derives from an ultimate loyalty to the theater, the field of her passion never to be relinquished. In keeping with

Miriam’s creative attachment, Blackmur maintains in his “Introduction” to Henry

James: The Tragic Muse:

Had Miriam given up the theater she would have become a puerility of

herself; she remained a scandal — of which only the taint would have

survived had she married Peter Sherringham, and what Peter wanted to

marry in her would otherwise have disappeared. Miriam demanded to

be seen and refused to be known: she was theater. (12)

Peter may be the ideal suitor, but with Miriam, he is in front of an unimaginable complication: the woman he loves does not need him. Setting off his impressive career as a diplomat, Peter also counts on getting married, as a completing part to his life’s scheme: “Ambition, in the career, was probably consistent with marrying – but only with opening one’s eyes very wide to do it” (316). Initially, of course, Miriam’s past, her surrounding conditions, and her profession, seem to trouble

Peter, and even stand as factors that minimize his emerging fascination with her. His infatuation with the young actress strives to surpass the pride and prejudice of class distinction, even the fondness he experiences for the gracious form of living; Peter is, 270

after all, a member of the upper and strictly conventional society that values

immensely all forms of decency and propriety, and despises artistic orientations that imperil highly regarded prospects in profession and position. Horne suggests

accordingly that Peter is “an initiated amateur of the stage but a faltering lover,”

whose “ineradicable respectability and his submerged scorn for actors prevent him

from endangering the ‘career’ in the Foreign Office by really committing himself to

an actress” (xxv). Hence, Peter, dubious of his harmonious coexisting with the

bohemianism of Miriam’s mode of life, ponders:

He disliked besmoked drawing-rooms and irregular meals and untidy

arrangements; he could suffer from the vulgarity of Mrs. Rooth’s

apartments, the importunate photographs which gave on his nerves, the

barbarous absence of signs of an orderly domestic life, the odd

volumes from the circulating library … tumbled about with cups and

under smeary glasses. (358)

Peter eventually overlooks what might cause disgrace to an aspiring member

of the government service, but, still, fears the devotion of the actress to her art — a

devotion that originally attracted him to her. During their courtship, Peter tries not to

surrender to his deepening feelings for Miriam, wary of an actress’s renowned duplicating ability; nevertheless, when the time comes for him to leave England, he overtly declares his feelings, asks Miriam to give up her career, and be devoted to the role of being his wife.

But Miriam immediately perceives the inconsistency in his suggestion: “You admire me as an artist and therefore you wish to put me into a box in which the artist will breathe her last. Ah, be reasonable; you must let her live!” (431).36 Peter’s condescending answer reveals an intention to diminish the actress’s artistic nature, 271

and to sustain what he views as a finer social vocation: “Don’t talk about my putting

you in a box, for, dearest child, I’m taking you out of one … The artist is

irrepressible, eternal; she’ll be in everything you do, and you’ll go about with her triumphantly exerting your powers, charming the world, carrying everything before

you” (432). Miriam’s response to this offer attempts to place Peter in her position and

make him comprehend the impossibility of such a recommendation, she thus proposes

that he give up his career for her: this becomes the final conflict between the two

lovers, in which Miriam once more proves her directness and honesty. She supports

with passion her right to personal freedom, and attempts to evoke in Peter the

substance the theater brings to the life of those who love it:

“It was in the name of the theatre that you first made love to me; it is to

the theatre that you owe every advantage that, so far as I’m concerned,

you possess … You say to-day that you hate the theatre; and do you

know what has made you do it? The fact that it has too large a place in

your mind to let you repudiate it and throw it over with good

conscience. It has a deep fascination for you, and yet you’re not strong

enough to make the concession of taking up with it publicly, in my

person” (434)

In this final confrontation both characters lay bare their true intentions: Peter

loves Miriam, but not the aspect of life it imposes; consequently, his notions about the

proper roles for men and women, inhibit an approved marriage between them.

Miriam, on the other hand, desires to fulfill her goals and to succeed on her own

conditions, thus she has to reject Peter’s offer, although she feels attracted to him.

Peter recognizes the prospect of Miriam becoming something grand, but then he

specifies the grandeur according to his sense of the word: becoming a great lady of 272

high society. Gordon and Stokes recognize in Peter the role of both spectator and

critical spirit, but they estimate that in his mind he has blurred his concern for Miriam

as an actress, with his fascination with her as a person, thus becoming unable to

“separate his interest in Miriam’s possibilities as an artist from an infatuation with her

personality. He attempts release in his misguided solution…but that for Miriam is

impossible” (161). Storm observes the actress’s outspoken pledge to her art, and her

integrity regarding her values and goals, and states that Miriam’s “authenticity and

sincerity in defiance of her art are, by now, unquestionable; her commitment to it is

complete and absolute” (147).

Miriam eventually conquers the stage after making a premeditated, appropriating and accommodating marriage, and when Peter sees for himself the level of Miriam’s transformation in her performance, he admits that the young actress selected the right path: “Miriam Rooth was sublime … he saw … the intense light of genius with which this [performance] was charged … The great trouble of his infatuation subsided, leaving behind it something appreciably deep and pure” (TM

490).

Peter’s personal and pressing demands on his dearly loved actress could not be noted from the novel’s initial presentation of him as a distant and romantic gentleman, one of the most “wonderful ubiquitous diplomatic agents of the sixteenth century”

(43). It is he who visualizes for Miriam “a superior, glorious stage,” and pictures for her “a great academic, artistic theatre, subsidized and unburdened with money- getting, rich in its repertory, rich in the high quality and the wide array of its servants”

(378-79).

However, Peter definitely proves to be a contemporary representative of his class and country, yet intelligent and appealing. Although he is against the 273

philistinism towards art that his aunt Lady Agnes and his sister Julia Dallow express,

Peter discovers that he, too, subconsciously accepts their notions about class,37 social taste, and community respectability. Accordingly, in the face of Miriam’s desire to become a great actress, Peter ceases to be the supportive knight, and turns, as

Macnaughton affirms in his article “The New York Edition of Henry James’s The

Tragic Muse,” into a “benign male chauvinist,” whose conventional, profound part of personality objects to the young woman’s plans (21). The man who has contributed significantly to the creation, expansion, and preservation of Miriam’s immense faith in her art, and has thus helped her reach the best moment of her profession, now betrays that same faith he has inspired. “You’re committed to it,” Miriam says, deploring his suggestion to her to become the wife of a diplomat, and to forget about her grand theatrical art: “you’re committed to it by everything you’ve said to me for a twelvemonth, by the whole turn of your mind, by the way you’ve followed us up, all of us, from far back” (438). Peter proceeds to a last attempt to convince her about the hideous, hazardous face of her work, by reminding her that she too had once arrived at these realizations, but Miriam comes with the perfect answer of a great actress:

“Ah, there’s where life can help us … there’s where human relations

and affections can help us; love and faith and joy and suffering and

experience — I don’t know what to call’em! They suggest things, they

light up and sanctify them, as you may say; they make them appear

worth doing.” She became radiant for a moment, as if with a splendid

vision (440)

Macnaughton, in his article “In Defense of James’s The Tragic Muse,” attests to a general conflict in Peter’s personality, a continuous fight between his conventional and unconventional sides, his liberal attitude towards women as opposed 274

to his ultimate wish for females to support his point of – male — view, his lenience

towards people of inferior social classes but also his intense awareness that they are

inferior (7). Another critic, Daniel Schneider characterizes Peter as “one of the most

aggressive people in the novel,” underlining his intention “to capture Miriam Rooth,

make her his appendage, his property” (14). Indeed, underneath Peter’s role as

Miriam’s precious benefactor, mentor,38 sponsor, enthusiastic devotee and

knowledgeable ally, ultimately lies a lack of respect for the acting profession, mistrust

for the honesty of the actress’s feelings, and an apprehension of the theater as a light

amusement, which has, however, turned into a “serious field” for Peter, without

himself really wishing to be “seriously entangled” in it (48). “At worst,” Jobe remarks, “he considers the theater merely a pastime, as an escape from ‘the vulgar hour and the ugly fact’ (141)” (38). The social discrimination and prejudice against art remains solid still.

Miriam presents for Peter a lure, an attraction, and a love affair that could cost him his promising diplomatic career; for that reason, in his effort to persuade her to accept his proposal under the conditions he outlines, he dares a comparison between the theatricality of diplomacy and that of the stage: “The stage is great, no doubt, but the world’s greater. It’s a bigger theatre than any of those places in the Strand. We’ll go in for realities instead of fables, and you’ll do them far better than you do the fables” (432). Miriam’s talent, Peter claims, could equally shine at the ambassador’s dinner hall. But his plan to “ lock her up for life under the pretence of doing her good,” (438) does not align with Miriam’s perception of identity: the young woman objects to being signified by Peter as the object of his desire, and to representing for him “the deepest domesticity of private life” (434) — “‘Just quietly marry me’,” he suggests, “‘and I’ll manage you’” (432). Miriam disarranges Peter’s unbending 275

hierarchies, and he then “remain[s], on the edge of the window, his hands in his

pockets, gazing defeatedly, doggedly, into the featureless night” (440).

In Xenopoulos’s The Actress’s Husband, the discussion of Rosa Tournakes

focuses mainly on the talent and eagerness of the young heroine, and then on the

reaction of her husband and the society to the image projected by a woman who

works as an actress, when, instead, she could enjoy her wealth and her marriage. Rosa

is recognized as a gifted young woman since her early years in the drama school and

she reveals a distinctive maturity of thought concerning her wish to become an

actress, when she handles Phoebus’s marriage proposal with professional assurance:

“I can go beyond my emotions,” she thought, “if I set all my will to it; but no willpower could ever make me stifle my inclination and abandon my dream” (22-23).

Drama school studies in nineteenth-century Greece had an essentially amateurish character, since their students were mainly girls that loved or were inclined to the theater, but without any intention of pursuing the acting profession.

The Greek society of the time perceived the stage as a charming field, yet with questionable morals and ethics. Within this prejudiced framework, therefore, drama schools aimed at attracting rich families’ youngsters, thus securing not just the tuition fees, but also a broad reputation.

For Rosa, however, the theatrical world is not a superficial hobby, but a life’s goal. She appears equipped to become a part of it, although she understands that this is a totally different language of communication, more immediate and sentimental, even though deprived of motivation and calculated reason. Her parents, her husband, his parents, all represent another world, the world of the upper society and social order. Throughout the novel, though, both Rosa and the readers realize that the life of an actress is quite hard and demanding: there is the glory and the social recognition, 276

and an intense, public life, but also there is envy and resentment, antagonism and

insecurities, all under the burden of professional insecurity. Additionally, an aspiring

actress like Rosa had to face the reservation and mistrust of her parents, who,

representing the community at large, railed against a young woman becoming an

actress:

All right, be an actress, since you like it and, as they say, you will

thrive. But, first, if you ever wish to marry, you will not marry an

actor. And second, once you get married, you will never divorce your

husband to marry another man. I don’t intend to see you act like the

other actresses. You will be an honest actress from a good family, a

Tournakes- Michalopoulou, that is final! Do you promise this? (8)

For the Greek society that was just being introduced to the habits and customs of Europe, a divorce was a total disgrace and misfortune for the woman and her family. Varika reports that for a divorcée, “the suspicion of immorality follows her everywhere, she is deprived of her children’s custody, and has to face the hostility of her environment. The divorced woman, even when she belonged to the high society that almost exclusively held the benefit of the divorce, was … a pariah within the – then- modest and hypocritical society” (96).

An actress was considered to be prone to unfaithfulness, since she shared her physical presence and her soul’s expression with so many people, especially men.

And when this woman was not simply gifted, but beautiful as well, then the danger of temptation was even greater. Rosa’s sexual identity, although still unripe in the beginning of the novel, is characterized as “passionate,” a typical trait of a creative talent (8), and her posture, her lines, her looks, revealed a girl that was becoming an attractive and striking woman. For that reason, when Phoebus proposes marriage to 277

her, he is disappointed when she discloses her intention to enter the theater: “Yes, if you allow me to go in the theater, I’ll marry you … I regress up to a point, I get

married with the risk of diminishing myself as an artist; but I can at least become an

artist” (20). And yet, Phoebus, expressing what will later stand as the world’s

viewpoint, reveals to Rosa his qualms about this profession that his wife-to-be has

chosen:

I am not narrow-minded, but I love you and I want you just to myself,

whereas an actress belongs to the whole world! … An actress, and

especially a great one, as you are meant to become, – it is a common

opinion – has to have friends and admirers, to socialize, to accept

presents, even to give out kisses. Can you imagine how irritating all

these would be for me? (20-21)

In the perception of the majority, Rosa is simply going to have a job, and a

young woman who seeks to work, may that be as an actress, is regularly apprehended

as a woman in a job-hunt, therefore in need of money that will provide for her and her

family. Rosa’s wish to occupy herself with what offers her joy and completion, as

well as her awareness that being an actress is her way of asserting her talent, is

disregarded by the people that could encourage and promote her. Consequently, Rosa

finds herself prompted to quit any expectations about a career in the theater, since she

is rich, married, and thus happy and fulfilled: “But, tell me, my girl, what need have

you got and you ask for a job? … Don’t you at least consider that you would take

away someone else’s bread, a poor woman’s that would have to work in order to live

on?” (54), is the reaction of a great drama lady of the time, who rejects Rosa

immediately, just because she is too rich, too beautiful, and a member of the good

society. And when the young woman suggests that she not get paid, so as not to steal 278

another actress’s needed money, the grand actress rebuffs her once more, for the same

reasons: “An actress that is not paid, is not an actress. This is the truth, my girl. A rich

lady that is not in need of money, even if she enters the theater, she cannot become an actress, she will always remain an amateur” (55).

The internal desire for accomplishment that a profession offers is not only overlooked by society in general, but also by Rosa’s husband, Phoebus. Although his married life with Rosa included from the start her fiery love for the theater on a professional level, and he had accepted, even supported this wish, in time, when Rosa finally begins her acting career on a stage, he gets caught in the convention that spots the actress as an unfaithful and immoral person. As a result, he doubts his trust in his wife, he is overwhelmed with jealousy, and ends up deploring his initial liberal frame of mind: “It is my fault. I shouldn’t have let her become an actress, and if she insisted,

I shouldn’t have married her. Didn’t I know, didn’t I predict all these? And look, now, how deeply I suffer and I regret, now” (90-92).

Rosa is a woman who loves the theater dearly and falls in love with the on- stage performance; she has been urged by her dramatic talent, facilitated by her wealth, demonstrated a strict professionalism throughout her short career, and a poignant devotion to her art, despite the frequent betrayals and hostilities she experienced by her colleagues. But she endures, because she is aware that this is a world of culture and endowment, yet also a world of vicious antagonism, suspicion, and envy. Confident in her ability and her inner strength, Rosa remains indifferent to

her husband’s discouraging advice of resigning: “Why would you stand and suffer all

this humiliation? Give it up, give it up! Besides, you are not what you and all of us

thought you were … So, leave, and let it be over with!” (334), Phoebus incessantly suggests to Rosa. 279

The proposition that Rosa desert her ambition and dream, though, does not stand as a recommendation fitting to an actress of Rosa’s determination, professionalism, and forceful love for her occupation. Throughout her — short — course in the theatrical fields, beginning as a drama student and closing stages as an acknowledged actress, Rosa has shown not only a talent, but also a toughness that

helped her endure in the difficult society of the drama world. Early on, acting is

described as Rosa’s “big dream,” and the comments she receives for her opening

attempts are elevating and buoyant: “This girl,” people commented, “had her father

consented to her acting professionally, she would even overwhelm Kiveli and

Kotopouli” 39 (7). Her immediate family, having also realized the extent not only of

the girl’s talent –they are not presented as people who treasured this gift as much as

Rosa did, “they respected social prejudice,” (8) — but the strength of her wish to

fulfill this dream, did not react to this will, for fear of “damaging her health, or at least

of rendering her a miserable girl, since they recognized that she would not be

comforted neither with traveling, nor marriage, nor anything” (8).

When Rosa decides to marry, she is at an initial stage of her relationship with

the theater and its world, inexperienced of the male attitude and the societal pressures

that are valid there too, and thus believes that she can manage her life, simply by

deciding to divorce Phoebus if he ever prevents her course. The author himself,

always in conformity with the patriarchal frame of mind, expresses an ironic comment

later in the novel, when Rosa is divorced from Phoebus, but not in order to establish her career more solidly: she will remarry an equally wealthy man, will withdraw from the theater, and will return to her hometown renouncing the female independence and dynamism regarding a career, and especially one in the theater. 280

When in Athens, Rosa’s intellectuality but, mainly, her strong will and keenness to be worthy of success, position her among a circle of scholars and friends

that encourage, advise, and direct the aspiring actress, and eventually respect her

cultivation and commitment. Rosa “fell deeply into studying,” expanding her

theoretical knowledge and culture, aiming at

perfecting her education, her aesthetics in general, and, more

specifically, her theatrical edification … Her social circle was now an

intellectual one. She invited them to her hotel, offered them tea,

performed for them, and had endless conversations with them.

Everybody admired her and … predicted a great future (45)

Her beauty, wealth, and inclination to the dramatic art, create a reputation for Rosa

within the circles of scholars, dramatists, journalists, even the Athenian community, and the young woman already experiences the approval and appreciation of her devotees. This high regard is further accentuated by Rosa’s first professional performances, where her talent stands out and proves her persistence and dedication

right. But, while the actress enjoys her professional success, the woman experiences

major obstacles in her personal life, and deals with problems that eventually alienate

her from her husband and, ultimately, prevent her career from flourishing. However, despite the impediments that are presented, Rosa does not cease to fight for her art,

thus she proposes a truce to her husband, so that she can recapture her inspiration and

devotion to her roles. The young, ambitious girl has by now turned into a decisive,

forceful woman, a professional actress, who is equipped to set aside her private issues,

in order to work independently and autonomously.

And her professionalism triumphs: Separated, though not yet divorced from

Phoebus, Rosa concentrates on her goal, focuses on her roles, and sets off on a tour 281 with her theater group. There, she is able to perform with zeal, demonstrate her abilities, and then realize her success and take pride in her thriving performance:

The main floor of the theater (pit) was filled with people up to the last

seat, and a lot of them were standing in the corridors. There was not

even one box empty, and the galleries were crowded … Rosa was

applauded two or three times [during the scene,] and was glorified

when the curtains dropped. It was mainly Rosa’s Act, and each time

the curtain was raised, she, alone, appeared. She was applauded,

exalted, and lauded from the galleries. She was offered an enormous

bouquet, and two white pigeons, tied with a light blue ribbon were

released, flying towards her. (223-224)

But Rosa is not simply an endowed actress, awed by the glamour and the allure of her victorious state; she is above all a hard-working, dutiful actress, loyal to her profession, and, despite her husband’s disbelief, loyal primarily to herself as both a woman and an artist. Although of a wealthy background and married to a millionaire, Rosa does not hesitate to sacrifice her comforts and her luxury, in order to follow the theater company’s tours across the country, like a genuine performer and a real actress. Oblivious to weather conditions and underprivileged accommodation, she endures all hardships, and delights in the satisfaction of following the avocation she worships: “I am an actress, on a tour. I may even travel to smaller towns where things will be worse,” she replies to her suitor (who later becomes her fiancé), when he points the poor quality of her hotel room on an island; when he wonders about the force that urges Rosa to put up with all the inconveniences of a theater tour, she responds: “ I do it because I wish to be a proficient actress, whole, not half an actress, 282

an amateur. This is the reason why I receive payment, although today I may not need

one” (238-239).

Even when she feels obliged to cope with her personal matters, Rosa remains

utterly devoted to her acting, struggling to prevent her career from a failure that would position her lower than her worth. Having recently experienced a disappointment in one of her performances, and feeling let down by her career’s progress, she considers strictly and solely her “professional future,” worrying that she would otherwise be

always “second” (251). Besides, as she later proclaims, the theater is what gives her

life meaning (323), a statement that illustrates how deeply she values her presentation

on stage each time. At this point in the novel Rosa is not the woman who declares the

personal life as her first priority, neither does she advise anyone for a quietly

conventional and domestic life, as she does in the end. Rosa is now still a working

woman, striving to combine an occupation with her art, centering on her side as an

actress:

I do not intend to die for anyone. I am an actress, and I can do my job

even without Phoebus. I have decided to focus on my job. I cannot deal

with this and that — jealousies, eccentricities, interferences, infidelities

— and not being able to give attention to my roles. I repeat: first I am

an actress, and then everything else. (252)

According to Pefanes the Greek theater of the 1930s, in order to tackle the

exceeding demands of the times, wished to nurture cultivated actors and actresses.

Therefore, he states, Xenopoulos, always consistent with and sensitive to the cultural

claims and realities, adapts his protagonist in accordance with the model of a

performer who is “simultaneously a professional and an artist and thus, rising above

the social conventions and the stagnant ideas, has to work meticulously and to acquire 283

a solid education, so as to conquer society’s system of values” (356). The majority of

women found themselves inadequately prepared by their education and their social

upbringing to deal with issues such as professionalism, economic independence, and the real world in general. The confinement of the woman’s gender per se had limited her self-development; hence, unless she proved her worth through an honorable marriage and a moral family, she could not be praised or admired. When women began to develop a sense of substance and value, then the situation started to change, with each female accomplishment accentuating their self-respect.

Rosa is portrayed as a type of new woman, especially since she realizes a fundamental doctrine of the New Woman ideology, the right to work as a professional

in the career that she selects. In support of the philosophy of the emancipated woman,

Xenopoulos wrote in K. Parren’s newspaper40 that a professional occupation made

possible a woman’s economic independence, as well as any kind of autonomy. Thus,

he considered, a new kind of family, and a new kind of society would be created (2).

The creation of a family, nevertheless, and marriage, in particular, was not among the

actual priorities of New Women;41 on the contrary, the self-determined individuals viewed marriage and domestic life as a state that further imprisoned their aspirations and goals, and thus did not agree with the perception that marital life was the sole approach for a happy and respectable life. Rosa, therefore, even at a young age, does not hesitate to deny the prospect of marriage, having already realized her deep attachment to the theater. Thus, to Phoebus’s marriage proposal, she responds

negatively, fully acknowledging that marrying an actress is not considered the best

outlook for a young, rich man of an aristocratic family; yet she could never abandon

her dream: “I will not sacrifice my Art, my dream, my future, to nothing. Not even to 284

my romance … Even if you and your father let me be an actress, I will not marry. I

told you, I resent marriage either way!” (19).

As a New Woman, Rosa does not value the social stereotypes that restrict her

creativity and freedom and prevent her from following the path she has chosen for her

life. For the first negative reaction she receives as a wealthy newcomer that wishes to

conquer the stage, Rosa blames her marital state, believing that had she been single,

the theater community would hold a positive attitude towards her: “I knew better when I did not want to get married! But I listened to you! And look at the results! …

My marriage to you destroys forever any option in my career. I knew better when I turned marriage down. But you influenced me” (56-57). An actress striving for success acquires a different set of values and priorities than another woman who wishes to run a household and raise children; and Rosa realizes this only when she suffers the consequences of her unavailability to a total theatrical devotion. Neither

Rosa nor Phoebus were aware of the particular standards that were dominant in the theater world, thus they set off unprepared for the situations that awaited them. The standards of the good woman and ideal wife are rejected by the New Woman mentality that conquers Rosa at this period, when she fights for establishing herself as a worthy actress, worrying about the prestige of her career, rather than her husband’s honor or his possessive attitude towards her. Rosa, the accomplished actress, cannot be a compliant and self-effacing wife; hence, the couple’s relationship weakens and ultimately both members lament their choice:

What [Phoebus] had fully realized was that he could not be an

“actress’s husband”. The sacrifice he made for Rosa’s sake, proved to

be more than he could handle. He could not! And since she would

never agree to abandon the theater, – not even when she was madly in 285

love with him did she consent to this – the best, perhaps for both, was

to be separated. (151-152) … The mistake [Rosa reflects] was all hers,

she should not have been married! She loved Phoebus intensely; was it

necessary to marry him? Since she would become an actress, couldn’t

he be her lover? … I should have married an actor … Only actors lack

the habit of envying their wives when they are actresses … And I went

and married a man of the world. Big mistake, which I am now sternly

paying for … (132) … Men, this is the obstacle. I wish I knew! My

most foolish act was to get married! You see, I wanted romance. Well,

how could I help it, being a sensual girl as I was. But was it necessary

to turn romance to a lifetime burden? I was going to be an actress,

what did I have to do with marriages? Now, there! (246-247)

The Victorian mentality that holds Miriam back, also works within the Greek

society, and prohibits Rosa’s independence. While enriching her experience among

the circles of the theater, and while understanding deeper and deeper the standards

that rule that world, Rosa realizes the incompatibility of her situation: she feels like a

New Woman, she takes on the autonomous pattern of life and thought, she strives for

self-reliance while forming her own career, and yet she is a married lady, with wealth

and lack of practical concern for her future, a woman expected to follow her husband

to his social meetings, rather than have him follow or wait for her, resenting her every

success and goal. The way Rosa has been brought up prevents her from ignoring the

traditional ethics of morality and decency. What she envies in a new coworker, a young and attractive actress with ambition and impudence, is exactly her staying

single, so that she could “live freely and give herself to whomever she wished. This is

what she should also have done. But she was not smart enough …” (278). Under the 286

influence of panic for the lack of her talent’s recognition, overwhelmed with

insecurity about the quality of her acting, and unable to betray her loyalty to her

marriage and the values with which she has been raised, Rosa feels that she can easily

be surpassed by those actresses that do not hesitate to declare themselves available to

directors or playwrights; the noble, superior lady that Rosa has proven to be, even

when among actors and away from her husband, cannot ignite any kind of favoritism

on her part. Desperate and alarmed, Rosa once more blames her husband, who

represents for her the confinement of her liberty, the imprisonment of her dreams, and

the source for her surrendering to defeat as an actress. In her disappointed

psychological state, Rosa places the marriage morals of devotion, obedience, and

fidelity directly against the New Woman principles of autonomy, assertiveness, and

sovereignty. She recognizes, though, that despite her inner beliefs and arguments, she

still remains a woman resigned to her husband’s authority, and that regardless of her acting aspirations, her premium role will always be that of the docile and passive wife.

In The Tragic Muse, Miriam and Peter’s story enacts another case of an independent, ambitious woman, who also experiences the possessiveness of masculine will and conquest;42 the man, Peter, denotes a domineering intention through a violent desire.43 He waits for Miriam’s arrival44 in order to discuss their

future, he regrets not having “gone round, not [having] snatched Miriam bodily away,

made sure of her and of what he wanted of her” (428), and although he promises not

to hurt her when she finally comes, he shuns the girl’s potential fleeing by “walking

round to get between her and the French window, by which she apparently had a view

of leaving the room” (437). Blair remarks that Peter’s imposing and domestic attitude

reveals an “urgent need to maintain rigid distinctions between public and private, 287 theatricality and authenticity, racially pure and contaminated, so as to naturalize his own authority on bearing the white man’s burden” (151). In a similar effort to secure the boundaries of his authority and his wife’s initiative, Phoebus reacts with aggression as well. Angry at her persistence to carry on a role that he felt insulted her stance as a lady and a quality actress, Phoebus initially pushes fiercely Rosa to the bed, and when she insists on her decision with nerve and audacity, he attacks her with violence: “Fuming, mad, exasperated, he grabbed her again, threw her on the bed, and started scratching her like a cat, and biting her like a dog, to the cheeks, the neck, the bosom, the shoulders, the arms, wherever he could find bare flesh. He intended on making visible marks on her” (112). 45

The stereotypically male behavior presupposes the role of man as the overall director, and most significantly the economic provider in a marriage, thus denying women the significance — and the weight — of being in charge of the family’s financial life. This responsible and central role was restricted to men, limiting women’s sphere to household occupation, and thus rendering women dependent on men, and almost unable for fruitful achievements on their own. With women’s lives being delineated by their submissiveness and sacrifice, it would seem only reasonable for representatives of the conventional society, such as Phoebus and Peter, to expect from women compliance and deference within the marriage. Obedience and servitude were viewed as parts of the wifely function, with incentive and opportunity denied by culture and social order. Family traditions and encoded social relationships entailed a predetermined set of prospects for a man of wealth and for a diplomat, and therefore these men required of their future wives to respect and submit to this set.

However, the new bourgeois woman had already materialized and Miriam emerges confident, sovereign, and sufficient, eager to triumph over the new realities 288

on economy, profession, and marriage. Working for herself and working hard, Miriam demands equal opportunity with Peter in pursuing her dreams and aspirations; she

confirms her talent and expounds her private needs, causing the True Woman ideal to

quiver in view of the conquering New Woman. Besides, as Smith-Rosenberg46 comments, “ [for some women] the traditional female role proved functional, bringing material and psychic rewards. But for some it did not” (200). Miriam belongs to the latter set of women.

The idealistic passion for art that motivates Miriam is not shared by the man who wishes to marry her, a man who in fact hopes to own her: “ ‘What I want is you yourself”’ he tells her (234). But Miriam understands perfectly well that her position is now empowered by the force of her confessed talent, and is thus permitted to reject

Peter’s proposal, and the entrance to the proper society he stands for. John Carlos

Rowe underlines the regality of Miriam’s attitude in rejecting Peter’s “selfish and hypocritical” (89) offer and calls attention to the fact that, in presenting so elaborately this refutation, James’s goal has been “ to prevent the reader from forgetting that

Miriam, now a public celebrity with great wealth, has rejected Peter, not the other way around.” Miriam this way alters the balance of social relations, Rowe concludes

(89).

Consequently, the revolutionary young woman and gifted actress, challenges the gender roles in the conventional discourse of Victorian culture. The freedom and liberal spirit with which she manages her artistic career and personal life are not in accordance with the average type of woman of the era; Miriam is powerful and potent, with a forceful character and a commanding attitude towards the factors that might influence her life. She can not be referred to — as Biddy is — as “dear,”

“sweet,” and “pretty” (287), her external being inconsistent with the regular 289

“pleasant,” “young bright slim rose-coloured” type of woman, dutifully represented

by Biddy Dormer (294); yet she is attractive, in her own, effective, forceful way,

which proves, in Nick’s unfinished portrait of her, that beauty is always a kind of supremacy and rule: “Unfinished, simplified and in some portions merely suggested, it was strong, vivid and assured, it had already the look of life and the promise of power” (303).

So Miriam declines marriage, preserves her freedom, remains an actress, and finally marries the theater itself, through her union to Basil Dashwood, a mediocre colleague-actor, for whom she states: “‘It was clear there had to be some one’” (428).

Her marriage to Dashwood is for Miriam nothing more than an easy way to stay devoted to her art, avoiding distractions, guilt, and inevitable complications had she chosen to accept Peter’s marriage proposal. A commonplace but equally committed actor, Basil Dashwood seems ideal for his role as Miriam’s husband, since he demands nothing that would divert her from her skill, but instead appears eager to please and assist her.

The union between Miriam and Basil Dashwood may be viewed as a marriage of convenience, but it is not inconsistent with Miriam’s ethics; the focus on the proper theatrical roles and on a flourishing process of her career limit Miriam’s options for a husband only to another actor that could love her with a matching equivalence:

Dashwood supports her career goals, and urges and enables her to shun the popular melodramas of her early London period. Miriam is shown as following an astute, speculative method in her husband selection, but she remains faithful to her initial priority, that of becoming a great actress. Her business-like reasons for marrying, though, definitely contradict the principles of the Victorian society, and defy the notion of romantic-love and idealistic-marriage; found in the middle of the conflict 290

between the True Woman’s principle of love and the New Woman’s purpose for

material interest, and also successful in the road she chose, Miriam proceeds to a

marriage of convenience47 out of her pure love for her art.

If Miriam is a dominant figure in the novel, she is, also, almost a sole figure. A

close reading of the other relationships discussed in this novel,48 including the plot

that was considered proper for Miriam herself, that is, to marry Peter and lead a respectable and customary life as the wife of a diplomat, demonstrates the strength that conventional customs, expectations, notions, and traditions possess. The quest for creative fulfillment through an artistic profession, though, is regarded of an inferior status compared to the dynamics of family, class, education, and rank of ambitions.

The kinship that connects those characters that aim for and cherish social rank is,

Krook asserts, “profoundly natural” for the English, and she adds: “and being in this paradoxical manner not only natural but also infinitely touching and engaging, they are matter for interest … rather than derision” (105).

No matter how faraway from social codes and stereotypes Miriam’s vision of herself is, it is ultimately she who will affect the human race, as James himself affirms. Art, for James, contributes to the development of humanity and artists such as

Miriam add their part to this grand development:

She’ll have brightened up the world for a great many people – have

brought the ideal nearer to them and held it fast for an hour with its

feet on earth and its great wings trembling … Blest is he who has

dropped even the smallest coin into the little iron box that contains the

precious savings of mankind. Miriam will doubtless have dropped a

big gold-piece. It will be found in the general scramble on the day the 291

race goes bankrupt. And then for herself she’ll have had a great go at

life. (TM 198-9)

John Carlos Rowe respectively comments: “Unlike the political and social economies that James criticizes in The Tragic Muse, successful art earns more by virtue of what it gives; its generosity is itself wealth for both the artist and the viewer” (100). This often proves inconceivable for a grand majority of people, who form the dominant norm of society and the overpowering stereotypes, according to which the order of things is conceived and persevered. An artist, and especially a woman artist, has to transgress important obstacles of perception and tradition in order to maintain her goals for her life and her vocation. “What James is saying,” Edel writes in his

“Introduction” to the Harper Torchbook edition, “ … is that if society were to have its way it would destroy the artist rather than allow him self-fulfillment; and that the artist must rebel in self-defense even at the risk of being destroyed by his own rebellion” (xi-xii). As a faithful part of such a society, James the author attempts to obliterate his heroine by imposing on her the public demands of propriety, and the

public expectations for a decent marriage. Miriam defiantly reacts and finally

achieves the right to the course chosen by her — unlike the rest of the Jamesian

heroines discussed in this study, who were defeated, silenced, and put into their

“proper” place, by their author and by society as well.

If Miriam is not in the end overpowered by James’s authorial male authority,

this is not the case with Rosa. In The Actress’s Husband the heroine is evidently

annihilated by the plot, for the same reasons of propriety and honor that were used as

the major blockage for her career. Rosa is initially presented as an aspiring actress,

who wished to accomplish her creative instincts even at the expense of her family and

class reputation, since, according to the Victorian frame of mind, the profession and 292 the marital status actually determine the social position as well. Loyal to her career,

Rosa does not waver in choosing her real passion over the conventional notion of happiness, which includes the marriage ideal, surrounded by a predictable and conformist respectability and tradition. Her determination to succeed in the theater overwhelms any other goal in her life, and failing in the theater gives her “such a sorrow, such an anguish, that it seemed to her as if the world vanished, as if the sun faded away” (314). The focus on the theater is manifested from the initial pages of the novel, and is introduced to the readers as the passion that runs the heroine’s life; as the plot develops, the theater appears to occupy the heart of the novel, only to determinately revert in the end, with the heroine’s career culminating, and her talent reaching its conclusion: “ I assure you,” Rosa declares to the man who later becomes her fiancé, “I am so disappointed! All the things that have happened to me … have robbed me of my courage for new battles. I once said that I could not live outside the theater. But I am afraid that neither can I live in it … ” (357).

The independent woman that Xenopoulos portrayed throughout the novel suddenly surrenders to the obstacles that she had been facing all along. The domineering attitude of the author forces the heroine to discard her New Woman identity, and embrace a conservative mentality, one that will balance her disregard of the traditional values and morals that a married woman should attain. Rosa wished for a career, but she set off with the already obtained benefit of a romance, a perfect marriage, wealth, talent, and social admiration. Her independent New Woman spirit and capacities rendered her a dangerous example and a very strong rival for the True

Woman ideal of domesticity and passivity. Rosa aims at self-determination and autonomy, and all through the novel she is pictured to attain these qualities with success, even when she dares to reject marriage and cast doubt upon this institution’s 293 significance. At that point, the author intervenes, and directs the plot according to his own mentality – that of an authos who, despite his liberal presentation of independent themes and self-ruling heroines, has stated: “the woman is not a self-directed existence … it is the man that makes the woman. As a husband, a father, a guardian brother, an uncle, even simply a lover, he is obliged to be vigilant and dutiful, so that his subservient one remains in the right path” (Newspaper, May 3, 1914).

Hence, at the end of the novel Rosa is convinced that she is unable to endure in the theater and thus discourages the young girls from following this profession.

Neither Rosa nor the author clearly defines the reasons for her failure and discouragement; the heroine appears ultimately serene and at peace with her decision, yet her struggle remains unresolved in the end. Her resentment against her husband

(or any husband, for that matter) is no longer mentioned, and Rosa is ready to marry again, but this time her partner will not be the husband of an actress. Having learned from her mistakes, Rosa offers her guidance to the other young women who dream of studying the acting art: “You are girls of good families. You will regret this like I did.

I am saying these to protect you” (395-396).

With these words of conservative caution, Rosa defines the end of her efforts in the theater world, and announces her turn to the socially approved image of a happily married woman, settled in her domestic bliss, and relieved from distressing ambitions. Like a genuine Real Woman, Rosa now focuses on the contentment that the conjugal life offers, and her thoughts encompass the conventional and stereotypical perspective of a real lady, and not that of an actress: “She did not feel the least regret that she was forced to abandon the theater, neither did she feel the slightest urge to go back. At once, it became a distant past, forgotten, a totally healed 294

wound, just like her marriage to Phoebus and her whole life with him, up until their

separation” (410).

The traditional values that dominated the social order and imposed a

patriarchal notion of the family actually represented the paternalistic character of the

social relations at large, but also the commanding attitude of the novel’s author,

towards his heroine and the surrounding class environment. As a result, Xenopoulos is

proved to be consistent with the conservative ideology of the time that wished for

novels to illustrate confined heroines with a limited field of action within the domestic sphere. The lack of a progressive line on the women’s issues is not marked solely in

Xenopoulos’s work; Lianopoulou calls attention to the fact that in the fiction of the

Greek Mid-War period, there is “an extremely limited number of heroines who are concerned with the matter of their emancipation, both financial and private (erotic), and essentially with the unsuccessful outcome of their efforts” (330). In these works of fiction,49 then, Lianopoulou remarks, the female resistance is narrowed down to a

mere observation of all the social, economic, educational and psychological factors

that determine the deplorable fate of the woman and contribute to her segregation.

Simultaneously, however, she claims that this is just the way things are and,

consequently, women must comply with the laws of nature (330). Evidently, Rosa,

like the greater part of the heroines that Xenopoulos portrays in his novels, is a

woman characterized by passivity, tolerance, resignation, and submissiveness, despite

the dynamic and assertive traits she originally displayed. With her failure in being

established as an uninhibited and liberated woman, Rosa becomes one more heroine

that wished to put an autonomous and unconventional mark on society, but was

punished and silenced by it. 295

In fact, notwithstanding the different endings of the two novels by James and

Xenopoulos respectively, the authors’ common conformist attitude is made clear

through the frame of mind that the respective society demonstrates. The female

pattern that the patriarchal outlook dictates signifies the woman as passive and as

man’s other, thus depriving her of the opportunity to pursue the acting career without

being subdued to severe social and moral critique. Auerbach, in Private Theatricals speaks of the theater’s “seaminess of the bordello” that stained an actress’s reputation, especially since, as a profession, it empowered the woman with insolence and individuality:

Though acting was one of the few professions in which a woman could

win money and glory, the phrase “public woman” applied equally well

to performer and to prostitute. Redolent of unwomanly assertion as

well as sexual experience, the public woman is a threatening invader

into a sphere that is by definition masculine. (255)

This invasion is clearly sensed by James and Xenopoulos when their heroines develop into talented and ambitious creatures, equipped with strong will and dare, set to conquer a male-oriented domain. Therefore, the very creations of the authors, the actress-heroines, determined and gifted with the approval of their novelists, fall victims to the same lure that urged them to become performers: self-importance, vanity, and narcissism –all reasonable and expected reactions in the acting profession, though denied and dreaded by the masculine perspective when expressed by a woman.“Self-absorption, in a woman, is a sin,” Swindells remarks. “Woman, the moral dictates, must think not of self, but of others. Personal vanity, in a woman, is a sin. Reflection on the wrong kind of love, on the sensual or the sexual and not the spiritual, is a sin.” (53). The male reader, then, gets what he wants from the male 296

writer: artisan womanhood is presented physical, sinful, and culpable. When beauty is

not confined within the domestic and moralist boundaries, it deceives and confuses.

But even then, Swindells continues, man is not to blame: “Not he, but the woman,

must be capable of being wholly good, wholly self-sacrificed. He is right to expect that.” (54). Corbett comments on the independence that women acquired through the acting career, yet this autonomy proved to be at the expense of their femininity, as this was represented by the middle-class frame of mind:

The experiences of actresses in their capacity as workers, who merely

by the fact of engaging in paid labor outside the home behaved in a

way that most of their contemporaries would consider unfeminine,

bore little relation to bourgeois Victorian attitudes about what

constituted women’s natural role. The successful actresses of the 1860s

and 1870s, born to the stage, had little in common with the carefully

cultivated young ladies of the drawing room. (120)

As man’s other, then, woman ought to not be the protagonist, the subject —

her sole role should be restricted to man’s supplement, an addition to his world and

field of acquisitions. The women characters in this chapter are expected to be exactly

that: a fragment of the male body, a particle of the masculine institution, always an

object, and never a subject. “Which means,” Irigaray asserts, “that she cannot be truly

other. The other that she is remains trapped in the economy or the horizon of a single

subject” (311).

297

Notes

1 The titles “American Woman” and “American Girl,” “Cult of True

Womanhood,” as well as references to the American reality, the American society,

and the American dominant conventions, are elaborated in this study’s chapters to a greater extent than their equivalent references concerning modern Greece and the modern Greek situation. This also applies to the specific allusions to Henry James, compared to those for Gregorios Xenopoulos. This disproportion is due to the fact that the studies and the critiques devoted to the two authors’ particular works are not equal, neither in amount nor in context. Therefore, the information and the discussions on the American parts are presented in a more detailed manner, yet they are not obliterated from each chapter’s core, since, as the study of the novels’ plot later signifies, the majority of these comments also apply to the Greek state of things and character analysis as well.

2 Four of the most significant American women’s magazines of the period

1900-1920 were: Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Home

Companion, and the Delineator. In Greece, K. Parren’s Ladies’ Journal and her study

History of the Woman, are some of the major works addressed to women, and offer

guidelines as to the proper type of education that would prepare the girl to stand as a

self-reliant individual without neglecting the duties of the wife, the mother, and the

housemistress.

3 These ladies, however, developed an interest in issues such as education and property ownership, and had the schooling, money, and time to pursue the study of such topics, even to read feminist literature. Their desire for self-fulfillment and relief from frustration actually put them at the center of the feminist movement. 298

4 Hoekstra humorously states about the external appearance of the girl in the

love-story: “Heroines defy the laws of genetic possibility in their tendency to be

always blond and tiny” (45).

5 Education and job skills were limited to specific, habitual, everyday versions for women, especially for the heroines in the novels. Professions such as doctors,

lawyers, businesspeople, or university professors were not viewed as appropriate for

female characters, since in domestic fiction the paradigm to be outlined had to

encompass a certain suffering and poverty, so that the heroine proves that she is not

idle or weak, and yet she calls for the dramatic and emotional reaction of the reader,

who would be touched by her bravery, nobility, and drama. Accordingly, Susan

Warner’s Ellen Montgomery is a scholar and a kind-hearted helper, Holmes’s Rosa

Lee in Meadowbrook is a teacher and a governess, and Olive West in the Harper’s

story is a poet, but mainly a doll dresser.

6 These extracts and page numbers are from Gilman’s Autobiography.

7 The women artists in domestic novels, especially if they were successful,

rarely met with public acceptance, because their autonomous inclinations

overshadowed the conservative values of traditional novels. Real Women approved of

the desire for self-support as well, but not the contempt towards the vital importance

of husbands, families, and male authority in general. One example is given through

Fern’s Rose Clark, which portrayed Rose’s friend Gertrude Dean as an independent,

successful, autonomous artist, who despised men and marriage; the novel did not sell

well: a fruitful career had to encompass familial and wifely duties as well.

8 Riley remarks the case of an acclaimed woman sculptor of the 1860s, Harriet

Hosmer, who declined to marry in order to be devoted to her art, and to continue to

enjoy her rich social life. “An artist,” Hosmer had written, “has no business to marry 299

… For a woman … it is a moral wrong … for she must either neglect her profession or her family, becoming neither a good wife and mother nor a good artist … every woman should have the opportunity of cultivating her talents to the fullest extent”

(20).

9 Macnaughton in his article “The New York Edition of Henry James’s The

Tragic Muse” states the basis for most of the novel’s attacks, and presents the names of the critics that expressed the most negative comments, along with the studies that expressed a sympathetic and/or substantial discussion of the work. Moreover, the article supports that the 1908 New York edition of The Tragic Muse is superior to earlier editions, and considering that the New York edition is met with the analogous credit and regard given to any fiction revised by James, the current discussion of the novel is based on the New York edition as well.

10 From June to August of 1907 James revised the novel for the New York

edition of his Novels and Tales. The text of The Tragic Muse and its Preface appeared

as Volumes VII and VIII of the 1908 New York Edition. The current discussion of the novel takes under consideration the 1908 edition but it also incorporates, as Horne mentions in his “Introduction” to the Penguin edition of The Tragic Muse, some corrections from the 1922 Macmillan reprint (xxxiii).

11 Rowe holds the title to refer simply to the heroine’s ambition to perform

roles from the tragedy repertoire and not just melodramatic and comic ones;

additionally, he apprehends Miriam to be a “tragic muse” in the life of Nick Dormer,

in the sense that she becomes the subject of the two portraits he paints of her, and also

the inspirational factor for his perplexed choice between his art and a wealthy

marriage (96). 300

12 Pefanes assumes that, before writing The Actress’s Husband, Xenopoulos read Somerset Maugham’s novel entitled Theater, yet its influence on Xenopoulos’s novel may be defined merely as a theme orientation. Maugham’s heroine is portrayed in a different age and stage than Rosa, hence the perception of the theatrical realities deviates from one novel to the other (351-352).

13 The Actress’s Husband was performed in 1942 in New York and in 1957 in

Athens as a three-act play entitled The Actress, by the theater group of Katerina.

Along with Katerina herself, the other roles were performed by L. Konstandaras, T.

Farmakes, Al. Vouyiouklakes.

14 Even if in the end of the novel Nick appears ready to succumb to the political aspirations of Julia and diminish his creative passion, it is made clear that his soul is with portrait painting and that his happiness lies in the world of art.

15 In the Art of the Novel James presents the dilemma an artist may face when the creative talent has to survive within an antagonistic and cruel public, insensitive and hostile to art:

What I make out from furthest back is … the happy thought of some

dramatic picture of the “artist-life” and of the difficult terms on which

it is at the best secured and enjoyed, the general question of its having

to be not altogether easily paid for. To “do something about art” — art,

that is, as a human complication and a social stumbling-block — must

have been for me early a good deal of a nursed intention, the conflict

between art and “the world” striking me thus betimes as one of the

half-dozen great primary motives. (79)

301

16 There are two sources of inspiration referred to for the plot of The Tragic

Muse: the first is William Black’s Macleod of Dare which James reviewed for the

Nation in 1878, and narrates the love story of a Scottish laird, Macleod, to the English actress Gertrude White. The actress soon breaks their engagement for the sake of her future career, which appears greatly promising, Macleod abducts her, and both are drowned on the way to Scotland. The second spring for the novel’s concept is Mrs.

Humphry Ward’s Miss Bretherton, with the heroine, Isabel Bretherton, accepting the marriage proposal while at the top of her career, which she eventually abandons, sacrificing her artistic nature.

17 In addition to The Tragic Muse, the dilemma and conflict of the artist is also

portrayed in The Bostonians and The Princess Casamassima.

18 As has already pointed out, Miriam finally marries, but her husband is one

of her own kind, a man of the theater, who supports her career, accepts her goals, and

does not make her choose between devotion to her profession or to her marital status.

19 Hochman positions Miriam’s case in the nineteenth-century debate about actresses, the topic of the discussions being whether in watching an actress, the audience is looking at a physical body or at an “idea.” Peter Sherringham, Hochman claims, never identified Miriam as a person, that is why he claimed her so exclusively, and wanted to eradicate her ideas and her body from the theater (79-80).

20 In “The Art of Fiction” James criticizes the Protestant idea that art “is

supposed in certain circles to have some vaguely injurious effect upon those who

make it an important consideration, who let it weigh in the balance” (47).

21 In the novel’s opening scene Nick is with his mother and sisters at an

exhibition of modern art in Paris, and, when at the exhibition’s lower floor he points out to his sister Biddy a nearby sculpture of nudity, eroticism and violence, his mother 302

reacts against it, saying: “Everything seems very dreadful. I should think Biddy had better sit still. Hasn’t she seen enough horrors up above?” (19).

22 Richard Salmon supports that in The Tragic Muse James discards the

nineteenth-century convention — which he had often used in earlier novels — about

the immorality of women in the public sphere, and admits that an actress on stage

does not necessarily embody masculine desire, but can also stand on her own, as a creative presence on stage, in society (41).

23 Powers remarks that James produced numerous stories about artists,

especially during the period where he himself was taking an important decision

regarding his attempts in the theatrical field, trying this way to explain and validate this endeavor: “[James’s stories] deal in various ways with the artist’s difficulty in standing up to the demands of his public – to produce often and give them what they want” (23).

24 Gabriel Nash is the one that introduces Miriam to Nick and Peter, and the

person who initially contributes to the expenses of Miriam’s training by Madame

Carré.

25 Krook connects Nash’s primary role in the book to James’s anguished effort to make the artist-hero as intriguing as possible:

[Nash’s principal function is] to celebrate, in his own flamboyant

personal style and his own extravagant idiom, the world of art and the

life of the artist; and to celebrate it in such a way as to evoke from the

artist-hero the dramatically right responses, those that will exhibit him

most fully in the character of the artist. And it is by performing this

function that Gabriel Nash … assists James in … making his artist-

hero as “interesting” as the conditions of the case permit. (87) 303

26 Up to the point where he proposes marriage to Miriam and the social

conventions on matrimony intervene, Peter is presented as a person deep into the

world of art, willingly carried by the force of the theater, fervently supporting Miriam

as a brilliant would-be actress, even encouraging and helping her in the first steps of

her successful career.

27 Krook finds Miriam’s success happening rather too fast within the demands

of a convincing plot, but believes that this is a reversible flaw, since James manages

to present his heroine in a “scenical” way, that is, picturing her primarily in one state, and then, a number of pages further down, portraying her in a completely different state, as in “two acutely contrasting episodes” (88).

28 Logan gives the following overall characterization of Miriam: “Enormously

vain, with imperturbable self-assurance, showy, hard, not ungenerous, capable of

assuming every emotion and incapable of feeling any not connected with public

applause and the receipts of the box-office — such is the Tragic Muse” (240).

29 This notion of the old actress disagrees with Peter’s idea that acting is

“essentially a gift, a thing by itself, implanted, instinctive, accidental, equally

unconnected with intellect and with virtue” (225), a conflict of viewpoints that

explains the different courses among which Miriam had to later choose.

30 Miriam’s role is described as that of a “ beautiful actual fictive impossible young woman of a past age, an undiscoverable country, who spoke in blank verse and

overflowed in metaphor, who was exalted and heroic beyond all human convenience”

(425).

31 Goetz, commenting on the various meanings or “representation,” recalls a relevant statement Peter made, while describing his passion for the theater, a 304

statement that he refuses to apply when Miriam’s trustworthiness is concerned: “‘I am fond of representation — the representation of life. I like it better, I think, than the real thing’” (Goetz, 152 — TM, 63).

32 Auerbach in Romantic Imprisonment cites George Bernard Shaw’s attack on

the disjunction between acting and sincerity, in an early essay of his, “Acting by One

Who Does Not Believe in It” (1889): “Shaw asserts grandly that though ‘acting, in the

common use of the word, is self-falsification, forgery, and fraud … the true goal of

the stage-player is self-realization, expression, and exhibition.’”(256). [George

Bernard Shaw, Platform and Pulpit, Dan H. Laurence, ed. (London: Rupert Hart-

Davis, 1962), 22]

33 A recurring topic in James’s novels is that of artists whose intimate story

and private information is intertwined with their creative work. Also see The Aspen

Papers, “The Middle Years,” “The Death of the Lion,” “The Author of Beltraffio,”

and “The Figure in the Carpet.”

34 Jacobson holds this hostility between the sexes to be a means of attraction to

James’s readers, since novels with related topics were popular in the mass market, and

this may be the reason why James amplifies this conflict in the novel (70).

35 On the topic of assertive and willful women performers and their impact on

the repressive Victorian society in the late nineteenth century, see also Christopher

Kent’s “Image and Reality: The Actress and Society,” Michael Baker’s The Rise of the Victorian Actor, Sally Mitchell’s The Fallen Angel: Chastity, Class, and Women’s

Reading, 1835-1880, Nina Auerbach’s Private Theatricals: The Lives of the

Victorians.

36 The imagery of the box is also depicted in The Bostonians, where Verena

talks of women’s need to be liberated from their confining boxes, as well as in The 305

Portrait of a Lady, when Isabel feels overwhelmed by the view of Osmond’s suffocating castle.

37 When the conversation between Lady Agnes and Nick touches upon Miriam

Rooth, his mother refuses to think or talk any further about the actress. She despises

both her humble roots, as well as her passion for art — a passion shared by her son

and her nephew, and destroyed her own plans for their career and marriage:

But Lady Agnes’s mind and memory were a blank on the subject of

Miss Miriam Rooth and she wanted to hear nothing whatever about

her: it was enough that she was the cause of their ruin and a part of his

pitiless folly. She needed to know nothing of her to allude to her as if it

were superfluous to give a definite name to the class to which she

belonged. (343)

38 Blair notes Miriam’s characterization as “an embroidery without a canvas,”

(TM, 126) emphasizes on the absence of strong personal traits in her, and discusses

how the young diplomat worked on her “blankness” of “nature,” her lack of depth,

(“background,”) (TM, 145) and the means through which he managed to infuse in her

culture and taste: “ Playing Pygmalion to her Galatea, laboring to inculcate her with

‘the grand style,’ he takes her to see Versailles and Rambouillet … and orders her to

learn Milton and Wordsworth by heart” (137).

39 Kiveli and Marika Kotopouli were two of the most important female acting

figures of the time, and are honored today as well, as cornerstones of Greek dramatic

history.

40 Xenopoulos’s article “The New Woman” (1-3) was published in K. Parren’s

newspaper “The Ladies’ Journal” on September 30, 1907. Its content was a critique of

Parren’s play entitled “The New Woman”. 306

41 The fact that Xenopoulos in his article acknowledges the female

emancipation yet applies to it a sense of domesticity and obedience to the socially

approved formulas, simply reinforces the claim that he was a conventional and

conservative author, despite his presentation of liberal heroines.

42 Litvak connects Miriam’s objectification not only to Peter’s intentions, but

also to her father’s. In response to her Jewish paternal genes, then, Miriam created for

her the destiny of an actress, having inherited from her father “the aesthetic element,

the sense of colour and form” (TM, 220). “Jewish art and Jewish commerce,” Litvak

maintains, “converge in the Name-of-the-Father, which dictates, from the grave,

Miriam’s professional itinerary” (162).

43 Again, here, the story resembles the violent intentions and outbursts Basil

experienced while trying to win Verena over.

44 Peter waits for Miriam at the deserted house in Balaklava Place, for what

turned to be their final confrontation.

45 Typical of the female acceptance of the male power over her, are Rosa’s comments to a woman friend, concerning her being beaten by her husband: “Yes, we are reconciled. That is how we women are. We are being beaten, and then everything is just fine” (177). In Rosa’s mind, Phoebus’s violence against her is not at all forgiven, but in front of her friend she adopts the common female reaction.

46 Smith-Rosenberg also remarks:

The desire to marry and the belief that a woman’s social status came

not from the exercise of her own talents and efforts but from her ability

to attract a competent male protector were as universal among lower-

class and farm women as among middle- and upper-class urban women

(200). 307

47 John Carlos Rowe observes that in The Tragic Muse all the marriages are

marriages of convenience by the novel’s end: Julia accepts Nick’s proposal at first, for

the hope of becoming the wife of a — controlled by her — member of the Parliament;

Nick’s mother and sisters urge and benefit from the engagement when Julia lends

them her country house, and Peter finally marries Nick’s sister Biddy, again for

advantageous reasons (87).

48 The other relationships referred to are Nick and Julia, Peter and Biddy, and

Nick’s family and close circle.

49 The Women’s issue is tackled in modern Greek literature by men and

women authors, and their work reveals an advanced awareness regarding the woman’s

place in society. Some representative titles are: K Parren’s (Καλλιρρόη Παρρέν) The

Emancipated Woman (1900), (Η χειραφετηµένη), The Witch (1901), (Η µάγισσα), A.

Papadiamantes’s (Α. Παπαδιαµάντης) The Murderess (1903), (Φόνισσα) and K.

Theotokes’s (Κ. Θεοτόκης) The Honor and the Wealth (1912). (Η τιµή και το χρήµα). Conclusion

“She grew daring and reckless,

overestimating her strength. She wanted

to swim far out where no woman had

swum before”

Kate Chopin The Awakening

Literary theory and literary practice have been combined in this study, in analyzing works of fiction within a framework of feminist theoretical approaches.

This coming together of theory and practice is, however, met with the tension created when trying to unite an intellectual commitment to questioning fixed positions with forms of writing that often appear to embrace a belief in an essential truth of female experience (Felski 16). Feminism has been institutionalized as an academic discipline, and thus feminist intellectuals employ progressively more sophisticated forms of theoretical argumentation and textual analysis; as a consequence, strong criticism of

earlier feminist approaches to literature and culture has been expressed, without,

though, underrating the more popular forms of feminist literary achievements. In fact,

feminism does not stand merely as a significant body of theory, but also as a political

ideology and a social movement apprehensive of transformations and amendments; it

is therefore not only expected, but also required for feminism to mirror the

relationship between theory and practice. It thus becomes important to state that in

order to fulfill such goals and needs, feminism should be regarded as a broad social

movement, encompassing the discussion of feminist literature. 309

In this context, the category of the subject (or, the subjectification of the woman,) occupies a fundamental position in the feminist assignment in recognizing that women’s positioning within existing social, familial, and ideological structures differs primarily from that of men in various manners. Feminist ideology has worked as a political framework that led women to the realization of their being a subordinated group within society; thus, it initiated in women a critical thinking upon gender as a category that has become problematic. Feminist discourse constructs, therefore, a rationalized conception of subjectivity, which can connect the politics of gender to its elemental considerations. As a changing, compound, and multifaceted body of thought, feminism continues to reveal its connection to a variety of political and cultural traditions, and to detect the changing value systems, the shifts of power, and the struggles of oppositional groups.

This dissertation has attempted to trace the development of a feminist ideology in America and in Greece, during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. At the core of this thesis has been the discussion of two novelists: Henry James and

Gregorios Xenopoulos. Centering on The Bostonians, The Portrait of a Lady, and The

Tragic Muse by Henry James, and Secret Engagements, The Three-Sided Woman, and

The Actress’s Husband by Gregorios Xenopoulos, I pin down not only the dominant thoughts and ideas in the two countries’ societies, but also the stereotypes that directed the behavioral norms, and thus justify the position given to the novels’ female protagonists by the authors. When confronted with each country’s society, the heroines succumb to the dominant ideas and standards, even though they have demonstrated the inner force and the ability to fight for their independence and individuality. Their strong voice is clearly heard, yet young women in late nineteenth- century America and Greece are not welcome to display assertive qualities.

310

Under the perspective of realism, and on the basis of parallel themes, the six

novels have been studied in pairs; I have therefore focused attention on the issue of

marriage and the impact of this institution on the heroines’ lives in The Bostonians

and Secret Engagements, on independence as an expression of the female autonomous

will and as a threat to the established societal tradition in The Portrait of a Lady and

The Three-Sided Woman, and on the female artist’s conflict between personal fulfillment and moral / marital commitment in The Tragic Muse and The Actress’s

Husband.

I acknowledge that at first glance, the differences appear significantly important: the countries, the societies, the standards, even the particular dates of production are not alike; furthermore, Henry James and Gregorios Xenopoulos originate from diverse stylistic, national, and chronological groups. However, I concentrated on those exact elements that bring the two authors and their particular works together, these being the spectrum of realism as an influence and as a technique, and, mainly, the similarities in the tackled themes, as well as in the manner of the heroines’ handling — both by the authors and by society. The theoretical background applied in this dissertation has been based on American, English, and

Greek books, essays, and articles, all employed as a framework for the comparative discussion of the novels chosen. The weight is located in the correspondence between the two societies’ clichés that give birth to the same reaction towards the heroines’ deviation from the norm; the rejection of the marriage plot, the wish to experience autonomy and independence, the pursuit of art as a profession and a mode of living, come in direct opposition to the model of the passive and dutiful woman – wife – mother, and this is the case in all the pairs of novels examined here.

311

For that reason, I have concentrated on feminist criticism for analyzing the

novels chosen, and specifically on works by Susan Rubinow-Gorsky, Nancy Walker,

Barbara Welter, Ann Ardis, Morwenna Griffiths, Sally Ledger, Ann Douglas, Sandra

Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Nina Baym, Judith Fetterley, Nina Auerbach, Frances

Cogan, Nancy Cott, Carroll Smoth-Rosenberg, Elaine Showalter, Efi Avdela and

Angelica Psara, Maria Svolou, Eleni Varika, Alexandra Bakalaki, and Eleni

Elegmitou, in order to explain the independent inclination of the heroines and the opposition of their autonomous spirit to the patriarchal gaze on the part of the authors.

This is after all, the fundamental argument of my thesis: I detect in James and

Xenopoulos an intentional eradication of the forceful and autonomous elements in their female characters, an eradication that substantiates a conservatism and conventionality on their part. Regardless of their stylistic and national differences, the two novelists are studied on the basis of the novels’ thematical analysis, thus I discuss their plot and theme, focusing on the topics that emphasize and confirm the authorial position.

This position, I claim, is consistent with the mode of thinking and operating that was prevalent at the time each novel was written, and with each country’s reading public it was written for. Therefore, they present independent female protagonists, yet through the novel’s turn they negate this autonomy by directing the heroines to either reject their primary liberty, or be punished for their sovereignty. The present thesis sets out to question the argument that authors that deal with female characters are in favor of women; the way James and Xenopoulos treat their heroines in the novels examined here, verifies a patriarchal, male-oriented and conservative perspective. In the preceding chapters I have not attempted to review all of the possibly relevant literature produced by James and Xenopoulos, neither have I supported solely one

312 specific critical source for the depiction (or absence) of their feminist notions, or realistic writing; I have simply outlined some significant feminist treatments and conducted a realist demarcation of the works’ period, so as to center on a number of critical perspectives that I consider relevant, and, mainly, to express my personal reading of the novels and the authors’ position. But I have also particularly chosen to concentrate on female characters for two reasons: because of their interest as they confront society’s commands, and because of the common elements that these women share with each other, which allows me to show forth, by comparison and contrast, the confining plot that is imposed in the end upon individuals that lie beyond time and space, beyond the borderlines of eras and countries. The previous chapters argue that this is the case. A task for the analyst arguing in this manner is to discover the mechanisms through which the subordination of women is perpetuated in the novels examined.

James, to begin with, has portrayed heroines with a tendency to flee from stereotypes, in order to achieve self-knowledge and freedom. Drawn to female characters for the complexities and depth he could allow them to acquire, James produced characters that flirt with social power, class, desire, and moral requirements.

Although he proposes reaction against the impositions of society, and defends the individuality when this is threatened by the regulations of social order, James chose not to directly oppose the norm, avoiding the final crucial changes. Therefore, he keeps a certain distance from feminism as a social issue, tackling the subject as an aesthetic means for challenging storylines, and not deeply discussing its reforming power or its radicalism. What I have attempted to do in this dissertation is to overturn

James’s reputation as a male writer who identifies with women’s struggle to achieve

313

selfhood, and to pinpoint his intention to rewrite women’s novels that violated his

rigid code of female decency and propriety.

Likewise, Xenopoulos has presented a sensitive consideration of the complex

female world and psyche, with respect to the psychology of the woman who has been

given an inferior position in and by society. Among these pressures that women have

to face, Xenopoulos allows for the emergence of a new type of woman, dynamic and

liberal, only to be handed over, in the end of the novel, to the demands of domesticity and conventionality. Nonconformity to stereotyped principles seems to be what

Xenopoulos suggests, but only to the point where the conservative lines of respectability and ethics are not crossed. Therefore, the feminist scenario that indicates a new type of woman is overcome by the domestic ideal that proposes submission and surrender to the marriage plot.

Even though Xenopoulos wished to be perceived as a modern and pioneer novelist, he has illustrated, from the beginnings of the 20th century, a number of tendencies that can be summarized into the following: 1) Insistence on a kind of mild naturalism. 2) “Objective” literature with social tendencies. 3) National literature emphasizing the word “literature,” because “local color” by itself does not constitute art. 4) Works that make an impression on a broader audience. 5) Usage of a language that everybody can understand and is not foreign to the bourgeois. 6) Support of a kind of literature that does not exclude some parts of the population in the name of a misunderstood culture and pleasure, that is, a kind of literature understandable to everybody on a first level (of what happens) or on a second level (of what it means).

7) Most importantly, an effort to entrench his critical physiognomy so that it is

distinguishable in relation to all other critics of his time and especially Palamas.

(Farinou, “O Theoritikos kai Critikos Xenopoulos,” 32).

314

What I present as the fundamental argument for the comparison of these two authors is that Henry James and Gregorios Xenopoulos portray heroines with independent and forceful spirit that challenges the status quo of society’s standards; it is the same authors that allowed for this spirit to express itself, then, that reverse the plot and silence the voice whose strength annoyed the male-oriented social order.

Therefore, they both express a conservative approach to women, even an anti-feminist spirit, by stating the predominance of male power over women, and the control of the patriarchal model of domesticity over personal ambitions and autonomy. The issue of power takes the form of man’s command over a woman’s free spirit, the supremacy of male hegemony that, by tradition, overwhelms anything female: independence, work, talent, success. The strength of mind that characterized the heroines in the beginning of the novels evaporates under the authors’ intention to ultimately silence the assertive protagonist who proved to be more powerful that they intended. James and

Xenopoulos, then, eliminate the elements of feminist thought in these dynamic personas, reproducing once more, to repeat Budick’s comment, “the very crime of patriarchy” (157). James and Xenopoulos agree with what the ethical and respectable codes of society expected of a girl: to aspire to marriage, wealth, creation of family, and self-righteousness through self-negation.

The parallel reading of the six novels is based on the heroines’ attempts to succeed as New Women, surpassing the stereotypes of the True and the Real woman, that categorized women as “angels of the house,” in accordance to the Cult of

Domesticity. The stereotype of the passive, weak, dependent woman, annihilated in her duty as a wife and her vocation as a mother, renders woman into an “angelic” person, obliged (by canon) to submit to the discipline of manners. The male power intervened in the stereotypical expectations the woman had to meet with, and thus

315

confined woman in the sphere of home through the canon of domesticity. The social

demands and values that derived from this cult, directed women towards household

duties and motherhood, refusing her the right or the wish to work, to travel, to react, and to argue. The course of the canons / stereotypes inflicted upon women begins with the “Cult of True Womanhood,” which encompasses four principal virtues – piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. These were the supreme female qualities according to the Victorian frame of mind in the nineteenth-century, and rendered women captives in their homes in the role of wife, mother, sister, or daughter. Accordingly, no prospect of employment or wish for employment was allowed whatsoever, since the domestic realm permitted no space for ambition or assertion of a talent. Apart from being a supporter of her husband and household, women soon began to realize that they could also obtain fulfillment outside the home, in pursuing a career, cultivating their spirit, tracking abilities and capacities that they found rewarding. As a result, the True Woman gave way to the Real Woman, a model that acknowledged women’s skills and aspirations, and even their intellectual competence that granted them the right to a rounded education. Therefore, the basic development in the Cult of Real womanhood became the option for female employment that would provide financial, moral, and social independence to women.

Consequently, the seeds of feminism appeared along with the ideal of the New

Woman that followed the Real woman. More dynamic and less feminine, the New

Woman opted for professional action, economic autonomy, and rejection of the marriage ideal. The New Woman, then, substituted the pious, devoted, Victorian angel of the house with a forceful, purposeful, daring person, who resists the confinement of domesticity and asserts her equal-with-men rights in life.

316

Close examination of the women characters in this study suggests a basically

shared mentality in claiming their individuality, and a sameness in their falling prey to

a similar – if not identical – mindset on the part of the two authors, regarding the

issues of the marriage ideal, the female employment, and the woman artist. Meeting

needs such as expanding the intellect, exploring the world, respecting personal

ambition, and cultivating the self, presupposes freedom and independence of both

body and spirit. Liberty, independence, autonomy, were the new forms of selfhood in

the middle and upper classes of the nineteenth-century America and early twentieth-

century Greece. Bourgeois female individualism dared to decline the binding

institution of marriage and instead focus on the development and application of

personal talents and abilities. This way, Chambers-Schiller states, women

“internalized the individualistic ethic that grew from changes in the structure and

values of the early modern family,” and “enacted the ideas and values of the European

Enlightenment and American Revolution” (1).

The women in this study articulated the value of female independence, even when their own creators denied them the objective of attaining meaningful work, satisfying their thirst for education, cultivating their female self in every aspect. The nature of marriage and domesticity is imposed upon the male authors first, and then on the heroines they built. The very human desire to grow, accomplish, and succeed is not realized by the heroines in the novels’ conclusions (with the exception of Miriam

Rooth in The Tragic Muse, who, though, still finds it difficult to make her own choices and establish her own priorities); the significance of autonomy and fulfillment outside the marriage bond and societal conventions is, however, stressed as vital for the heroines’ happiness and completion. The conservatism of the authors and their compliance to the stereotypes and the norms of society do not rule out women’s need

317 for growth and identification, for sovereignty and completion. As Margaret Fuller states “human beings are not so constituted that they can live without expansion. If they do not get it in one way, they must in another, or perish” (36), for “what Woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern as a soul to live freely and unimpeded, to unfold such powers as were given to her” (38).

The “woman question” remains an issue open to further investigation and clearly goes beyond the scope of this thesis; nevertheless, concentrating on Henry

James and Gregorios Xenopoulos has brought to light a large variety of writings relating to whether each author (studied individually and not in comparison) acquires a fondness for the women characters illustrated, as well as to the depiction of a feminist or antifeminist approach of the author in every one novel. My personal point is that the conservatism of the two authors – who were considered so far to be in favor of their female characters per se – is certainly a reason to silence the voices of their assertive heroines. Nevertheless, the case is not ended here, since, to paraphrase

Habegger, “one final reason it is impossible to end the story of James and the ‘woman business’ [and Xenopoulos and the ‘woman business, respectively,] is that the business is not over” (238).

I have already stated that the choice of the theme of this dissertation might seem arbitrary, due to the differences of Henry James and Gregorios Xenopoulos, as well as their incompatibility in style, time, and nation. With the spectrum of realistic writing as the foundation of this study, and, mainly, the common ground set by the novels’ similarities in plot and theme, I have argued about the authors’ stand regarding feminism, patriarchy, the New Woman ideal, and the space that the male authority allowed their heroines to acquire. Being engaged with these two novelists

318 for a long period of time, however, has intrigued me to study more about them, beyond the extent of this thesis. Insisting on my personal selection of the particular authors as a duo to be studied, and of the specific novels to be considered in pairs, I believe that further research on James and Xenopoulos could take on their dramatic production, since both novelists were attracted to the theatrical world and both generated plays – their major difference being, at this point, that Xenopoulos is regarded as one of the greatest dramatists in the theatrical history of Greece, whereas

James never achieved success in the theater; the element of failure, however, is what both James and Xenopoulos loathed, the impact of which has worked catalytically – towards James’s refraining from the theater, and Xenopoulos’s additional force to succeed as a dramatist in the following years.

Gregorios Xenopoulos introduced the term “theater of ideas” (1895 – 1922) in the Modern Greek dramatic production, and is considered to be a playwright that assumes Ibsen’s technique in his dramatic style. Among his recognized plays are Ο

Ψυχοπατέρας (1895), Το Μυστικό της κοντέσσας Βαλέραινας (1904), Φωτεινή Σάντρη

(1908), Στέλλα Βιολάντη (1909), Ο Πειρασµός (1910), Το Φιόρο του Λεβάντε (1914),

Οι Φοιτηταί (1919), Ο Ποπολάρος (1933), and many others. Along with other major dramatists of his time, (Καµπύσης, Παλαµάς, Μελάς, Χόρν, Ταγκόπουλος,

Καζαντζάκης, Νιρβάνας, Χρηστοµάνος) Xenopoulos appears as one of the greatest names in the literary production; his name is closely connected to the elegant (“well made”) play of the French tradition’s “romans a thèse,” (works with a thesis/theory) and the nineteenth century “boulevard” play. Always in accordance to these specific dramatic models, Xenopoulos became a master of his kind, a proficient craftsman of a solid manner, yet declined any bold stylistic experiments or multiplicity of topics. In the face of a conservatism that is also depicted in his dramatic production as well as in

319

his fiction, Xenopoulos joins together the “theater of the ideas” with the mid-war ithografia, establishes the urban drama in the Greek stage, and provides, for decades, the Greek stages with quality plays. His hesitation to tackle daring themes and innovative structures is, as Walter Puhner states, due to some early dramatic failures

that alarmed the playwright, and thus settled on always pleasing, never disturbing his

audience, so as to secure dramatic acceptance and commercial success (486).

Henry James acquired an analogous awareness of the public’s wishes, and also

adjusted his own aesthetic presentation for the sake of an expanding readership. The

belief that “literary ‘success’ was increasingly determined by the ‘demand’ of a mass

public” (Salmon, 46) is common to both Xenopoulos and James and the spheres of

“mass culture,” “culture publicity,” and “mass market” should be viewed as providing

another common ground to comparably study the two authors. In the dramatic

domain, though, James’s attempts in the 1890s to become a popular dramatist were

not accomplished; although he shared Xenopoulos’s influence by Ibsen as well as his

eagerness to express professional critique on dramatic works, James did not manage

to thrive on stage. In the years 1890-1891, he adapted his early novel The American

for the stage, but its production did not achieve success. This was the brief period

during which James was actively concerned with the theater: the dramatic production

of The American occurred in the midst of his work on a novel about theater and the

dramatic art, The Tragic Muse.

There seems to be an abundance of studies on James, as well as on

Xenopoulos; however, their dramatic productions present a number of similarities that

could form the basis for a further discussion on these two authors – playwrights,

notwithstanding the aforementioned disparities on many levels. For additional reading

on Xenopoulos’s dramatic history and works, I have noted the following books and

320

articles: Κώστας Γεωργουσόπουλος «Ο Θεατρικός Ξενόπουλος: ο ∆ιασκευαστής του

Εαυτού του», Γιώργος Φράγκογλου «Η Θεατρική Προσφορά του Γρηγορίου

Ξενόπουλου ή ∆έκα Μύθοι για τον Γρηγόριο Ξενόπουλο (και µια – πιθανόν –

κρυµµένη ιστορία)», Walter Puhner’s «Τα Πρώτα ∆ραµατικά Έργα του Γρηγορίου

Ξενόπουλου», Αναµνηστικόν Τεύχος για την Θεατρική Τριακονταετηρίδα του

Γρηγορίου Ξενόπουλου (1895 – 1925), Κώστας Ασηµακόπουλος «Αδικηµένος και

Αδικαίωτος», Ευάννα Βερνάρδου «Ο Γρηγόριος Ξενόπουλος και η Νέα Σκηνή του

Κωνσταντίνου Χρηστοµάνου», ∆ηµήτρης Γιάκος Μορφές της Ελληνικής λογοτεχνίας,

Πλάτων Μαυροµούστακος «Ο Ξενόπουλος των Ηθοποιών», ∆ιονύσης Μουσµούτης

Γρηγόριος Ξενόπουλος 1867 – 1951: Χρονολόγιο και Λεύκωµα, Το Θέατρο στην Πόλη

της Ζακύνθου (1901 – 1915), «Γρηγόριος Ξενόπουλος, Πενήντα Χρόνια από το

Θάνατό του», Νικηφόρος Παπανδρέου Ο Ίψεν στην Ελλάδα (1890 – 1960), Γιάννης

Σιδέρης Ιστορία του Νέου Ελληνικού Θεάτρου, «Ο Εκλεκτός του Ελληνικού

Θεατρικού Κοινού», «Τα Ελληνικά Έργα. Η Παρουσία τους στη Νέα Σκηνή»,

∆ιονύσιος Τροβάς Γρ. ∆. Ξενόπουλος, Η Ζωή και το Έργο του, Γιώργος Φράγκογλου

«Τα Έργα του Ξενόπουλου στη σκηνή», Πέτρος Χάρης «Έγραφε το Έργο σε 2-3

Βδοµάδες», and the dedications «Γρηγόριος Ξενόπουλος» - περιοδικό Επτά Ηµέρες

(Η Καθηµερινή), «Γρηγόριος Ξενόπουλος – Λίγα Λουλούδια στον Τάφο του» –

περιοδικό Νέα Εστία, «Καλλιτέχνης» – περιοδικό Θεατρικά Τετράδια, «Γρηγόριος

Ξενόπουλος, 1867 – 1951: ∆εν Αγαπώ τα Σύννεφα και τα Σκοτάδια: έκδοση της

Οργανωτικής Επιτροπής για την επέτειο των 50 χρόνων από το θάνατο του

Γρηγορίου Ξενόπουλου».

Regarding James’s dramatic course, I have selected the books Theatre and

Friendship – Some Henry James Letters (with a commentary by Elizabeth Robins),

Richard Salmon’s Henry James and the Culture of Publicity, Dear Munificent Friends

321

– Henry James’s Letters to Four Women (edited by Susan E. Gunter), Marcia

Jacobso1n’s Henry James and the Mass Market, and Joseph Wiesenfarth’s Henry

James and the Dramatic Analogy.

Αdditionally, the article of Ελίζα – Άννα ∆ελβερούδη «Ο Ξενόπουλος στον

Κινηµατογράφο: Ο Κόκκινος Βράχος (1949) του Γρηγόρη Γρηγορίου» in connection to the book Henry James Goes to the Movies (edited by Susan M. Griffin), provides a whole new ground for a comparative study of the two novelists’ fictional work that has been the basis for new films. Studies like these, to paraphrase Griffin in her introduction to the book on James and the movies, would certainly have interested

James and Xenopoulos, since they both longed –and strove – for popularity (1).

For the conveyance of a feminist perspective, however, realism is not the sole necessary or inevitable medium. It may well be the case that realist forms can give way to less emphatic perceptions of feminism, such as avant-garde art that constitutes an important part of a feminist oppositional culture (Felski 16), as well as feminist science fiction and fantasy, a phenomenon which raises a number of interesting questions about the nature of feminist utopias (Spacks 4).

345

Biographical Note

Maria Basli has graduated from the English School of the Aristotle University of

Thessaloniki, in Greece. She has achieved her Master of Arts from the Department of

American Literature and Culture at the Aristotle University, with her Thesis centering on the Theater of the American South, its focal points being feminism and issues of identity. She has taught Introductory courses on Fiction at the Aristotle University, while completing her Dissertation on a comparative study on Henry James and

Gregorios Xenopoulos.