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What Maisie Knew CHRYSALIS: The Murray State University Journal of Undergraduate Research ABSTRACT From Childhood to Maturity in Kristyn Brown Henry James’ What Maisie Knew Class: Senior Major: English Education From reading this essay, one gathers an understanding of how Henry James shows his female protagonist’s progression from childhood to I arrived at Murray State University from the small community of adolescence in the novel, What Maisie Knew. James clearly portrays Hawesville, Ky., with a passion Maisie’s corrupt adult influences and demonstrates the three primary for writing and teaching. Hence, strategies that Maisie invokes as she transitions from childhood into I declared my major as English maturity: selective ignorance, purposeful silence, and an active and verbal Education. When not engaged in quest for knowledge. James identifies Maisie’s shift from childhood to writing or reading, I enjoy worshiping God, spending time with friends and adolescence as Maisie ceases to merely observe and extrapolate meaning family, cooking, skiing, camping from the situations around her, but evolves into an active participant in and boating. After graduation, I the manipulation thereby assuming a more adult role in her environment. plan to teach at the high school level Essentially, James illustrates how Maisie’s exposure to the crude adult and soon afterwards, I will pursue world diminishes her childhood until it completely evaporates and graduate school with an emphasis in administration. After graduate forces her into pre-mature adolescence. By the end of the novel, Maisie school, I will continue my education asserts her independence and emerges as one capable of making her own and earn a Ph.D. in English. decisions. FACULTY MENTOR Peter F. Murphy is a professor of English. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Buffalo in 1987 and has been the chair of the Department of English and Philosophy since 1998. Before coming to MSU, he was the dean of Academic Affairs at Goddard College. He was a Fulbright Teaching Fellow in Brazil (1991). His scholarly work focuses on feminist masculinities, and he has published three books and several articles on the subject. He teaches courses on American literature, comedy, gender studies, men and masculinity, and gay and lesbian literature. 10 CHRYSALIS: The Murray State University Journal of Undergraduate Research From Childhood to Maturity in Henry James’ What Maisie Knew ver the past ten years, criticism of Henry James’s novel, What because these female characters assume motherly roles, but do not OMaisie Knew, has focused on such issues as: its relationship exhibit maternal instincts. Based on Maisie’s initial experiences to the social comedy of Ford Maddox Ford, technologies of vision, with Mamma in particular, she surmises that “parents had come to the novel’s relationship to the trial of Oscar Wilde, social purity, be vague, but governesses were evidently to be trusted” (59). After racial phantasmagoria, the role of the governess, the oedipal family, reaching this conclusion, Maisie approaches a pivotal moment in and the novel’s significance in the context of James’s novella, The her life when she reflects on her newfound purpose. She notices Turn of the Screw.1 Surprisingly, much of the current criticism that the objective in her parents’ game of hatred shifts from her fails to address the female protagonist’s growth from childhood to parents wanting to withhold her from one another to her parents maturity in this novel. 2 viewing her as an inconvenient obligation. Through his complex narrative structure, however, Henry James Concerning Maisie’s intelligence at the onset of the novel, Paul explores Maisie’s transition from childhood innocence into pre- Theroux notes that when she interacts with the adults around her, mature adolescence. James characterizes Maisie as a clever six- she “is no more than parroting another character’s words, but year-old girl oppressed by her parents’ divorce and their subsequent her detachment and her directness and her good sense give her a decisions. Based on her circumstances, Maisie adopts three primary confident aura of independence” (13). Throughout the early chapters strategies: selective ignorance, purposeful silence, and an active of the novel, the characters refer to Maisie as “poor little monkey,” and verbal quest for knowledge. After Maisie effectively employs and in the preface, James comments on these childish references as these strategies, James demonstrates her ability to manipulate her the “epitaph for the tomb of Maisie’s childhood” (36). Although environment in order to obtain knowledge, understanding, and Maisie’s six-year-old mentality limits her comprehension of the unconditional love. Ultimately, James illustrates how Maisie’s situations around her, she makes significant connections concerning childhood evaporates because of her increased exposure to the her role in the events. When Maisie reflects on the alliances, for corruption and selfishness of the adult world. He clearly shows how example, James reveals her cognitive ability to interpret situations the young, innocent girl transforms into a mature, independently and understand unspoken truths. She recognizes that she and minded young woman. Thus, this novel illustrates the nature of Mrs. Wix favor Sir Claude, her mother’s young husband, and that life in which knowledge breeds power and truth. tensions exist between Mrs. Wix and Miss Overmore. Theroux contends that Maisie “is shrewder and more clear-sighted than the From the beginning of the novel, James portrays Maisie as a victim adults around her” (11). Thus, James not only depicts Maisie as of her environment with two parents that despise one another and exceptionally intelligent for her age, but he uses some of the adult engage in sexual promiscuity. James consistently conveys Ida characters around her to magnify her intellect. and Beale Farange, Maisie’s parents, as selfish, preoccupied, and neglectful. In the midst of these unfortunate circumstances, James After Maisie learns that her parents use her to torment one another, depicts Maisie as an astutely perceptive child with a multitude of she adopts an efficient strategy of selective ignorance that the adults observations through which she constructs meaning. For example, around her accept as “the theory of her stupidity” (43). Maisie Maisie perceives that she feels especially affectionate toward Mrs. realizes that her parents exploit her as a messenger of disgust when Wix, the governess hired by her mother, because Mrs. Wix once had through her they transfer malicious messages to one another. This a daughter and thus displays a motherly nature. Maisie contrasts serves as a pivotal moment in Maisie’s development because her Mrs. Wix’s motherly disposition to Miss Overmore, the governess vow of silence gives her an immense amount of power. Theroux employed by her father whom he later marries, and even Mamma comments on this tactic when he asserts that Maisie “often seems 11 CHRYSALIS: The Murray State University Journal of Undergraduate Research like a grown up novelist rendered small and fitted into a frock and As Maisie continues to mature, she often dismisses the strategy of given a taste for chocolates and an ability to play dumb” (18). purposeful silence and begins to verbalize her competence even When Maisie employs this strategy, she gains the power to ask when she does not clearly understand the situation. When the blunt and insightful questions, which society normally considers adults believe that she comprehends the information, they speak as inappropriate. Nonetheless, Maisie obtains scandalous information freely to her as they did when she faked ignorance. As opposed to from these questions because of the mask of selective ignorance. silence, Maisie begins to openly display an eagerness to learn and As Maisie perfects this technique of selective ignorance, she exhibit competence. James references Maisie’s desperate quest gathers knowledge and transitions from a passive child to a more for knowledge throughout the novel. For example, he states that independent thinker. Maisie “was to feel henceforth as if she were flattening her nose upon the hard window-pane of the sweet-shop of knowledge” (120). In addition to her selective ignorance, Maisie masters the art of In the article, “What Maisie Knows: A Study of Childhood and purposeful silence that some of the adults assume to be ignorance Adolescence,” John C. McCloskey includes multiple references and others see as unspoken understanding. When Maisie relies on in which Maisie declares her competence of a particular situation strategic silence, the adults often accept her silence as fake stupidity even when she does not fully understand the events. McCloskey and speak freely around her. For example, Mrs. Beale (formerly cites instances such as when Maisie declares, “Oh, I know more Miss Overmore) often criticizes Maisie’s parents and Mrs. Wix than you think” (496). In addition to explicitly commenting on her despite Maisie’s presence. At one point, Sir Claude confronts knowledge, James frequently reveals her mental process. She often Mrs. Beale about her boldness and she retorts, “There’s nothing observes events, reflects on them, and subsequently reconstructs [Maisie] hasn’t heard. But it doesn’t matter – it hasn’t spoiled her” the situations, makes comparisons, and develops theories about (74). Later, Mrs. Wix justifies her own open conversations with life. As Maisie practices her theories, she changes allegiances at Maisie by explaining, “It isn’t as if [Maisie] didn’t already know her convenience. Maisie’s allegiance begins with Miss Overmore, everything … I can’t make you worse than you are” (80). but shifts to Mrs. Wix after she bonds with Mrs. Wix because of her maternal intuition. However, Maisie’s allegiance quickly shifts Later in the novel, even Sir Claude reflects on his free speech to Sir Claude, almost immediately upon his arrival, because of her when he says to Maisie: “I’m always talking to you in the most instantaneous infatuation with him.
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