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Aspects of Identity in Four Novels by Henry James

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ASPECTS OF IDENTITY IN FOUR NOVELS BY HENRY JAMES Barbara J. Morris A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto @copyright by Barbara J. Morris (1997) National tibrary Bibliothèque nationale 1+1 of,, du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliogaphic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington OttawaON KIAON4 Ortawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de rnicrofiche/h, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in ths thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMrise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ASPECTS OF IDENTITY IN FOUR NOVELS BY HENRY JAMES Doctor of Philosophy 1997 Barbara J. Morris Graduate Department of English University of Toronto Abstract Henry James's handling of character raises questions about the nature of identity and the formation and definition of self. This study focuses on four of his novels in addressing aspects of identity in Henry James, and it is broadly divided among the following four topics: the relation between self and language; self and place; self and society; and self and deception- The first chapter, on The American, deals with self - definition, language, and the "self-made man," with alternatives of "being" and "doing" as they relate to identity, and with the association of identity, experience, and knowledge. This chapter also discusses the concept of national identity and type, a topic that is explored more fully in the second chapter, on Washinqton Scmare, in which nationality, place and social context shape the identity of the characters. The third chapter, on The Awkward Aqe, looks mainly at the way identity is socially controlled and the way that consciousness and perception work to realize self. Finally, with The Winss of the Dove, identity, dissimulation and social function are connected through a study of that novel's two major women characters. The thesis proposes that Kate Croy's claim to the status of heroine challenges that of Milly Theale; both women consciously create identities in the face of social necessity. In James's representation of character, self proves to be unstable and fluid, dependent on ever-changing consciousness, perception and experience. Identity in Henry James is not a fixed concept or entity; rather it involves continual making and remaking so that any given representation of it is always provisional, true only for the moment and neither fixed nor complete. iii Table of Contents Introduction ............................................ 1 The American ........................................... 27 Washinqton Square ...................................... 73 The Awkward Aqe ....................................... 121 The Winss of the Dove ................................. 160 Conclusion ............................................ 210 List of Works Consulted ............................... 216 Introduction In the tale "The Great Good PlaceN (1900), Jamesrs autobiographical hero, an overworked, highly respected writer named George Dane, falls into a reverie during a visit by one of his young disciples and drearns of "the real exquisite": "to be without the complication of an identity. In his dream, Dane happily finds himself in a place that must be heaven, where he is released from the complications and worries of his identity. Dane likes the Great Good Place very much, He has time freely to read, to converse, to think--al1 without the oppressive burden of his identity and self-consciousness. But it is clear that this respite is temporary, for Dane compares it to a Catholic retreat, saying, "1 don't speak of the putting off of one's self; I speak only--if one has a self worth sixpence--of the gettirig it backW (24). When Dane finds or, in his case, retrieves his best self, he must leave the Great Good Place and return to his study, his work, his disciples, his iife. "Yet the wise mind was everywhere--the whole thing infallibly centred, at the core, in a consciousness~ (31). Dane's perception of himself and of his self in the world-- his consciousness--is, he realizes, central. His identity ' Henry James, "The Great Good Place," The Complete Tales, ed. Leon Edel, 12 vols. (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 2 -is his life; his consciousness of self constitutes him; his happiness or fulfilrnent depends on the way his life matches, realizes, and integrates what he perceives as his best or fullest self. The problem for Dane and, 1 believe, for al1 of James's major characters lies in the way self or identity is defined, represented, and realized both within the consciousnesses of the characters themselves and in and by the world (because circurnstances partly determine character). Presumably there can also be a discrepancy between the way characters think of themselves (what they perceive as their identity) and the way the world perceives them. Knowingly or unknowingly, they may project an identity to the world that is not the same one by which they def ine themselves to themselves. 1 t is precisely James's understanding of the cornplex nature of identity that makes his characters so remarkable and justifies William Dean Howells' comment, "Not since English began to be wxitten has it so . unerringly imparted a feeling of charactex." Very loosely put, James's novels represent and thematize problems and questions of identity. The interest for the critic is not in defining what the characters are, not in assembling for description the traits that make up the character; the interest is in studying the way James, through his characters, works out very complex aspects of identity. To approach James through character is arnply justified; as his advice in "The Art of Fictionn (1888) irnplies, character is his major concern. Howells calls James's fiction "character-painting"rather than tlstory-tellinguand stresses that James's "main business is to possess his readers with a due conception of his characters" for "it is the character, not the fate, of his people which occupies him.' Although James does not refer specifically to the tem 15dentity1tnor does he directly state his idea of identity, his attempt to represent the consciousness of his characters necessarily and essentially concerns hirn with questions of identity. 1 think that the problem of identity is absolutely central in James's writing and that the way he works it out points toward a consistent, coherent, even very modern idea of identity. That narrative fiction embodies anxiety about representation in general (of society, of class structures, of institutions, of political ideologies, of individuals) has been the contention of much critical analy~is.~In Henry James criticism, Mark Seltzer's work is notable in its ' Roger Gard, ed. Henri James: The Critical Heritaae (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1968) 126-134. Post-structuralist studies, including the deconstructive operations of Jacques Derrida, the political criticism of Michel Foucault, the writings of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and of the feminist philosopher Julia Kristeva, have focused primarily on the way structures of language operate in narrative to represent the world and the way in which language is itself a field of ideological contention. 4 ernphasis on the linking of language to ideology. In The Art of Power (19843, Seltzer discusses the "double discourse" of the Jarnesian text; he demonstrates that the content and techniques of literar-y representation in James's works are cornplicitous and continuous with larger political, historical, and social structures. While the narrative may superficially repudiate these systems of order and power, Seltzer argues that its operations are ultimately grounded in a structure of language which deploys and secures relations of power; the doubleness of the narrative occurs in its simultaneous disavowal and reinscription of those relations of power. Seltzer's focus is on the way the discourse of the text represents the world? Seltzer's analysis provides the lead for a related study: not of the representation of the relation between language and the world but of the representation of the relation between language and self, or more precisely between language and character in the novel. ill lice nt Bell, in Meaninq in Henry James (19911, notes the need for such a study when she says, "In prose fiction, it is not only language itself in word-by-word and sentence-by- sentencz sequence that must be observed as a source of successive effects. but also the larger units of effect that 4 Mark Seltzer, The Art of Power (Ithaca, NY: Corne11 UP, 1984). precipitate in our minds as narrative events . By "events," Bell does not mean simply plot or incident; she repeatedly connects character and incident, faithful to James's own view of them as inseparable: What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character? What is either a picture or a novel that is not of character? What else do we seek in it and find in it? It is an incident for a young woman to stand up with her hand resting on a table and look out at you in a certain way. 1 . At the same tirne it is an expression of character. Character is itself, then, a "narrative event," an obvious and intrinsic property of narrative, but it seems to resist narrative analysis, possibly because of Our preconceptions about the very idea of character.
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