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University Microfilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 8300249 Gabler, Janet Ann RHETORICAL MYTH IN HENRY JAMES’S "THE BOSTONIANS," "THE WINGS OF THE DOVE," AND "THE GOLDEN BOWL" The Ohio Stale University PH.D. 1982 University Microfilms International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Copyright 1982 by Gabler, Janet Ann All Rights Reserved RHETORICAL MYTH IN HENRY JAMES'S THE BOSTONIANS, THE WINGS OF THE DOVE, AND THE GOLDEN BOWL DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Janet Ann Gabler, B.A., A.M. ********* The Ohio State University 1982 Reading Committee: Approved By James Phelan Thomas Woodson Walter A. Davis Adviser Department of English VITA May 29, 1953 ........... Born - Canton, Ohio 1975 .................... B.A., Ohio Wesleyan University 1975 - 1976.............. Teaching Assistant, Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois 1976 .................... A.M., Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois 1979 - 1980............. Editorial Assistant, College Composition and Communication, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1978 - 1982........... Teaching Assistant, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio PUBLICATIONS Review of Subject and Strategy: A Rhetoric Reader, College Composition and Communication, Vol. xxx (Feb., 1979). FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Nineteenth Century American Literature Rhetoric Critical Theory Nineteenth Century British Literature TABLE OF CONTENTS Page VITA .................................................... ii INTRODUCTION ........................................... 1 Chapter I. The Bostonians; The Birth of a Rhetorical Myth............................................. 15 II. The Evolving Myth: Rhetorical Artistry in The Wings of the D o v e ............................. 106 III. The Golden Myth: Rhetoric in The Golden Bowl............... 205 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................... 314 iii INTRODUCTION Once, while wandering through the market stalls in a piazza in Florence, Italy, I pulled out a sketch from the pile of Renaissance reprints scattered carelessly on one oblong table. It was done in colors of earth, brick-red, and softest gold, and out of the shadows of color emerged a man's outstretched muscular arm, gracefully imploring hand and a hastily scrawled signature, "Michelangelo," in a bot­ tom corner. The sketch was quite beautiful, yet it made me feel odd and isolated from contemplation of the projected final art work as a thing in itself. Rather, I felt my intimacy with the artist and with the conceived idea of masculine beauty and power that he wished the hand to represent. I felt that I was in the presence of an artis­ tic excitement primarily intellectual; if I was to appre­ ciate this artist's work, I was not simply to remain within it, but to use those figures in his drawing as metaphors through which to achieve communion with the artist's ideo­ logical vision. I would not rest very long with the fig­ ures on the canvas, questioning the accuracy, for example, 1 2 of the arm's dimensions. That arm, with beauty more than human, was Michelangelo's conception of man's possibility, and of the way the human body should be. It is in much the same sense that I think we are to understand Henry James's characters. Complexly oriented and realistically conceived as they might seem, I believe these characters also raise intellectual questions of moral and psychological dimension. James invents moral and psy­ chological complexity in a character not only to enhance our sense of a character's authenticity, but also to in­ crease the complexity of the moral questions which James raises through him. One can perceive in James's works an overriding ideological framework intended to resolve all moral dilemmas and to provide a working philosophy for how to live in the world. Rhetoric is the study of successful persuasion and thus examines the dynamics between the orator and his audi­ ence. Rhetoric focuses upon three important determinants of the communication process, the writer, the subject mat­ ter to be discussed, and the writer's audience. Every dis­ course can be considered essentially persuasive since it it the intent of the orator to persuade his audience to adopt the point of view of the oration. In actual fact, current rhetorical studies often equate "rhetoric" with the notion 3 of "communication" itself and encourage the necessity of studying the art of composition as a rhetorical process. The dramatic situations in James's novels The Bostonians, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl are rhetorical, in even the most narrow definition of the term. In The Wings of the Dove, for example, two women fiercely compete for the ability to have both wealth and the love of the same man, and they employ very conventional rhetorical weapons to do so. In fact, these three novels are best studied in light of the rhetorical situations they dramatize, since the major characters in each function as both orator and audience, responding to the rhetorical arguments of others and generating their own. Although especially the later novels elude easy interpretation, a theory of Rhetoric can be applied to James's ethics which leads us to an under­ standing of James's treatment and evaluation of character. The stability and health of a thriving rhetorical community in a James's novel depends on a dynamic inter­ action between the individual and his environment. The individual can only expland his horizons through Rhetoric because it is only through communication with others that the individual accumulates knowledge. At the same time, he must retain his integrity or sense of self. In James's 4 world, the individual has a love-hate, or, at least, love-fear relationship with his environment. Any contact with stimuli outside himself threatens the individual's sense of self and of stable self-identity, yet if the indi­ vidual does not allow his mental vistas to grow through active contact with those different from himself, he will stagnate. The theory of Rhetoric which ensures this dynamic interraction is Moral Rhetoric, which has been explained historically by George Campbell, implied by the work of William James, and which has informed the rhetorical phi­ losophy of Kenneth Burke and Wayne Booth. Moral rhetori­ cians assume that the most successful rhetorician is one who does not take advantage of his audience's trust in the language that he uses but who instead attempts to use language in a way that conforms as closely as possible to reality as both he and his audience can imagine it. The individual's communication should reveal his sense of self and his needs rather than masking them, which would deter­ mine that the individual would satisfy his needs through dishonest methods. Communication should also reflect the orator's sense of empirical reality, reflect those facts which he knows to be true through his experience. 5 Cultural stability depends on the individual's respect for the integrity of another human being and his individual needs. Thus the individual who uses language deceptively, abusing the integrity of another, threatens the community and is negatively judged by James, even if that character is initially drawn sympathetically. The major concern which inhibits the self or the community from flourishing is rhetorical dishonesty because the individual who forcefully subordinates the perception of another individual to his own perception can never expand and he also threatens to overwhelm the community. In The Bostonians, James depicts the American Eastern cul­ ture as one full of meaningless rhetorical cant, and he explores the possibilities for spiritual growth in such a cultural wasteland where the individuals in the community engage in meaningless communication. We can apply the term "metaphor" to the healthy rhetorical process because in order for the individual to engage in the world outside himself, there must be something in that world outside both different from himself from which he can gain and similar to himself which he can latch onto and through which he can identify with the outside world.