Henry James

V

Middle Works

James abandoned the international theme during the middle period of his writing, from 1881 to 1900. During the 1880s he published Washington Square (1881), The Bostonians (1886), The Princess Casamassima (1886), and The Tragic Muse (1890). In the early 1890s James made several unsuccessful attempts at playwriting. During the middle period, he also became preoccupied with ghost stories and with tales of tortured childhood—What Maisie Knew (1897)—and adolescence—The Awkward Age (1899). These concerns come together in his novella The Turn of the Screw (1898).

The Bostonians and The Princess Casamassima are concerned with reformers. The Bostonians, which grew partly out of the contemporary feminist movement, focuses on two women with contrasting personalities. The conflict that results has some sexual overtones. The hero of The Princess Casamassima, Hyacinth Robinson, disgusted by the appalling conditions of London’s poor, joins a radical movement. When Robinson is selected to perform an assassination, he is torn between his belief in socialism and his duty as a civilized member of society.

James based The Turn of the Screw on the notion that the spirits of bad, dead servants come back to corrupt innocent children. In his story, the children’s governess believes in these ghosts who are gaining hold of the children, but she is the only one who can see them. The reader is left to wonder whether these ghosts are simply figments of her own imagination, and if she herself is corrupting the children. By suggesting rather than clarifying, James lets the reader imagine the more frightening evil.

VI

Last Works

In his last and greatest novels James returns to the international theme. The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903), and The Golden Bowl (1904) again draw contrasts between American and European societies. In general, the style of James’s later works is complex, with the motives and behavior of his characters revealed indirectly by means of their conversations and through their minute observations of one another.

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The Wings of the Dove and The Ambassadors deal with trusting, innocent Americans who are deceived. The discovery of the deception hastens the death of the American heiress Milly Theale in The Wings of the Dove, but she was doomed to die in any case. The events of The Ambassadors are the perceptions of the novel’s narrator and hero, Lambert Strether. Its theme is the lasting value of the insights Strether gains from these perceptions, although he chooses not to act upon them.

The Golden Bowl is often considered James’s most difficult work. It deals with an American woman living in London and her widowed millionaire father. Although absorbed in one another, both marry other people whom they keep at a distance. The plot is complicated because the characters are usually acting upon knowledge they are attempting to conceal from each other. The style is especially elaborate and convoluted, and the fate of the characters is uncertain. However, The Golden Bowl is a powerful moral study and a masterful depiction of the anguish that accompanies important human relationships.

VII

Conclusion

James was a prolific author. He produced 20 full-length novels, a dozen novellas, and more than 100 tales. In addition to fiction his writing includes literary criticism, biography, and travel essays. Notable among his travel writings are English Hours (1905) and The American Scene (1907), impressions of his native country after an absence of 20 years. His numerous letters were published in four volumes. James’s reputation as one of the greatest novelists in the English language was not firmly established until after his death.

James was an experimenter in the craft of fiction. He explored new ways of seeing and shaping life through new ways of telling a story. James preferred not to render events, but rather someone’s impression of events. In his late fiction especially, the story is told through the eyes of an interested, usually perceptive observer. James felt this made the work more compelling since the reader sees only what the observer sees and follows the workings of the observer’s mind as he or she tries to understand the meanings of various appearances in the outside world. Typically, these appearances are misleading. The “action” in the novels consists of the observer gradually penetrating appearances and comprehending the truth.

James’s technique of dramatizing thought profoundly altered the history of the novel. His influence can be seen in the works of such authors as Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce.

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