the clash of cultures in henry james: the portrait of a lady, the ..., Study notes of English

Download the clash of cultures in henry james: the portrait of a lady, the ... and more Study notes English in PDF only on Docsity! THE CLASH OF CULTURES IN HENRY JAMES: THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, THE WINGS OF THE DOVE AND DAISY MILLER MASTER’S PROJECT UNIVERSITY OF CONSTANCE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY DEPT. OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE WRITTEN BY MONICA O. V. IKE 1st EXAMINER: Dr. M. REIF-HÜLSER 2nd EXAMINER: Dr. Prof. ASSMANN CONSTANCE, APRIL 1998 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I want to express my gratitude to all the people who somehow have been a help and an encouragement in this work. To my parents for allowing me to come to Germany for further studies. To my examiners Prof. Assmann and Dr. Monika Reif-Hülser, but espacially to Dr. Reif-Hülser, for all her encouragements and support not only to make this project a success, but also to help me finish my studies here successfully. My gratitude goes to all my friends, relatives and acquaintances, who prayed me through this work, May God reward you all. 1 1. INTRODUCTION The Portrait of a Lady is said to be James’s masterpiece, while Daisy Miller recorded more success among his short stories. The Wings of the Dove came later as a sort of completion of what James started in The Portrait of a Lady so to say. It seemed as if James, after the overwhelming success he procured with Daisy Miller, got more ‘wind in his sails’ to dare to make a big step into writing a big novel. It was quoted that he wrote his big brother, William; “ I have determined that the novel I write this year shall be big”. 1 The Portrait of a Lady is indeed big, it is said to be the biggest of James’s novels, and the beginning of his writing of big novels then after it, he wrote many other big novels e.g. The Wings of the Dove. Even though it was started in 1878, the year that Daisy Miller was published, it was after a short while suspended at the favour of Washington Square and later continued in 1880 on his visit to Florence. It was then published in 1881, whereas The Wings of the Dove came 12 years later in 1902. It is astonishing that such a wide gap exists between the time of the writing of the two novels, The Portrait of a Lady and The Wings of The Dove, yet one major international theme, ‘the American girl or American young lady in Europe’ runs through the two novels and even in such an obvious way, also in Daisy Miller which was the foremost of the three novels. According to James himself in his preface to The Wings of the Dove, he says it “represents to my memory a very old - if I shouldn’t perhaps say a very young motive...”.2 THE WINGS OF THE DOVE published in 1902 represents to my memory a very old- if I shouldn’t perhaps say a very young - motive; I can scarce remember the time when the situation on which this long-drawn fiction mainly rests was not vividly present in me. 1 Henry James; The Portrait of a Lady; New York, 1975; Pg.vii 2 Henry James; The Wings of the Dove; New York, 1978; Pg. 2 2 Whether it was very old or very young only James can really say, but the idea which was born in him or the motive behind his writings, which was there from his earlier years and mostly portrayed clearly in these three books, has been this young American lady in Europe. In Daisy Miller, she was audacious and innocent, doomed to die, but triumphantly, however in The Portrait of a Lady; she was presumptuous, but innocent, and though she affronts her destiny and was doomed to suffer, she also suffered triumphantly. In The Wings of the Dove she has graduated to ‘the heiress of all ages’, ‘a dove’ (a biblical symbol for innocence). She was doomed to die young, but in dying she gained all she could not have in life; love and immortality in the memory of her acquaintances. One would say; what a metamorphosis! Well, we are not yet talking of the characters of our young ladies, we are still examining this so called ‘old and young motive’ of James. Could it be embedded in the international theme of cultural encounter and the clash of culture made by our young ladies in Europe with the societies, individuals, and institutions they came in contact with, or something else that James was referring to? Some critics believe this ‘old or young motive to be James’s love to the memory of his Albanian cousin Minny Temple , who died at a very young age of 25 and of whose sake James could not rest until he has immortalised her memory through writing. Moreover, James himself wrote in 1870 “The more I think of her the more perfectly satisfied I am to have her translated from this changing realm of fact to the steady realm of thought. There she may bloom into a beauty more radiant than all our eyes avail to contemplate” 3. Is that why he embedded on Milly Theale the great famous title of ‘heir of all the ages’? And is that why the similarity in the names of the historical Minny and the fictitious Milly? Well, this is just a preamble, we shall return to this matter in detail later in this essay. Another view propagated by some critics, is that which Christof Wegelin expressed in the preface to his book on Image of Europe in Henry James; James like the American writers of his time was said to have written in early 1870’s that one of the responsibilities of being an American is fighting against the superstitious valuations of Europe4. And this idea or opinion Wegelin maintained was being 3 Leon Edel; Henry James: The Untried Years; Philadeiphia, 1953; Pgs. 324 - 331 4. Christof Wegelin. The Image of Europe in Henry James ; Dallas, 1958; Pg. 3 3 possessed and expressed by many American writers of the nineteenth century, who even saw it as their duty to ‘define their own and their country’s relation to Europe’. The argument here is that the Americans of this time ( i.e. 19th & 20th century ) were really tired of having their cultures and duties greatly influenced and even to a great extent determined by other country’s culture (especially England and France), where majority of North Americans have their roots. They felt that American culture and tastes should be purely American, just as their political and technological system. And Americans should be satisfied and proud of themselves as Americans and not try to measure their worth by how much they are appreciated in some major European countries like England, France, Germany and Spain. It was a fashion at that time that some American writers still had to make a name in Europe, in order to be accepted in their homeland, e.g. in England (Frost) and in France (Faulkner)5. This came as a result of the transplantation nature of the American culture. America has a mixed culture borrowed from other countries. Well, you say James said his ‘old or new motive was his thought behind The Wings of the Dove. But the question is, had this thought not been there long before he considered writing The Wings, just as suggested above? And was the motive not more than just the tributary to Minny Temple? Does it also not have to do with the above mentioned reasons, and even more? This essay will try to appraise some of Henry James’s novels with a particular reference to The Portrait of a Lady; The Wings of the Dove, and Daisy Miller to find out his view on this international theme, especially in relation to cultural development and influences of the old versus the new world, i.e. America versus Europe. The way James handled his materials: his major and minor characters, their relations with each other, with the societies , the institutions they came in contact with and with themselves, even the settings and in a minor way the plot of these stories, goes a long way to determine James’s view about this matter. And in examining the characters and their shifting locations in search of a better life, their encounters with people of other nations and cultural background, the new world with the old and vice versa. The effects of these encounters on our heroines and the other characters tells us who influenced the other negatively or positively. 5. Christof Wegelin. The Image of Europe in Henry James; Dallas, 1958; Pg. 4 6 processes of practical social judgement and yet to offer itself as a mitigating and rallying alternative8 Seeing that the word ‘culture’ is complex with many facets, it would be of use to examine its many references and uses An influential anthropologist, Edward B. Taylor, in one of his writings on culture in 1871, defined culture or civilisation as that complex whole, which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as member of a society9. Taylor’s definition is therefore wider and more encompassing than the lexicons’ above, even though, one can say he defined it from an anthropologist’s point of view. He felt that like a naturalist: his business was to classify details of culture; “ with a view to making out their distribution in geography and history and the relations which exist among them” .10 Stephen Greenblatt commented on this definition by adding that most of the time the word ‘culture’ is vaguely used to indicate existence of a particular group: e.g. aristocratic culture, youth culture, human culture, black culture etc. He added that the concept of culture tends towards constraint and mobility. The beliefs and practices that controls a society, and to put it in an easier way; the ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts of a particular set of people. This ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ of a society can be referred to as social behaviour and social behaviour is controlled by certain rules or laws. The rule that govern the culture of a society are not written but innate (laws), and the punishment met for the violation of cultural rules is also not serious punishments like imprisonment, exile or detention; but such social punishments like excommunication or better said, avoidance, scorning the person: making a mockery or a joke of the person or contempt. Furthermore cultural rules can be maintained or strengthened or positively enforced by rewarding those that have acted extraordinarily decent. Greenblatt remarked that western literature has been one of the effective weapons used to enforce culture’s boundaries through praise and blame11. He went 8 Williams, Raymond Culture and Society, 1780-1950; Harmondsworth, 1966. 9 Alfred Schütz; Gesammelte Aufsätze, Studien zur Soziologischen Theorien 2; Den Haag: R. N, 1972; Pg.53 10 Michael Cole and Sylvia Scribner; Culture & Thought ; 1974; Pg. 6 11 Stephen Greenblatt; in Essays on Culture: Critical Terms for Literary Study Chicago and London, Pg 225 7 further and said, that the literature of this type can only be understood only in the environment where the values they are upholding or criticising exist. If they are read elsewhere outside this context they project, the situation of their production has to be reproduced in order to make them comprehensible. He said; it is important when reading a literary work especially the sort referred to above, that we acquaint ourselves closer with the work by asking ourselves certain questions like: • What kind of behaviour, what models of practice, does this work seem to enforce? • Why might readers at a particular time and place find this work compelling? • Are there differences between my values and the values implicit in the work I am reading? • Upon what social understandings does the work depend? • Whose freedom of thought or movement might be constrained implicitly or explicitly by this work. • What are the larger social structures with which these particular acts of praise or blame might be connected?12 Such questions as these help in the in-depth analysis and understanding of the literary work in question. Having seen all these views and conceptions of culture, it would be necessary at this time to look at James’s concept of it, and how he portrayed it in his work. ii. HENRY JAMES’S CONCEPT OF CULTURE: For James, ‘culture’ is certainly a complex and problematical value, as it is in those ancient myths, where culture is experience, experience is knowledge, and knowledge is loss of innocence.13 This he portrayed in the image of the characters in 12 Ibid; Pg. 226 8 his novels, the innocent ones who are usually Americans e.g. Isabel, Milly, Daisy and a host of others; are confronted with the choice of good and evil in a life of high sophistication and worldly pleasures; while the worldly ones who are usually Europeans like Kate and Densher, Aunt Maud or Europeanised Americans like Osmond, Madame Merle, Mrs. Costello etc. are influenced transformed or sometimes destroyed, by the unique power of innocence James saw culture as an equivocal element, something inviting and menacing at the same time, as demonstrated in the life of Isabel in The Portrait of a Lady; In the first part of the novel, it was the agreeable experiences full of lessons that Isabel learnt at her coming to Europe, i.e. her coming to Gardencourt; from Ralph, his father, and partly Lord Warburton; she came with a deep thirst for knowledge and with a strong eagerness to learn, a ready adventurous spirit. And the stage was also prepared for her; first of all, a wealthy aunt who was ready to take her around Europe and then a legacy of sixty thousand pounds by Mr. Touchett through his son Ralph who wished to put ‘wind in Isabel’s sails to lend her the power for her adventurous flights. She was really impressed and received the courage to go on in her pursuit. In the second half of the book, she encountered the evils of Europe in the form of Osmond and his ex-mistress Madame Merle, and became bound by them, making her journey there seem like a trip to hell. And so thoroughly did the drama of conscience and culture, innocence and experience, possess James’s imagination that it continued to be latent in several of his novels, even where the settings and character were entirely non-American. As Vernon Louis Parrington puts it in his essay Henry James and The Nostalgia of Culture: James conception of culture, like that of Edith Wharton was abstract, he supposed it to be something apart from social conventions or physical environment, something embodied in a few spirits of a class that for generations, presumably cherished them.13 And whether it is at all attainable is the question. Most of his portrait characters ended up not reaching the top of this ladder which he has set, and those who were even near it were handicapped by illness, and ended up dying before they really fully achieved their goal. E.g. Ralph Touchett of The Portrait died 13 Vernon Louis Parrington. Henry James And The Nostalgia of Culture F.W. Dupee; Questions of Henry James. Pg 142 11 from the soil and sunshine of is native fields. He withdrew from the external worlds of action into the inner world of questioning and probing therefore his characters are only projections of his brooding fancy, externalisations of hypothetical subtleties.17 Parrington carried his criticism of Henry James too far. He was not so frustrated as he is making us to believe through his critique. That he was an expatriate seeking a suitable home outside America does not make him a failure as an artist, rather it can be an asset. There are many successful artists who made it outside their own home countries; some of them even never returned home again, e.g. Joseph Conrad. Others had to leave their homeland to other countries in order to make a name at home, for example Frost and Faulkner as already mentioned in the preceding part of this work. I don’t know whether Parrington is an American, and if he is; then I would say that he was writing this essay under the strong influence of the spirit of patriotism, even though he has his points. Well that is not to be argued out now, because it is not an important part of this work. Pelham Edgar made a good comment on James’s approach to culture, civilisation and the international theme. He was of the opinion that civilisation at its highest pitch was the master passion of James’s mind and that his preoccupation, the international aspects of character and custom issued from the rawness and rudeness of a young country were not capable of cure by contact with more developed forms.18 As formally mentioned James saw Europe as the epitome of culture, the height of civilisation and that he chose that his characters must visit or encounter Europe, her people and her culture in order to be refined or perfected is not a surprise. Then, he believed like Pater, that one can only attain this high culture through personal effort, and again, he saw culture, being for him in other word civilisation as the highest attainment man can obtain, as the highest goal worth 17. F.W. Dupee; The Question of Henry James; London, Allan Wingate; Pg 142 18. Pelham Edgar; Henry James, Man, Author Pg 40-41 12 pursuing at all costs. And that leads us to another topic of discussion: Is culture synonymous to civilisation? iii. CULTURE SYNONYMOUS WITH CIVILISATION? As we have already seen what culture meant for Henry James, it would be necessary at this juncture to also see his views of civilisation. James used the term civilisation loosely in ways that involve quite various connotations, but most frequently he used civilisation for culture in his fictions. To him civilisation did not denote the domain of historian, he reflected slightly or commented on the political, social, economic processes of history or contemporary life. James’s term is much closer to the earlier, non-sociological definition of culture. The highly civilised of the 18th century looked to the East as their standard i.e. in search of natural knowledge and wisdom but James stayed in his own civilisation and looked for it there. He loved Europe as the repository of western civilisation, and saw America as a recent and tentative addition (he saw no other). He was so fond of this civilisation that he saw no better way of man’s existence, unless this same civilisation is improved still to such ideal standard as he tried to show in his novels, such which mostly leads to the disappointment of expectation because of it’s often high unattainable level. James saw his characters through the mediation which can redeem them, or at least show them redemption, from their own and from others worst possibilities: their naked drives and passions. He maintained thereby that civilisation poses a set of measurements and conventions by means of which we arrive at moral value. It was therefore for him the signposts of morality, as well as of personal awareness, of intellectual fineness, of aesthetic perception and appreciation. Civilisation as culture both invites and expands curiosity, ministers to our need for beauty, heightens our conception of character. In summary, it develops and protects, expands and harbours the potential of human sensibility. And sensibility for James meant wholeness of the moral, the aesthetic, and the intellectual qualities which together constitute man’s essential humanity. 13 James views of culture did not singly originate from him alone. He was more or less representing aesthetic tradition of classical stoicism as it was propagated in his age by Ruskin, Pater and Arnold. Only that he presented it in the form of civilisation. Berland stated in his critique: Culture and Conduct in The Novels of Henry James: Culture in the accumulated monuments of arts was Europe, and Europe was the alter of culture newly dedicated by Ruskin, Arnold and Pater upon which the Americans come to worship.19 T.S. Eliot was not in agreement with Arnold and Pater in their view that culture should replace religion. But his view (T.S. Eliot’s) that religion and culture are the same- or are the different aspects of the same- total way of life is an essential part of Ruskin’s thesis, and is also the basic underlining factor of James doctrine of civilisation as culture. Then Eliot believes that Aesthetic must be extended into spiritual perception, and spiritual perception must be extended into aesthetic sensibility and disciplined taste before we are qualified to pass judgement upon decadence or diabolism or nihilism in art. To judge an art work by artistic or religious standards, to judge religion by religious or artistic standards should come in the end to the same thing; though it is an end at which no individual can arrive20 James and basically Ruskin believed that the perception of beauty cannot be isolated from the rest of human life, then beauty is not an affair of intellect or of senses alone but also of emotions. That means that the quality of one’s emotion goes a long way to determine one’s impressions of beauty. And to isolate beauty from emotion is l’art pour l’art, which is an aesthetic fallacy. And James’s conception of civilisation as culture does not agree with it. 19. Alwyn Berland. Culture and Conduct in the Novels of Henry James; Cambridge Pr. 1981; pg.35. 20 T.S.Eliot. Note Towards The Definition of Culture; London 1948; Pg 30. 16 To conclude this topic, James defended this civilisation, but he also had his occasional doubts against his conviction about culture, after experiencing certain occurrences in modern times such as the first World War. He wrote : The plunge of civilisation into abyss of blood and darkness ... is a thing that so gives away the whole long age during which we have supposed the world to be, with whatever abatement, gradually bettering, that to have to take it all now for what the treacherous years were all the while really making for and meaning is too tragic for any words.22 Having briefly discussed James’s views on civilisation and culture and the influence of the tradition of his age on this beliefs, it would be necessary at this stage to briefly summarise the life history of Henry James and his works. 22 The Letters of Henry James, ed. P. Lubbock (London 1920), 11, Pg. 398. 17 2. THE LIFE HISTORY OF HENRY JAMES Henry James was born on 15th of April 1843 in the city of New York of Scotish- Irish ancestry.23 His father, Henry James Sr., was a theological writer and so was able to influence his two sons in philosophical subtlety and linguistical idiom. Twelve years later, in 1855, the family left America (New York) for Europe and from that time until 1858, they lived in Switzerland, England and France during which Henry James attended schools in Geneva, Paris and Boulogne. In 1859, they left again for Europe and this time to Austria, during which he studied at Geneva and in Bonn, Germany. In 1860, they returned again to Newport and Henry James studied art in the studio of William Morris Hunt. In 1862, he studied law at Harvard and in 1863, he went to law school but later abandoned it. In 1864, the family moved to Boston where he met G.E. Norton, James Russell Lowell and W.D Howells and started a friendship with them. In October that same year, he worked as a book reviewer for the North American Review. In 1865, he started writing his own books beginning with stories, he also began at this time to review books for The Nation. In 1869, James again visited England, France, Switzerland and Italy. It was in England in 1870, that he learnt of the death of his cousin Mary Temple. In 1872, he went to Europe with his sister Alice, and his Aunt Kathrine. He travelled to Switzerland, Italy and Bavaria. A year later, he then made up his mind to live in Europe and he lived in many cities of Europe such as Paris, Rome, Florence. There, he met many eminent writers like Turgnev, Flaubert , Maupassant, Zola and others whom he came to know in France. In 1882, both parents died in Cambridge but not at the same time and he returned to America briefly but went back to England in 1883. In 1904, he visited his brother William and family and spent the autumn with them. He also travelled to United States to Florida the following year, giving lectures. He returned to England that same year. In 1909, he took ill; the illness was prolonged and in the following year, in spite of the fact that he was still unwell, he accompanied his brother, who was also ill to New Hemisphere where his brother died on the 26th August that year. 23 Philip H. Vitale, Barron’s Book Notes ; (A Simplified Approach to The Portrait of a Lady; N.Y 1973 Pg.5 18 In 1911, he received an honorary degree from Harvard, he then returned to Lamb House, Rhy, Sussex, where he resided for the most part of his life and where he wrote most of his later novels. In 1912, he took a flat in Chelsea, London and received another honorary degree from Oxford. The war began in 1914, and he worked for charity; visiting the sick in the hospitals, assisting American Ambulance Corps, and writing for war charities. On 26th July 1915, he naturalised as a British citizen. On December 2nd, that same year, he suffered a stroke, followed by pnemonia. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1916, by King George V. He died on the 8 th of February the same year; at the age of 72. He never married. The ashes of his remains are interred 10 months later in his family plot at Mount Auburn cemetery Cambridge, Massachusetts.24 i. HIS WORKS: Considering the fact, that Henry James wrote so many articles, stories, novels and some critiques, and even delivered many lectures; it would not be ideal in this work to begin to list these writings in detail and to briefly discuss them. It is important at least to summarise them and to mention some of his very important works and the dates of their publications. James’s work as a literary artist or a writer can be classified into three main periods. The first period has to do with the works belonging to the international theme. Dealing with the impact of the younger world of America upon her older sister, ‘Europe’. The most popular of his literary writings belong to these periods, even though they were considered the works of James as an amateur, they contain the naturalness, charm, and simplicity of the young, inexperienced James.25 This is the period between (1875-1889). During this time, he published six volumes of critical or travel essays, ten volumes of short stories or tales. His first story, of The Story the Year Monthly. was serialised in Atlantic. Other works contained in these volumes include Watch and Ward (1871), which was considered as his first novel,(even though he himself does not take it as a real novel because to 24 Philip Vitale Barron’s Book Notes; James: The Portrait-; Woodbury, 1973; Pg. Xviii. 25 Ibid, Pg. 2 21 3. THE CLASH OF CULTURES IN EACH OF THE THREE NOVELS i. A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY The Portrait of a Lady is a story of a young American lady, Isabel Archer, who left Albany, America under the auspices of her wealthy aunt, Mrs Touchett (Lydia), to Europe. Before she (Isabel) left for Europe, we see her sitting alone in one of the upper rooms called the office, in their house in Albany one rainy day, reading a history of German thought, looking up from her book, she saw a plain elderly woman. It was her aunt Lydia Touchett, whom she has not seen before, but only had heard of, standing in front of her. Aunt Lydia has had no contact with her nieces since their mother’s death, because she was not in agreement with their father in the way he decided to bring up the young girls; and that was since Isabel’s childhood. After the death of her brother in-law, Mrs. Touchett then decided to take care of her nieces. Being orphaned, Isabel was left with her two senior sisters, Edith also known as Mrs Keyes and Lilian known as Mrs. Ludlow, as both were already married, she was then left alone without a fortune. Aunt Lydia then came to pick her up, and to give her some opportunities afforded by society in Europe. She thus took her to Gardencourt, her husband’s beautiful residence in London. Before Isabel arrived at Gardencourt, she was already been discussed by Mr. Touchett, his invalid son, Ralph and Lord Warburton, an English lord who is a friend of the Touchett’s family. Mrs. Touchett has sent one of her usual incomprehensible telegrams announcing her upcoming arrival with her niece at the Gardencourt, and that has aroused the discussion about Mrs. Touchett and her niece during their afternoon tea on a beautiful afternoon. Mrs. Touchett has already arrived at the Gardencourt without the knowledge of the others and they were soon to see this young lady of whom they have talked so much about. Gardencourt was like a dream come true to Isabel and she did not find it difficult fitting into the Touchett’s family, her uncle Daniel Touchett and her cousin, Ralph, took a great liking to her. She also came to know and like Lord Warburton, the Touchetts neighbour, and his sisters, Mildred and her sister; who came to visit Isabel 22 at Gardencourt and also invited her, Ralph, and his mother to Lockleigh. Subsequently, she received a letter from her friend, Henrietta, expressing her desire of meeting her soon in London. She later came on her invitation to Gardencourt. It was through her that Isabel learnt that Mr Goodwood was in London, in fact, he travelled down together with Henrietta. Shortly before this incident, Isabel had received a letter from him, (Mr Goodwood,) an American cotton merchant and inventor, who was her suitor, whom Isabel had put off in Albany. Not giving in to her refusal of him, Mr. Goodwood decided to follow her to London. As she was just finishing reading Goodwood’s letter, Lord Warburton also came and proposed marriage to her. Isabel refused both suitors. because both did not fit in into her conception of her life pursuits and goal. Ralph, who was also in love with Isabel, but who because of his invalidity could not propose to her, persuaded his father to bequeath a large sum of money to her in order to help her to achieve her desired goal in life. Shortly after that, Daniel Touchett died. And it was at this time that Madame Merle visited her friend, Mrs. Touchett at the Gardencourt, where she met Isabel for the first time. Isabel was very impressed by her, she saw her as the epitome of perfection of civilisation. Even though Ralph expressed his dislikes and doubts about Serena Merle; Isabel went ahead and made her travelling companion and confidante. Madame Merle introduced her to Gilbert Osmond, whom she met for the first time in Florence. Isabel was so impressed by Mr. Osmond, she saw him as the exact image of what she has been seeking after: A handsome man, highly cultured, yet lonely and helpless, she decided to marry him and help him. In spite of the fact that her aunt and Ralph were against the marriage, and also warned her, she went ahead in her decision. After the marriage, she discovered that Osmond was exactly opposite of what she thought him to be. She also discovered who Madame Merle really was; a deceiver, who has married her to Osmond . During a long vigil after her falling out with Osmond, because she did not encourage Lord Warburton to go on in his proposal to marry Pansy; she came to the conclusion, that Osmond did not really love her, and in fact he has only married her because of her money. All her dreams of multiplied opportunities to explore life with Osmond has ended in a dark alley, with 23 a dead wall at the end. She then decided to accept her situation and make the best of it. Later, she received a message that she should come to Gardencourt, because Ralph was dying, but Osmond refused that she should go. It was in the face of this new crisis that she learnt from Countess, Gemini who was in their house on a purposed long visit, that Madame Merle was Osmonds former mistress and the real mother of Pansy. She therefore decided to go and see Ralph in London; but before leaving, she visited Pansy in the convent. She was sent there in order to remove her mentally and physically from Edward Rosier whom she loved and who also loved her and wanted to marry her, but her father would not consent, because Rosier was not rich enough. At the convent, she met Madame Merle, who revealed to her that Ralph was the brain behind her inherited wealth, and announced to her that she was leaving for America. Before she left the convent, she promised Pansy at her plea, that she would come back. On her way to Gardencourt, Henrietta came to meet her at the train station in London , together with her friend, Mr. Bantling, and it was then that she learnt of their engagement. At Gardencourt, she was able to discuss many things with Ralph before his death. One of them being her admittance that she had made a mistake by marrying Osmond. Again, even though Ralph told her that she had been punished for desiring to see life, by being ground in the very mill of the conventional, he assured her that the generous mistake of hers will not hurt her more than a little. After Ralph’s death, shortly before she left Gardencourt, Lord Warburton came around to see her and Mr. Goodwood also came and made his most passionate plea that she should come away with him. But she returned back to her husband and Pansy to Rome. 26 else; a noticeably handsome face, fresh-coloured, fair and frank, with firm, straight features, a lively grey eye and rich chestnut beard. This person had a certain fortunate, brilliant exceptional look - a happy temperament fertilised by a high civilisation - which would have made any observer of him to envy him with a venture....31 Of Ralph he said: His companion, ... was quite a person of different pattern, who, although he might have excited grave curiosity, would not, like the other, have provoked him to wish yourself, almost blindly, in his place. Tall, lean, loosely and feebly put together, he had an ugly, sickly, charming face furnished, but by no means decorated, with a straggling moustache and whisker. He looked clever and ill-... He carried his hands in the pockets, and there was something in the way he did it that showed the habit was inveterate. His gait has a shambling wandering quality; he was not very firm on his legs...32 In this short introduction of these three characters, one can say that Daniel Touchett and Ralph represented America, while Lord Warburton stood for England or Europe in general. Going back to the described features of three men, America in form of Daniel Touchett, was successful, had several achievements even outside America, but it cannot be compared with Europe with handsome, healthy and refined features; high civilisation having done a good job on it. The young America was sick, shambled, incoherent in its steps of progress and even though charming and witty, it was furnished but not decorated and its state was such that one would not wish oneself to be in its place. It is no surprise if James was actually putting up such 31 Henry James. The Portrait of a Lady; New York, 1936; Pg. 6. 32 Ibid. Pg. 6 27 description of America at that time, then that was the period that the Americans had a poor image of their culture and felt quite inferior to Europe in their developments in arts and culture. As already mentioned in the introduction to this essay, it was such that most writers have to make a name first in Europe in order to be accepted in their country. Like James put it in his description of Warburton; ...“ - which would have made almost any observer envy him with a venture”: The American observer of Europe at that time really looked at Europe enviously with a venture of emulation. Most of them left their country in search of a better life in Europe like the Touchetts, Osmond, Madame Merle, Ned Rosier, Isabel and even James himself. And most of them ended up deracinated, neither being a proper European or a real American. Like Daniel Touchett who preserved his American physiognomy with the hope of one day returning back to America, so he can take it up again but never returned; or his wife Lydia who neither loved English bread sauce and their way of life, nor was she favourable with the American way of life. And in Florence where she lived, her society comprised of a set of a few selected Americans, not Italians. Madame Merle, Osmond and Ned Rosier belong to the group who went about collecting some objects of arts for the sake of prestige, and if I should say, to fill up their idleness and emptiness and not because they appreciated their aesthetic cultural value. And so like Madame Merle herself put it, they became neither good Americans nor Europeans. Or they ended up having no responsibility and no attachments, ... forming strange tastes, according to Osmond. All because they lack roots, they really have no place of their own, no culture to identify themselves with. Warburton on the other hand, was nourished by the European (English) high culture. One thing that Isabel brought with her from America of which she was not ready to give up or exchange was her liberty and independence, which were part her American heritage. Before she came to the Gardencourt, the rest of the Touchetts have already been warned that the young lady coming to stay with them from America was independent. And some early information that Isabel gave to Ralph was that ‘she loves her liberty’. The American ladies are known to be more independent and liberal than the English ladies. As Isabel wanted to stay longer with the men on the night that Lord Warburton came to spend the night in Gardencourt, Mrs. Touchett remarked that she was not in her blest Albany. When Lord Warburton complained on 28 the behalf of Isabel, Mrs. Touchett retorted that she did not make his country and she must take it like she met it. (Meaning that the English culture does not favour a young lady to sit alone with men late at night.) Like aunt Lydia put it: “...Young girls here- in decent houses- don’t sit alone with gentlemen late at night.” Isabel’s American spirit of liberty manifested itself even more strongly afterwards, as she was about to leave aunt Lydia after they have talked over the incident, aunt Lydia promised to always tell her when she was taking much liberty and she replied, that she likes to be told the things she shouldn’t do, aunt Lydia inquired, “so as not to do them?” “And she replied “so as to choose.” That was a different case with the Misses Molyneux as an example of the English ladies. E.g. when Lord Warburton visited the Gardencourt with his elder sister, some days after receiving Isabel’s reply of his proposal, he was alone with Isabel in the gallery and his sister came to remind him that she has to be home early enough for the afternoon-tea, when Warburton did not reply, she did not bother to say anything more but remained standing there like a lady on waiting, Henrietta was overwhelmed with surprise because according to her, in America, the gentlemen has to do what the ladies says, and if she wants her brother to do anything, he is going to do it. It was a time that the Americans stormed Europe. Those with purpose, like Isabel, who left in search of high civilisation or culture or writers and inventors, seeking to make a name in Europe in order to be recognised at home, and those who were just adventurers and opportunists, in the class of Osmond, who then posed a danger to the innocent, sincere but presumptuous ones like Isabel. Coming to Europe is not bad, but one should come with a purpose, being open but not feeling inferior of one’s home country. That was the clear message Henrietta brought with her from America. She does not appreciate the conventionality of the English. She detested most of all the class system, the nobility, and the role of women in the noble families, an example of which she saw in the relationship between Warburton and his sisters. She hated the passive and extremely quiet character of Misses Molyneux unlike Isabel who at first liked it and even contemplated whether she should adopt such an attitude, but, she was reprimanded by Ralph. For her American style and connections was the best and she would never give her country up. 31 in camouflaging her real self, but not to Ralph. He is actually the one who really had what Isabel thought that Osmond possessed. A very high taste and a highly civilised mind and the ability to really make good judgements of people (to place people where they really belong). He was also able to really place Osmond where he belonged as he was lamenting over Isabel’s mistake one morning in Florence, after learning of her engagement: He said he thinks of Osmond as narrow and selfish someone who takes himself too seriously and again after listening to the many fine theories of Isabel on Osmond, he said He’s the incarnate of tastes... ‘He judges, measures, approves and condemns by that’ 35 How accurate he was, though he hardly knew Osmond. Despite his warnings, Isabel was still bent on marrying Osmond, because just like in the case of Madame Merle, she made a grave mistake in her appraisal of the person of Osmond. Critics have been of the opinion that Ralph in The Portrait of a Lady, stands for James. There’s a point in that when one considers the history of James’s so-called relationship to his cousin Minny Temple, whose image was to a great extent portrayed in the image of Isabel in this story, and who James considers as the perfect image or model of an American lady. And considering also that they (critics) are also of the opinion that a pre-Civil war injury which James incurred onetime during his youth prevented him from sharing the short life of this beloved cousin of his.36 Ralph more than just taking the position of James in the novel, as a hidden autobiographical reference, rather occupies more the central figure of the story, a sort of reflection of the real thing, he was the one who has what Isabel was searching for in the tiresome list of her suitors and what she thought to have found in Osmond. Ralph was the embodiment of the high civilisation or culture as civilisation, as James considers it. He was able to see through all the personalities that has something to do with Isabel; important or unimportant, from Henrietta Stackpole to Osmond and was always able to make a good judgement of them, which Isabel lacked. Wegelin is of the opinion that: 35 Ibid. Pg. 344 36 Berland, Culture and Conduct in the Novels of Henry James Cambridge, 1981; Pg.124 32 Ralph is not to be identified James. He dramatises merely James’s expectant sympathy with the American quality which Isabel represents - the imagination he keeps calling it which is spiritual energy37. Having been incapacitated to join in the list of suitors for Isabel or ‘the tiresome list’ as she called it, due to his advanced pulmonary illness, he was in a position to act as an active observer. He did not want to marry his cousin even though he loved her much, he wanted to play an active role in planning her life by adding wind in her sails and watching how high she could soar. And when she could not fly high but was trapped by a fortunate hunter, he could only mourn for and then with her. But even at that late moment he was still the person who gave Isabel a little light of hope in his death bed, by renaming her grievous mistake with a harmless name ‘that generous mistake of yours’. But that does not mean that he tried to hide the truth from Isabel, because, before that he had already told her that she was punished for wanting to look at life, .... Ralph was the only one who attained the height of James’s high civilisation or culture of all the characters of The Portrait, not even Warburton who was nourished by the English high civilisation, but Ralph did not attain it because he was an American or because he lives in Europe, but because the state of his health helped him to put away self and egotism to receive the pure lessons of culture as civilisation. Just as Isabel was later purified through suffering and made for the height of the ladder at the end of the book. Being healed of her presumptions and unrealistic inflated ideas and numerous theories, her eyes were then open to see the ghost of the high civilisation. She at first exchanged the imitation for the real, by taking Osmond for the one who has a fine spirit and very high tastes. She meant: Ralph had something of this same quality, this appearance of thinking that life is a matter of connoisseurship, but in Ralph it was an anomaly, a kind of humorous excrescence, whereas in Mr, 37 Christof Wegelin. The Image of Europe in Henry James. Dallas.1958; Pg.67 33 Osmond it was the keynote, and everything was in harmony with it.38 Isabel was deluded to think of Osmond as the most cultivated, the most beautiful and the most civilised person she knew. She failed to realise before their marriage, that Osmond was actually using civilisation and culture to achieve his selfish ends. He was only putting up an act like he clearly demonstrated together with Madame Merle in Mrs Touchetts house in Florence and Isabel, so much taken in by their act, could not discover their deceit. She said that Osmond was poor and contented, but she did not realise that the contentment was a sort of snobbery and cynicism for the high things of life which he so ardently coveted but could not get. And his display of high cultivation of culture and civilisation was only an act put to deceive people, to take him to be what he was not, in order to climb the social ladder that he so much longed after . He and Madame Merle are typical example of the harm that uprooting and cultural displacement can cause. Osmond could have perhaps been like Casper Goodwood who was a magnate, a mover of men and an inventor, because he, like Casper possessed a very strong will and tremendous ambition, but Casper had the right background for the expression of his ambition, America; which Osmond lacked. But attainment of great success does not mean the attainment of high civilisation, and in the attainment of the later, Osmond as well as Goodwood failed. That was the reason why Isabel never agreed to go away with him, even at the failure of her marriage with Osmond. She had been putting him off or moving away from him in search of the real life. And the real life for Casper was to be found in material success; the accruement of worldly goods. Secondly Casper represents American excesses in the cult of doing and worship of success which is eminent not only in today’s American society, but world-wide in our modern times. Such personality like that of Casper Goodwood would not only fail to pursue the high ideals of civilisation that Isabel was after, but as Isabel feared, would be a hindrance to her pursuit of it and even pose a danger to her independence. She said to him: I ... am not bound to be timid and conventional; and indeed, I can’t afford such luxuries. Besides, I try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I 38 Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady ; New York, 1966; Pg.260 36 picture of a lady who looked like her by Bronzino, the portrait at which Milly was moved to tears upon seeing and exclaimed ‘I shall never be better than this’. It was after this incident that Milly decided to see the doctor and feeling she should make it up to Kate for the sake of Densher whom she loves and who loves Kate. She asked Kate to escort her to Sir Luke Strett, of which Susan should never know about. Milly went to the doctor, found out that she was ill with a fatal disease, and that she had not long to live, but never said what it was, only that the doctor told her she should do as she likes. Later, Densher came back from New York, and Milly saw him for the first time with Kate at the Museum. She invited them to her hotel for lunch and from Kate’s attitude towards Densher, she came to the conclusion that Kate was only pitying him for being in love with her, but that she herself wasn’t actually in love with him. Kate on seeing that Milly was in love with Densher, told him that they must keep their engagement secret and she would pretend that there was nothing between them, whereby he should pretend to love Milly and then marry her. Since she is to die, then they would succeed in cornering Aunt Maud, and at the same time they would naturally be rich when Milly dies and they can then marry. They went on about their plan artfully, and Densher moved to Venice near to where Milly was staying. Meanwhile, he agreed to carry out Kate’s plan, if only she agrees to spend a night with him in his hotel in Venice, to which Kate concurred. They could not go too far in it because they were exposed by Lord Mark, who went to propose to Milly, and at her refusal told her that Kate and Densher was secretly engaged. At the discovery of the truth, Milly lost her will to continue living, she turned her face to the wall and refused to see Densher again, until the day that she sent for him to tell him to leave Venice if he was staying because of her. Densher went back to London. He later heard from Aunt Maud that the dove (Kate’s special name for Milly ) has folded her wings. Some time after Milly’s death on a Christmas day, Densher received a sealed envelop from Milly, and took it to Kate in her sister’s place at Chelsea, but Kate threw the envelope unopened into the fire. When the cheque containing the money that Milly left Densher came, he decided that they should return it back to Milly’s solicitor, but Kate refused. Densher insisted that he can only marry her in a moment, without the money, while Kate on the other 37 hand told Densher to swear that he was not in love with Milly’s memory, she added that they can only marry each other as they were. At this, Kate left him. iv. THE CLASH OF CULTURES IN THE WINGS OF THE DOVE The Wings of the Dove like The American, shows the experiences of the innocent America in the hand of the knowing Europe. The subject deals on corruption, the perversion of motives that can occur in the process of refinement, in the case where culture becomes perverted and the social culture becomes subservient to materialism and greed. James used the topic of marriage to expose to us how deep corruption and moral decadence has eaten deep into the high culture of Europe. Right from the first chapter, we see how derogatory the English and thereby meaning the European society had become, not only in the lower class level like that of Lionel Croy and his daughter, Marian, but also in the upper class and the aristocratic level, like that of Aunt Maud and Lord Mark. We see Mr. Croy struggling for the meagre money his wife left her daughters with them. Not only that but in such a society, to marry well, does not mean marrying a good and honest man with noble occupation whom one loves like in the case of Densher, whom Kate loved. But marrying a rich man, even if he does not have any occupation and got or sought his money through insincere means like Lord Mark. Lionel has disqualified his daughter Marian, even if she was handsome, it was of no importance for him, because she has marred her life through her marriage, and not only that, she is widowed and in want, even if she had four bouncing children, that means nothing as long as she was poor. Poor Marien might be handsome, but he certainly didn’t care. The hitch here of course was that, with whatever beauty, her sister, widowed and almost in want, with four bouncing children, had no such measure.40 40 Henry James; The Wings of The Dove; New York, 1978; Pgs. 24 & 25 38 The point was that they can disagree on every point to the extent of not wanting to see one another, as in the case of Aunt Maud and Lionel but on that very issue of money and convenient wealth, they always came to agreement. Not only Aunt Maud and Lionel Croy alone were of the opinion that Kate should not marry Densher, for no other reason other than that he was poor and has not made a name for himself, but also Marian who was also abhorred by the others because of her social and financial position. Perhaps she did not want her sister to go through her own experience. James lets us see the level of social and cultural degeneration of European society, the displacement of social values and the falsehood and moral decay that arises from such a state in order to give us a foretaste of what the innocent and if one would say partly gullible America will experience when she arrives. The plot of ‘cornering’, which was simply lies and deceit in painted colours, even started from the time before the arrival of Milly and Susan, who in this story represented America. Lionel’s agreement with the terms Aunt Maud gave for taking Kate, was a sort of ‘cornering’. He would agree to the condition, bearing in mind that it was only to help his daughter marry well, and after that, the condition, does not hold again for him. Kate and Densher also started cornering Aunt Maud before the arrival of Milly, their first plan being to engage and keep their engagement secret to Aunt Maud until she inherits her money so they can marry themselves, but it was a very slow process and that was why they turned over to the quicker one, Milly. When Milly arrived with her wealth, her dove-like nature and her little bit of presumption and hunger for knowledge, life and love, the stage was already set. The ground was also prepared for the transformation process of Densher and also for germination of the real love for him in Milly through which the transformation would take place. Densher had to go to New York in order to get a picture of the innocence and truth which would be clearly revealed to him later in Milly and her act of true love. He also had to meet Milly and be acquainted to her outside the presence of Kate, then, had Milly came and met him together with Kate as they normally were before he left for New York, Milly might not have allowed herself to have fallen in love with him, because she would hate to interfere in his affair with Kate. Then Kate might not have had the opportunity for her pretension that there was nothing between them. Again, Densher’s encounter with America had already weakened the power of 41 view of renouncing them. Was she choosing them or did she want them all.43 Milly possesses a lot of things, she was known by Susan as the ‘princess’, and Kate once said to her: ‘... there’s nothing you can’t have, there is nothing you can’t do. And even though she was not ignorant of her wealth and powers, she possessed them as if she did not have them, not clinging to them or with the insatiable attitude of wanting more or by looking down on and abhorring those who did not have, like her English friends did. She measured every person by their personal worth as a human being, as a personality and not by what they have and did not have. Looking at the Bronzino picture, she found it hard to believe that she had a great personality, like the woman on the portraiture, even though we were told at the beginning about the fuss people make over her, even in New York: if she smiles it was a public event, when she didn’t it was a chapter of history. In James preface, he wrote of Milly as a young person conscious of a great capacity of life, but early stricken by fatal disease and passionately desiring before her death to achieve ‘however brokenly and brief a sense of having lived’ was shown by her leaving New York to come to Europe. Her eagerness to know about London and her people was not just a mere longing for knowledge, it was a symbolic manifestation of her eagerness for experience, a desire which her involvement with Densher and Kate more than fulfiled. Milly was already a princess in America, but she needed in her quest for knowledge and experience to cross to Europe to undergo the last initiation ceremony, which was done through suffering and pain, in a tough battle with evil in which she defeated and was transformed to heir of all ages, her reward being deliverance of one soul, Densher, incidentally the one she loved, from the destruction of corruption and decadence, and the printing of her name and image for ever in his memory. How the whole story sounds and carries the imagery of Jesus Christ, the eternal son of God who came to destroy every works Satan and to redeem (the world) us from the destructive power of sin, there is however no apparent comparison of Milly to Jesus Christ. Milly suffered and died but unlike Jesus, she was suffering for her own sake, not for the sake of the world, not even for the sake of America or Europe. This comparison cannot be carried further in this 43 Henry James. The Wings of the Dove; New York,1978; Pg. 87. 42 work, because it is outside the topic of discussion. Again Jesus Christ is too divine a person to be compared with Milly. Kate articulated the whole incident of Milly’s love to Densher, and her death with the words: ‘She died for you to understand her’. But what Kate did not know was that Milly’s death did not just lead to his understanding Milly alone, but also to his understanding that what Kate feels for him was not the real love. According to Wegelin; Kates motive in planning that Densher should marry Milly is dubious, but it is a mixture of sympathy and greed.44 It is doubtful whether Kate in any way sympathised with Milly, maybe at the very beginning, when she was lamenting about her having to face such a predicament ‘in the midst of everything’ but when greed took a better part of her and the evil plan hatched in her mind, she began to pace around Milly mercilessly like a panther. The desire to possess Milly’s money was the one and strong desire which drove Kate to make her obnoxious plan with Densher, she felt that since Milly loves Densher and she was rich, but doomed to die within a short period, Densher should marry her because she was sure to bequeath her wealth to him at her death and then they would have money and then be able to marry. It was a terrible plan, but James did not condemn them out-rightly because they were driven into it by the society in which they found themselves. If the European society of that time was not so terribly rotten, then why was it that a man in the personality of Lord Mark, of a noble birth, in possession of such estate as Matcham should join in the rat race of pursuing after easy money. I doubt if it was his true love to Milly, that made him to want to marry her or he was competing with Kate and Densher in the pursuit for her wealth. That goes a long way to show the depth of corruption and insatiable lust after material possession that was prevalent in this society. A society where nothing goes for nothing, every good done must be repaired back in cash or in kind. And Mrs Lowder was the co-ordinator of the state of the affairs, who oversees everything and does not allow anything to escape her notice, Millicent Bell writes of her: Mrs Lowder, to whom Kate goes, is the mythic divinity of the modern world, the representative of the great hidden forces of commerce underlying it’s 44 Christof Wegelin, The Image of Europe in Henry James; Dallas, 1958; Pg. 58 43 events. Kate calls her ‘Britannia of the market place’, a grandiose title for an ordinary middle-class dowager, but James makes us see her as the goddess of the counting house, ‘with pocket full of coins stamped in her image.’45 Apart from Susan Stringham, Milly was the only active American character in The Wings of the Dove. It was America coming to visit Europe, the story of America in the midst of Europe. Milly was to make the encounter and fight the battle, while Susan was to carry home the story. Milly, in order to defeat the battle, has to pay with her own life, while Susan was left to tell the story. v. THE BRIEF SUMMARY OF DAISY MILLER Daisy Miller is the story of a young American girl, who came to Europe on holiday with her mother and her little brother. In Vevey, Switzerland, they met a young American man, Winterbourne, who has been living in Europe since his childhood. His aunt a very wealthy woman, who has also been staying in Europe for a long time, does not approve of Daisy Miller and her family, because they are too free in their attitude and Daisy relates freely with her mamma’s courier. To her, ‘they are the type of Americans that one does ones duty - by not accepting.’ Daisy and Winterbourne saw each other often and even went to see the castle of Chillon together. At the castle, the young man announced that he was leaving for Geneva on the following day, and at that, Daisy became so disappointed and sad, that she made him promise her to come to Rome in winter. In January, Winterbourne went to Rome, expecting to see Daisy impatiently waiting his arrival but he was disappointed to find out that she had occupied herself with so many Italian men. At Mrs Walker’s place, she met her, and her little brother and mother. Daisy reproached him for not coming to see her when he arrived and he said he had just arrived but yesterday. Later, he escorted Daisy to Pincian garden to meet her Italian friend Giovanelli, with whom she wanted to take a walk together, but Winterbourne insisted on remaining with her. Later Mrs. Walker came in her carriage 45 Millicent Bell. Meaning in Henry James; Harvard Uni- Press, 1991. Pg. 293 46 only in Rome but, much more telling, in Washington and New York, was built long ago and high.47 That Mrs. Costello had her place on the high social hierarchy not only in Europe but also in America, makes this snobbery of Americans abroad, not just an expatriate problem, but that it has it’s roots in America. They (the Americans) have a problem of cultural inferiority complex, and that was why they need to travel abroad in order to make a name even there in their country (this problem has been discussed extensively in previous sections). Winterbourne was an example, who even though lived outside America most of his life, could partly understand Daisy and defend her innocence. He was not a snob like his fellow American expatriates, his only question was whether Daisy was innocent or not. But even he was no more in the right position to judge her, because he has stayed abroad too long to make a right judgement. His being at home with European manners has sort of disrupted his knowledge of American manners. Giovannelli, who even though was not American was the one who ended up understanding and appreciating Daisy’s innocence. The contrast between American and Italian manners provided fuel for the dramatic conflict in the story, but Daisy’s innocence proved to Giovaneli, that there was moral posibilities unknown in the streets of Rome. 47 Wegelin ; The Image of Europe in Henry James; Dallas, 1958, Pg. 61. 47 4. THE COMPARISON OF THE CLASH OF CULTURES IN THE PORTRAIT; THE WINGS AND DAISY MILLER Comparing the three novels, one may consider them as three different stories, having the same themes and bearing the same objectives. To some extents that may be right, but not in all. Even though the three stories are the experiences of an American girl in Europe and of the differences in both cultures, there are many similarities and differences in their ordeals, approaches and encounters of Europe. These similarities and divergencies would be discussed in the proceeding paragraphs: There are several similarities in the three texts: The Portrait of a Lady; The Wings of the Dove and Daisy Miller, but we are not just after the similarities and differences between the three novels, what we are particularly after is the similarities and differences in the cultural conflicts that occurred in the three novels. Nevertheless, the similarities in their clash of culture starts from the fact that the three ladies came from the same American culture with the same objectives to Europe, they were all in search of knowledge and experience, even though in different degrees. Isabel Archer of The Portrait of a Lady left Albany under the auspices of her wealthy aunt, in search of knowledge, high civilisation, and experiences. The zeal of her search and the depth of her hunger and thirst for these things was such that she was not ready to compromise it for anything else. She readily refused the ardent plea of the best of America in the figure of Casper Goodwood and took off on her search. In Europe, she encountered Lord Warburton , at first full of eagerness and deep admiration, with the thought of Aha! I have arrived! But when she perceived that he was not all that she was seeking after, she flatly refused him. Even though that we are made to know at the beginning of the story that Warburton’s temperament was fertilised by high civilisation such that anyone who looked at him would envy him at a venture. But for Isabel instead of envying him, saw her marrying him as a premature termination of her search for her high ideals. So she also turned her back at Europe in the figure of Waburton, who though a possessor of high culture, but a handicap to the fulfilment of her goal, i.e. his height of civilisation was a completed thing and she would not have room for her search if she married him, she would only be forced to fit 48 into what already exists in him and that was not the consummation of her perception of civilisation. Osmond whom she thinks has it, a combination of America and Europe, was only an imitation, because he was neither of both, he possess neither American culture nor that of Europe, but had strange tastes and high rotten ambitions which one cannot tell where they came from. It was actually Ralph who was actually the possessor of what Isabel was after, but he was incapacitated by his illness to offer it to Isabel in marriage. Moreover Isabel only came to the realisation of him being the embodiment of her search when it was very late, at his death bed. In the same manner, Milly Theale of The Wings of the Dove left New York in search of knowledge and experience, but not under the forum which was available to Isabel. She was already a sort of a princess, with fortunes of her own, but doomed to die and was seeking for the experience of having lived. That led her to Europe, where her goal was aborted and instead of what she expected, she experienced deceit and heartbreak, which led to her death. Although her case has to do with marriage, she was not so fortunate like Isabel, who had a long list of suitors, from the best that one can think of, of both America and Europe, even Lord Mark who somehow had interest in her had an ulterior motive, for wanting to marry her. Densher, who was hanging around her whom she actually loved and hoped to marry, was coerced into hanging around her for the same ulterior motive of gaining her wealth after her death, since was doomed to die. And so we experience in both stories the corruption and moral decay of Europe, but at different level and in different hands, in The Portrait of a Lady, it was the level of pretension of acquisition of high civilisation and a fine mind, by Madame Merle and Osmond, whereas in The Wings of the Dove, it was a deceit in form of lies about their not being engaged by Kate and Densher and the pretension of Densher that he loves Milly. Both cases were done for the sake of money, but in The Portrait, it was the American expatriates who were the cause of the conflict, while in The Wings, it was the Europeans. The bone of contention being the misplacement of civilisation and culture in the place of position and possession instead of the refinement and beauty of the mind and character, thereby causing high corruption instead of civilisation or high culture. In the case of Daisy Miller, Daisy also left Schenectady, America on holidays with her mother and her little brother, we were not told that she was in search of 51 partly presumption that made her to assume that Kate does not have any feeling for Densher, even though she saw them together several times and they even abandoned her together one day in her hotel. Again she was told at all corners how Densher loved Kate, how she could she have assumed that Densher would easily forget his love for Kate and turn over to her with the snap of her finger, just like every other things has been walking for her. Though Kate indirectly warned her to quietly and kindly drop them because they would do her no good. No wonder she could not detect the red lights flashing warning signs to her all over the place, she was innocent like her sisters; Isabel, who could also not detect the red light in all Ralph, his mother, Henrietta. Even indirectly Mrs Merle and Osmond flashed to warn her before her marriage with Osmond of the danger awaiting her if she should marry him. In the same way Daisy in her innocent audacity could not perceive the depth of the warnings given her, if not by the expatriate circles who agreed were just snobs, but by Winterbourne, who at least hold in her more earnest esteem of the Roman fever. Howells also wrote comparing Daisy and Milly in his essay, Mr Henry James Later Work: At this point I hear from far within a voice bringing me to book about Milly Theale in The Wings of The Dove, asking me, if there is not a heroine of the ideal make, and demanding what fault there is in her that renders her loveable. Loveable I allow she is, dearly, tenderly, being too good, too pure, too generous, too magnificently unselfish ... Milly Theale is as entirely American in the qualities which you can and cannot touch as Daisy Miller herself, ... she is largely American in the same things. There is the same self-righteousness, the same beauteous insubordination, the same mortal solution to the problem. Of course, it is all in another region, and the social levels are immensely parted. Yet Milly 52 Theale is the superior of Daisy Miller less in her nature than in her conditions.49 As mentioned above, Milly seems a finer shade than Daisy or even Isabel, because her case was more pathetic than that of Daisy or Isabel. She had lesser blame to share in her case than Isabel and even more so Daisy. But at the end also she got a seemingly better reward than her sisters. She not only won the battle, by winning Densher over she was sort of immortalised in his memory. (I am sure Kate and others, must also have to bear her memory for ever, even if she did not win redeem them in their corruption). This issue of conventional American thinking and innocence was not only restricted to our heroines alone one could also detect it in the character of their companions like Henrietta Stackpole in The Portrait of a Lady and Susan Stringham in The Wings of the Dove. Although Henrietta’s own was less of innocence than American convention. She was not so blank like her fellows because she kept on giving Isabel sound advice, which revealed her wisdom or knowledge to some extent; she was against Isabel inheriting a large sum of money as a young girl, because it would prove to her detriment, a hidden fact, which even Ralph with his wisdom and high civilisation failed to see. She was also strongly against Isabel marrying Osmond, and she was among the first to detect Isabel’s unhappiness in her marriage. Nevertheless, her conventional American mind also led her to make some false judgements and to give wrong advice to Isabel, example of which include her looking at everything aristocratic with black eyes, and as a result strongly discouraged Isabel against marrying Warburton. At the end, she ended up accepting everything she disapproved of, and even married an English man without any apology to Isabel. Contrary to Henrietta, was Susan Stringham, who was so passive in her role of accompanying Milly that the only achievement she could record was connecting her friend Mrs Lowder for them to be able to visit London. And that contact was actually what brought Milly’s misfortune. Whether it was pity or lack of courage or innocence that prevented her from advising Milly like an elder sister is hard to tell, whether she was facing the issue of opening up to Milly that she should not hang her hope on Densher or not, was not so clear. There were cases where she sought to hide her 49 W. D. Howells; Mr. Henry James Later Work; North American Review, 1903; Pgs.126-31 53 pity from Milly instead of giving her a firm advice. When Densher abandoned Milly together with Kate, she sort of knew that it was not for good, but instead of telling her to forget them, she said at the end that they will yet rejoice at the end, they will get Densher. Anyway her assumptions happened at the end, Densher was won over, but Milly was no more there to celebrate it. Daisy Miller’s mother was also a like character, who seemed so passive, and altogether fearful, instead of firmly advising her daughter, she was always giving another person the assignment to do it. E.g. she asked Eugenio to tell Daisy not to go out in the boat late in the night with Winterbourne, instead of firmly telling her herself. Her son Randolph also hears more from her courier than from her, he may not go to bed when she tells him, but he does that when the courier tells him, even though the courier was not presented to us as somebody very strict, it is only that he was more firm than Mrs. Miller. In The Portrait of a Lady, Ralph’s mother was also presented to us as a woman who does not know her duty as a mother, she keeps travelling around even when Ralph’s condition of health was so critical and she knew quite well that, the father who used to take care of him was no more there. But at least, she was firm and could tell her niece what to do and what not, even if she does not heed to them. It seems James’s views of American mothers are those of a failure in their motherhood, unlike that of the European mothers. Although we did not see or hear from Kate’s mother because she was dead, but she was a real mother, who was even better than her husband as a father. The meagre income left for rest of the family after her death, came from her. In fact the family started suffering her loss, when she was still sick in the hospital. Christof Wegelin stated about this case: ... and the older women, the American mothers - types, both, characterised for him primarily by their “inveterate blankness of surface.” He confessed that, in them, all he was prepared to deal with was the “negative” side- their state of bewilderment, their helplessness in the face of European life ...50 James portrayal of the European young girls in these stories, were rare as compared to that of her counterpart, the American girl, (except in The Wings of the 50 Wegelin, The Image of Europe in Henry James; Dallas, 1958 Pg.58. 56 came to know more about Europe, since he was living in their midst, he was able to observe them personally and to draw his own personal opinion of the conflict between European and American manners. He moved from stereotype and superstitious evaluations to motives and causes (of these conflicts). At first, e.g. Daisy Miller and partly The Portrait of a Lady, he was dealing with manners, later, he proceeded to analyse morals e.g. in The Wings of the Dove. He ended up creating his own image of Europe, more realistic, richer, and subtler than the earlier ones. The way James portrayed the European girl in the various novels, depends also on the major themes being treated in each book. In Daisy Miller it was convention and liberty or freedom; in which Gioanvanelli represented Europe, although, we are told how a typical European girl should behave there, more restraint. In The Portrait of a Lady it was aestheticism and high/ true civilisation in which Waburton stood for Europe even though we are told about and shown how a European girl should be, reserved and quiet. In The Wings of the Dove, it was corruption, superficial beauty and spiritual beauty, of which Kate was portrayed as the knowing European girl, endued only with superficial beauty. Therefore, apart from the general theme of American girl in Europe, the specific issues addressed and the conflicts they faced were different. 57 5. CONCLUSION To conclude this work, it is important to recall our new and old motive of Henry James and to peg it to the fact that, even though he had the intention, through these three novels and perhaps some other of his writings to pay tribute to his cousin Minny Temple, whose spontaneity and restless spirit he portrayed through Daisy Miller, Isabel Archer, and especially Milly Theale as the ideal image of the American girl. But that was not his sole purpose. James also portrayed America, through this image of a young lady, unknowing, but self-reliant independent and innocent, in the face of the knowing world, i.e. mostly Europe. The American young lady is very famous in James’s creation of international theme, and even though she always had character flaws, she always ends up a victor in the battle of the conflict of culture and conventions, which was often the main theme of James’s stories. But James was not exonerating America from her blames, apart from the character flaws mentioned above, one major fault which James saw in American was her lack of culture. And this fault was more noticeable in Americans abroad. James wrote his mother: We seem a people of character, we seem to have energy, capacity and intellectual stuff in ample measure, but all with culture quite left out. It’s the absolute and incredible lack of culture that strikes you in common travelling Americans ...52 Yes, James saw America as an innocent young lady, in the face of the knowing Europe, but he was not condemning or out to condemn her in the face of America, and where that seemed to be, he did not do so out-rightly. Then, he was only concerned in somewhat pointing out the evils in the society, which came as a result of the present of good and evil in human nature, existent in all human societies and cultures; e.g. Europeans characters as portrayed in The Wings of the Dove as well as some American characters as shown in The Portrait of a Lady, and Daisy Miller and which civilisation as culture can help to curtail and ameliorate. Blair said: 52 Leon Edel; Henry James Letters Vol. 1; Cambridge, 1975; Pgs. 149-152 58 The kind of ado James organises around such heroines as Isabel Archer Verena Tarrant and Christina Light increasingly mobilize linked forms of gender and racial panic to probe the cultural logic of purity, freedom and publicity (and alternatively of contamination, decline, and newspaperism), in plots of the heroines induction into higher cosmopolitan self-culture. While those plots necessarily turn on a figure of a woman reified as an object of exchange across national, cultural and even racial boundaries, they mean primarily to appropriate the threshold experience for more richly imbricated styles of culture-building.53 Daisy with her spontaneity, audacity, all wrapped up in her pure innocent heart was the first step to this civilisation as culture for James. Isabel with her independent spirit, though presumptuous but with a fierce thirst for knowledge and her undaunted but innocent determination to empty the cup of knowledge and experience into her, was an advancement, and Milly the princess, the dove and the celebrated heir of all ages was the crowning of James’s civilisation as culture. She was the culmination of James’s ‘new’ and ‘old’ motives and the one who harmonises all the clash of cultures, (at least the European and American cultures) as she demonstrated in The Wings of the Dove. (The woman in the Bronzino portrait which was liked to her had her hair woven in a crown like manner around her hair, and that was James’s own crown for Milly) 53 Blair; Henry James and The Writing of Race and Nation; Cambridge, 1996; Pg. 2 61 19. Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society, 1780-1950, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. 1966. 20. Leon Edel. Henry James Letters Vol. 1(1843-1875). Cambridge, USA , 1975. Bronzino’s painting of Lucrezia Panciatichi has been suggested as the portrait mentioned in The Wings of the Dove for its resemblance to Milly Theale. Minny Temple at eighteen. Sateen pies peer eee ee