THE ART OF FICTION IN HENRY
JAMES’ NOVEL THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
This paper will present briefly Henry James and his thoughts about the
art of fiction that is presented by his same titled essay before thoroughly analyzing his novel: The Wings of the Dove. James’ ideas on
his article The Art of Fiction will
be applied to The Wings of the Dove
and the narrative style that he uses will be indicated by certain quotations
taken from the novel.
James had read classics of English, American, French, and German literature
and Russian classics in translation. His models were Dickens, Balzac, and
Hawthorne. Then, there is a harness of French, British, and American culture in
his works. His first novel, Watch and
Ward (1871) was written while he was travelling through Venice and Paris.
James wrote novels that portrayed Americans living abroad during his first
years in Europe. He is a very important literary figure both in American and
British culture. However, he loves Europe and this fact gives us a clue about
his interest in different cultures that come out as American characters
traveling abroad in most of his novels. James’ approach to the civilization is
presented as:
Henry James, at the other
extreme, never ceased to regard America as essentially an outlying region of
European, more specifically of Anglo-Saxon, civilization . . . Henry James was a patriot to his race, and
his final transfer of citizenship, though immediately called forth by his sense
of America’s procrastination in the World War, was but the outward sign of a
temperamental repatriation already complete.1
In fact, the outbreak of World War I was a shock for James and in July
1915 he became a British citizen in protest against the U.S.’ refusal to enter
the war. He was sensitive on nationalism because “nationalism hurts James worse
than internationalism: he suffers from the sensitiveness to national
differences which kept him concerned too much with them and too little with the
universal human likenesses which
transcend nationality (Introductory Notes). James suffered a stroke and died
three mouths later in Rye in 1916.
It is also significant that Henry James lived between the years 1843 and
1916 that form the period between late nineteenth century and early twentieth
century. James’s “main themes were the
innocence of the New World in conflict with the corruption and wisdom of the
Old” (Books and Writers). We may easily view the reflections of his themes on
his novels which has characteristically understanding and sensitively drawn
lady portraits. Among his masterpieces is Daisy
Miller (1879) where the young and innocent American girl finds her values
in conflict with European sophistication, in The Portrait of a Lady (1881) a young headstrong American woman
becomes a victim of an intrigue played upon her during her travels in Europe. The Bostonians, (1886) was set in the
era of the rising feminist movement. What
Maisie Knew (1897) depicts a young girl who must choose between her parents
and a motherly old governess and in The
Wings of the Dove (1902) a young American girl Milly’s victimization
because of her heritage is told.
James’ novels, The Portrait of a
Lady, Washington Square, and The Wings of the Dove were made film
versions in 1997. Cathleen Myers who wrote an appreciation on “Washington Square and The Wings of the Dove” claims that James
is a “subtle, ironic novelist whose wry wit is difficult to capture on screen”
(5). She significantly emphasizes his strong use of language and characters as:
“The interest in James novels is almost exclusively in what the characters
think and feel rather than in what they actually do and this does not translate
well on screen, and the ambiguity of James’ narrative rarely translates at
all”(5).
An important aspect to be discussed is James’ views on novels that may
also be reflected on The Wings of the
Dove. As soon as one reads Henry James’ The
Art of Fiction, it is significant
to notice how James treats novels as directly related to life itself. Henry
James thinks that novel is a history so that like historians we should look at
the truth in the novel that is hand in hand with life itself. Therefore, James
claims “novel” in his essay The Art of
Fiction as:
A novel is in its broadest definition a personal impression of life;
that to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according
to the intensity of the impression . . . The form it seems to me, is to be
appreciated after the fact ; then the author’s choice has been made, his
standard has been indicated; then we can follow lines and directions and
compare tones.(3)
James wants the novelist to take art seriously and he expects them to
find out the best method in order to present the subject in the best way. He
depicts the complexity of life without spoiling its reality. Besides, James
believes that this can only be achieved by solving the technical problems. As
he informs us in his essay that the form to represent reality is in the second
place, since the most important thing is to represent life. The Turkish scholar
Ünal Aytür states his ideas in Henry
James ve Roman Sanatı as:
. . . novel is more real than
life, because life in novels comes out after being purified from the excessive
details result in loss of meaning. If art provides such a purification, the
importance of the form and the method that James presents in his novels are not
an escape on the contrary they aim at representing life in the most meaningful
way. (15-16)
James defines how the style should be in The Art of Fiction: “It would be absurdly simple if he could be
taught that a great deal of ‘description’ would make them so, or that, on the
contrary, the absence of description and the cultivation of dialogue, or the
absence of dialogue and the multiplication of ‘incident’ would rescue him from
his difficulties” (5). His descriptions of places and persons cover a large
space in The Wings of the Dove. The
descriptions of both people and places present the readers a vivid sense of
reality in James’ novels. James describes Aunt Maud in The Wings of the Dove as: “ Mrs. Lowder was London, was life—the roar of the siege and the
thick of the fray. There were some things, after all, of which Britannia was
afraid; but Aunt Maud was afraid of nothing – not even, it would appear, of
arduous thought” (24). Here is another example of a personal description about
Kate:
She would have been meanwhile a wonderful lioness for a show, an extraordinary figure in cage or anywhere; majestic, magnificent, high-coloured, all brilliant gloss, perpetual satin, twinkling bugles and flashing gems, with a lustre of agate eyes, a sheen of raven hair, a polish of complexion that was like that of well-kept china and that-as if the skin were too tight-told especially at curves and corners. (23)
On the other hand Milly is described as a dove : “ Milly was indeed a
dove; this was the figure, though it most applied to her spirit. . . . so far as one remembered that doves
have wings and wondrous flights, have them as well as tender tints and soft
sounds” (337). James is very successful in describing people: Kate resembles to
a lioness who acts according to her interests and get the best as she can
whereas, Milly is soft and helpless resembling especially to a dove. These characters also reveal the
characteristics of the society that reflect its members. James also describes
Piazza San Marco : “ . . . as a great
social saloon, a smooth-floored, blue-roofed chamber of amenity, favourable to
talk; or rather, to be exact, not in the middle, but at the point where our
pair had paused by a common impulse after leaving the great mosque-like church”
(WD 319). Descriptions may also
reflect the psychological moods of the characters. For example, when Lord Mark
comes to Venice the weather changes as if expressing Lord Mark’s bad character
who is always after his interest. In this case bad event (Lord Mark’s coming)
is directly related to the bad weather. James uses the rain to express
Densher’s desolation when Milly shuts him out in Venice upon Lord Mark’s
coming: “The vice in the air, otherwise, was too much like the breath of fate.
The weather had changed, the rain was ugly, the wind wicked, the sea
impossible, because of Lord Mark. It was because of him, a fortiori, that the
palace was closed” (WD 365-66).
The Wings of the Dove is
a touching and unusual triangular love and betrayal story. It opens with Kate
Croy going to live with a wealthy, cultured aunt shortly after the death of her
mother. Kate’s aunt Maud Lowder has an intention to set up her niece in a
socially acceptable marriage. But Kate falls in love with a penniless
journalist Merton Densher who is far below her social station. Her aunt
threatens to disinherit Kate if she does not break off the relationship, then
Kate is faced with a moral dilemma. Milly Theale and her travelling companion,
Susan Shephard Stringham come to Europe for Milly’s health reasons. Since Mrs.
Stringham is a school friend of Mrs. Lowder long ago, they visit Mrs. Lowder at
Lancester Gate. Milly is a beautiful American multi-millionaireness who adores
Kate and falls in love with Merton. When Kate learns that Milly is terminally
ill, this seems the solution to all problems. Here, the ironic twists begin.
Kate develops her plot: that Densher should marry Milly for her money, then,
upon her death when he would be rich, he could marry Kate. However, things do
not work out in the way Kate wishes them to be. Sir Luke Street informs Milly
about Kate and Densher’s plot when he visits her in Venice. She dies helplessly
leaving some amount of money for Densher. While Densher’s conscience is
disturbed by betraying Milly, he tells Kate that she can have the money without
him or him without the money but not both. Kate understands everything but she
is unmoved by her selfishness and greed. Besides, she thinks about Densher is
in love with Milly’s memory so that she says: “We shall never be again as we
were” (WD 457) and the novel finishes at that point. We are
not told whether she takes the money or not, nor is there any reason why we
should be, because it only matters for Kate. She has won her game but lost her
lover forever.
The novel explicitly displays the real-life elements. The writer Leon
Edel in Henry James, The Middle Years:
1882-1895 draws our attention that James’ main argument “was that the novel; far from being
‘make-believe’, actually competes with life, since it records the stuff of
history . . . James criticized the
factitious novel with its spurious happy ending . . . ” (122). Henry James
asserts in The Art of Fiction that
“It matters little that, as a work of art, it should really be as little or as
much concerned to supply happy endings, sympathetic characters . . .” (3). It
is the same case in the The Wings of the
Dove, since it is a tragedy not ending with a happy end. James deftly
navigates the complexities and irony of a moral treachery in his novel. The
drama unites Kate, Densher, and Milly in a drawing room of London and the
piazzas of Venice. “ . . . beyond the scrim of its marvelous rhetorical and
psychological devices, The Wings of the
Dove offers an unfettered vision of our civilization and its discontents.
It represents a culmination of James’ art and as such, of the art of the novel
itself.” 2
James’ theme turned out to be quite as much American character as European setting. He successfully describes the settings that we can see Americans abroad, or Americans at home in the light of foreign observations
His American settings are but palely conceived; and his figure do not find the proper background to bring them out and set off their special character. But the crusading Americans — variegated types, comic and romantic — with the foreign settings in which they so perfectly find themselves, these make up a local province as distinct in colour and feature. (Introductory Notes)
James was first of all possessed of as much American material as he
could absorb. Besides, we should better realize that a man’s country is not
always the country of his birth. That is why James turns his interest to Europe
and European civilization that we can exemplify this fact in The Wings of the Dove by the use of
characters. The writer Pelham Edgar informs us about James’ inclinations in The Art of Fiction as:
We must distinguish between our natural and our spiritual home, and every circumstance of the young James’s upbringing turned his mind and inclinations Europewards. As he matured these affinities strengthened. What increasingly interested him were the developed forms of civilization, the rich accretions which time and tradition alone can give. (173)
It is easy to sense the reflections of both American and British culture
by the use of the characters. That is to say, Milly represents the innocence of
the new-world faith whereas Kate represents the wisdom of the Old-world
culture. It is the time when manipulation was a tool for women in the world of
the aristocracy. The expectations of the society were so important that they
create conflicts of interests. A man in British society was supposed to be
wealthy, have good manners, position,
and the unique goal of typical Aristocratic woman was to marry a wealthy and a
good positioned gentleman who was a key point for her security in the society.
One critic emphasizes this fact as: “ In James’ London of 1910, a woman needed
two things: money and an acceptable husband. Kate sacrifices herself for
society. Although she is in love with Densher she finds a very strange way: a
plan to get married to Densher. She finds ways to be acceptable by the
society.”3 The need of being acceptable socially
leads her to depravity. Kate’s diabolical “plan” can be considered as morally
bankrupt. Her project is justifiable not only in her particular perspective,
but from her “society’s” perspective as well. First, Kate would fulfill her
very real financial obligation to her impoverished extended family. Secondly,
more importantly, she could marry the man she loves since she would have
secured the money to make the marriage permissible. However, Densher’s
“conscience was permanently torn between his moral vision and his formalist
needs” (Beaver). Kate is very selfish even in a scene where dying Milly learns
about Kate’s plan. Kate likes to deny the truth that is informed by Lord Mark,
another rival suitor for Milly:
“Wouldn’t it have been possible then to deny the truth of the
information? I mean of Lord Mark ‘s.”
Densher wondered. ‘Possible for whom?’
“Why for you.”
“To tell her that he lied?”
“To tell her he’s mistaken.” (WD
402)
Densher refuses to play another role to deceive Milly once more, he
feels psychologically guilty of what he has done so far. James’ destruction of
Kate’s wicked plan is twofold: He reveals to the reader the indifference of the
violence that grounds the social order, on the other hand , he “protects” the
reader from witnessing such a destructive violence (Zervos 4).
To us, Kate is not completely guilty since her determination is the
result of a behavior she developed in
order to survive and be acceptable in her society. And the reason that corrupts
Kate’s personality is the existing values of the society. Ünal Aytür claims
that “ Kate is the representative of
the materialist and selfish interest of the British society in which she lives.
This society corrupts her good qualities and makes her a person who acts not by
her will but by her reason ” (118-19). Thus, when viewed from the realistic
depiction of the characters in regard with their society, James successfully
reconciles them to the aspirations and general textures of their backgrounds.
The focal center of the novel is the exposition of Milly Theale’s
predicament. As Henry James states that the characters are real to life in The Art of Fiction: “ That the novelist
must write from his experience, that his characters must be real and such as
that might be met with in actual life;
‘that’ a young lady brought up
in a quiet country village should avoid descriptions of garrison life” (4). In
fact, Milly is model led after James’s cousin Minny. Thus, there are two
important figures in James’ life: Minny Temple, his cousin whom he admired and
Miss Constance Fenimore Woolson, an American novelist who is a close and valued
friend of James. Minny Temple had died on Henry James’ twenty-seventh year in
1870 where he stood on the threshold of his literary life. On the other hand,
Constance Woolson had died when he was fifty-one and a famous man. In the years
of Constance’s death he returned to his memories of Milly. After writing “The
Altar of the Dead”, he took his first notes for a greater fiction that would
become The Wings of the Dove. This
novel, somehow, can be regarded as Henry’s attempt to recapture the drama of
Minny’s ultimate end who died of tuberculosis. James called his heroine Milly
Theale echoing Minny’s name. Her death in Venice became the death in Venice of The Wings of the Dove. Moreover, the
deepest roots of “dove” lie not in
literature but in life and death. In regard to point-of-view, under the light
of this statement, it is easy to realize that Milly is to be made delicate by
the novelist, because it is of the essence of the book that life shall elude
her, and she is also sensitive because she must have at her command all the
possibilities that life can offer. Milly was an unspotted princess so that our
experiences should be to reveal her qualities (Edgard 181-82). As the novel
seems to turn around Milly, James’ aim is not to present Milly’s character from
other characters’ point of view, but the effect of Milly on Densher and
Kate. In this perspective, the consciousness of Kate and Densher
function as windows that open to Milly’s personality. The novelist-narrator
draws himself back entirely from the scene of the novel and hides himself in
the back of different personalities whose points of view he uses. It seems that
James seems as if to lose control of the narrative after creating his own
imagined character of turning the story over to her/him. In order to achieve
this, he presents the events from different characters’ points of view. James’ characters for example The Ambassador’s Strether or The Wings of the Dove’s Densher
“. . . moves us together with
himself; we behave with him together. The power of that method that James uses
comes from this perspective” (Forster 202). Here is an example how we share the
experience of Densher in The Wings of the
Dove. His description of the psychological mood is very significant:
Wherever he looked or sat or stood, to whatever aspect he gave for the
instant the advantage, it was in view as nothing of the moment, nothing
begotten of time of chance could be, or ever would; it was in view as, when the
curtain has risen, the play on the stage is in view, night after night for the
fiddlers. He remained thus, in his own theatre, in his single person, perpetual
orchestra to the ordered drama, the confirmed ‘run’; playing low and slow,
moreover, in the regular way, for the situations of most importance. (348)
In The Art of Fiction, James’
remarks on “the story” of the novel is also significant. He thinks that the
story and the novel, the idea and the form are like the needle and the thread.
It is one room opening into another. James states: “ ‘The story’, if it represents
anything, represents the subject, the idea, the data of the novel; and there is
surely no ‘school’ ” (8). How James was inspired and created such a wonderful
novel is an important point to be discussed. Henry James had written tales for
the New York Sunday Sun that the
first of these was “Georgina’s Reasons” a strange and sensational little story
that is written for what newspaper readers wanted. It is based on an anecdote
of some woman in society who married a naval officer in secret and gave birth
to a child secretly. She goes abroad, and has her baby in Italy, and then
returns to New York and remarries. Her husband, the naval officer, during
travels had become interested in two young women who are sisters in Naples.
They are called Kate and Mildred Theory. Mildred dies of consumption in an
early age that returns to James’ imagination later as Kate and Milly, the naval
man later named Densher to enact the drama of The Wings of the Dove (Edel 118-19).
There is the same struggle in the novel as in “The Beast in the Jungle”.
As the writer Leon Edel states “[a]nd
at its end the image of the dead girl dominates the living, and changes the
course of their lives” (387). It does in fact when Milly’s death affects Densher
deeply and he is somewhat in love with Milly’s memory as Kate states in the
novel. James had a dull ache that he reflected in his novel. Edel emphasizes
those two women’s influence on James’ life as:
In The Wings of the Dove Henry
thus incorporated the two women whose deaths he had faced at the beginning and
at the end of the middle span of his life—Minny, the dancing flame, who had
yielded everything and asked for nothing and whom he possessed eternally; and
Fenimore, the deep and quiet and strong—willed, who had given devotion and “intensities
of fidelity”, but had yielded nothing and had disturbed the altar of his being.
(387)
The American novelist, Fenimore’s suicidal act struck James, because in
doing violence to herself, she had done violence to him as well. The title of
this novel was formed in the mind of James with a psalm that had great
influence upon his soul.
The Psalmist had sung. “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! for then would
I fly away, and be at rest.” In the coming months James may have read this
psalm; for in it he probably found his deepest feelings of this terrible moment
in his life; and in it he found the title of the novel that he would ultimately
write about a death in Venice. (Edel 359)
According to the writer Wagenknecht the basic image of the dove comes
from Psalm 55 but there is something forgotten that the Psalmist “wishes to
escape from a false and treacherous friend and that in Psalm 68 the dove’s
wings are ‘covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold’” (202). The
word “dove” defines the general qualities of Milly Theale’s character. People
around her associates Milly with dove because of her softness, goodness, and
generosity. Milly is enormously rich but an orphan. James describes Milly in The Wings as an American girl,
Slim, constantly pale, delicately haggard, anomalously, agreeable
angular young person . . . whose hair was somehow exceptionally red even for
the real thing, which it innocently confessed to being and whose clothes were
remarkably black even for robes of mourning which was the meaning they
expressed. (71-72)
The dove image is identified with Milly and Aytür claims that “image and simile is an effectual device in
order to help James to render the invisible to be visible, and to present the
vivid and interesting inner worlds of the characters whose points of view he
uses” (133). The reader may find a way out to comprehend the difficult and
complex situations by the help of this fact. James is absolutely aware of the
deep complexities of life and the captivating human passions. It is easy to
perceive that James’ own experiences of life inspires him in forming his art.
His subjects are also representations of segmentations of life that can be
reflected to his fictions.
In The Art of Fiction James’
ideas on corruption and moral sense is very significant. Perhaps it is a way
for us to clarify Kate’s situation. Kate is afraid of her aunt because she
would be disinherited if she did not accept her aunt’s ideas. James states:
To what degree a purpose in a work of art is a source of corruption I
shall not attempt to inquire; the one that seems to me least dangerous is the
purpose of making a perfect work. As for our novel, I may say, lastly, on this
score, that as we find it in England to-day, it strikes me as addressed in a
large degree to ‘young people’, and then this in itself constitutes a
presumption that will be shy . . . There is one point at which the moral sense
and the artistic sense lie very near together; that is, in the light of the
very obvious truth that the deepest quality of a work of art will always be the
quality of the mind of the producer .
. . no good novel will ever proceed
from a superficial mind; that seems to me an axiom which, for the artist in
fiction, will cover all needful moral ground...(10)
Kate Croy is a proud but penniless girl with her high demands on life.
James’ fiction provides instances of poor women launched on their precarious
life of dependence on others. Kate’s well-to do aunt hopes to marry her to a
nobleman. Unless Kate does not marry a nobleman, she can expect no help from
her aunt. If we focus on Kate’s consciousness Mrs. Lowder affects us as she
does Kate. Mrs. Lowder has become “a figure of myth, one that can stand as a
symbol of the implacability and terror, of life on which Kate has embarked”
(Allen 279). In this sense Kate’s plan looks like a plot against Mrs. Lowder
rather than Milly. However, in any case, there is a corruption and the moral
sense and the artistic sense go together as James emphasizes in The Art of Fiction. In fact, the beauty
and power of truth and goodness receive a tribute which has rarely been paid
them in sophisticated novels. Milly rises to meet death and the book to be the
drama of her inspired resistance. James uses every resource to keep Milly from
seeming a prig or a tedious saint.
As a result, James successfully achieves what he really would like to do
in The Wings of the Dove. Although
his understanding of art of fiction is ‘non-sociological’ and his fiction has
little to do with ‘the political, social, economic processes of history’ or of
contemporary life as Michalski declares, James positions himself and his art
between American and English cultures and points us in the direction of
understanding the role of sociological dimensions of culture. As for James’ use
of narrative style it is the most distinguished one since it is enriched with
the powerful use of shifts in point-of-view. Thus, the narrative shifts freely
from the consciousness of one character to another which makes James’ work of
art more precious. The book is also a best example of James’ theory based on
the artist’s good command of the material he is familiar with throughout his
life.
NOTES
1 For more information on
James’ transfer of citizenship, see “Introductory Notes”.
2 James is very successful in
creating the scenes and psychological outcomes of the characters. Densher’s
disappointment together with Milly’s hopelessness, and Kate’s desire for money
are very well presented that unite those characters at the same scene. For a
detailed view on the art of novel, see <http:// www.randomhouse. value.com>.
3 The position of the women
in 1910 is well presented in <http:// www.Newpaltz.edu/hataway 1.html>.
The Art of Fiction. 8
Dec 2001 <http://
www.unibg.it/rls/essays/james.htm.>.
WD – The Wings
of the Dove. Middlesex: Penguin, 1971.
Allen, Walter. The English Novel. New York: Penguin,
1954.
Aytür,
Ünal. Henry James ve Roman Sanatı. Ankara:
Ankara Üniversitesi Basımevi, 1977.
Beaver, Harold. “Henry James’ Moral Vision.”
International Needs in the New Pelican to English Lit. 9. 5 Nov 2001<http://www.penguinclassics.com/us/world
classics/html >.
Books and Writers. “Henry
James”. 12 Dec 2001 <http:// www. Kirjasto. Scifi /hjames.html>.
Edel,
Leon. Henry James, The Middle Years:
1882-1895. New York: Avon, 1978.
Edgar,
Pelham. The Art of the Novel. New
York: Russell &Russell, 1966.
Forster,
E.M. Roman Sanatı. Trans.Ünal
Aytür. İstanbul: Adam
Yayınları, 1985.
Introductory Notes on Henry James . 14 Dec 2001
<http:// www. Bartley.com./227/o503/ html>.
Michalski, Robert. “Spirit and Material Possession in
the Supernatural Fiction of Henry James”. 14 Dec 2001 <http://www.acc.scu.edu/>.
Myers,
Cathleen. Rev. of “Washington Square
and Wings of the Dove”. 7 Nov 2001
<http:// www.peers.org/revjames.htm>.
Wagenknecht, Edward. The Novels of Henry James. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1983.
Zervos, Kathry. “The Subtext of Violance in
Henry James’ The Wings of the Dove:
The Sacrificial Crisis”. 21
Nov 2001 <http://www.temple.edu/gradmag/fall
98/zervos2.html>.
<http:// www.randomhouse.value.com
>.
<http://www. Newpaltz.edu/hataway 1.html>.