A Study Of The Narrative Space In Henry James’s Early Fiction

Henry James （1843-1916） is one of the most distinguished novelists, stylistsand critics in the field of English literature. In over fifty years of literary career,James created22novels,112short stories,7plays, a large number of critical essaysand books. Voluminous findings have been achieved in the century-old Jamesstudies. A variety of literary critical theories are found stationed in James criticismincluding feminism, cultural studies, archetypal criticism, psychoanalysis,structuralism and deconstructionism. The author of the dissertation gets plenty ofinsight and guidance from the achievements of previous James studies. However, itsinadequate concern for space turns into the cutting point of the present program. Asthe “spatial turn” in the twentieth-century receives increasing attention from theintellectual world, spatial criticism and spatial narrative become hot topics in literarystudies. A number of scholars have tried their hand in the spatial interpretation ofcanonical writers and works and remarkable findings have been obtained. Thus, theauthor of the dissertation attempts to take a spatial reading of Henry James’s earlynovels in hope of getting something new.Rising in the1970s-80s, spatial criticism has greatly influenced otherdisciplines of humanities and arts. One of the pioneers of spatial theory HenriLefebvre asserts in his groundbreaking work The Production of Space that (social)space is a (social) product and he examines the property of space from threedimensions: physical, mental and social. With the reference of Lefebvre’s theory, thedissertation divides the narrative space of James’s early fiction into three levels:architectural space at physical level, individual psychological space at mental leveland globalized space at social level. Meanwhile, with the guidance of narrativetheory, the dissertation also analyzes the spatial skills presented in James’s earlyworks and the interrelationship between the narrative and the space in these novels.The dissertation is composed of an introduction,3major chapters and aconclusion. The first part introduces briefly and comments on James studies both at homeand abroad as well as the applicability of spatial theory to James’s fiction. OverseasJames criticism is generally divided into four phases and each of them is differentlycharacterized. Current James studies takes on a cross-disciplinary trend with aspecial interest in the costumes and music in James’s works. Domestic James studiesstarted comparatively much later with the focus on James’s modernity and culturalconflicts in his works. The previous studies display a neglect of the spatial issue inJames’s fiction. The theory of spatial narrative refreshes literary study by shifting thefocus on time to space. The most representative one is Joseph Frank’s spatial formtheory which overthrows the traditional chronological narrative and establishes atotally new mode of time-space in literature. The introduction ends with the scopeand methodology of the dissertation. Centering on the narrative skill and spatialimplication, the dissertation adopts a dialectic methodology to probe into thephysical, mental and social space as well as the spatial skills in James’s early fiction.It is a study of both texts and the writer’s mind.The first chapter focuses on the architectural narrative in The Portrait of a Lady,analyzing the symbolic meaning of various houses in the novel and James’s culturalstance reflected in the depiction of these buildings. The fictional buildings disclosethe cultural differences between the New and Old worlds. Meanwhile, James gotinspiration from his narrative of architecture to liken the novel to a “house”, whichhe assumed to have “not one window, but a million” and through different“windows”, we can see different “human scenes”. In this way, James’s literarypractice and theories interact effectively and productively. In terms of narrative skills,James reconstructs the time-space mode by spatializing time and highlighting spacein the novel, which foretells the advent of modern literature.In the second chapter, the author resorts to Lefebvre’s arguments about mentalspace, Foucault’s spatial theory, feminism and gender studies theories to analyze theheroines’ construction of subjectivity in Washington Square and The Portrait of aLady. In the orderly, bright, domestic space of her household and the terrifying, chaotic and wild space of the Alps, Catherine grows from a docile girl who isabsolutely obedient to her father and faithful to her lover to a rebellious woman whofights against patriarchy, male chauvinism and industrialism. It is in her resistancethat Catherine establishes her own subjectivity. Isabel in The Portrait of a Ladyspends her childhood in the old house at Albany which contributes partially to hercontradictory character. She is in frenzy pursuit for freedom and meanwhile clings totraditional social forms. In the foreign space of Europe, Isabel becomes an outsiderand is gazed by others. Under the gaze of others, she keeps examining her self andfinally constructs successfully her own subjectivity through identification with socialform. James displays subtle changes of the complicated individual psychology withthe skill of center consciousness and time-freezing. Both skills are a challengeagainst the linear narrative of traditional literature. The complex individual mentalspace in these novels contains a vivid record of women’s life in the second half ofthe19thcentury that was fraught with social and psychological pressure and theirpainful fight for an independent subjectivity. This record also reflects James’sthoughts about the relations between self and other, self and society.The third chapter is centered on the narrative of globalized social space.Lefebvre contends that social space is the production and reproduction of socialrelations. Sociologist Roland Robertson argues that globalization is “theintensification of consciousness of the world as a whole” and that the thirty years inthe interval of James’s two versions of The American belongs to the third phase ofglobalization. Based on these assumptions, this chapter analyzes the two texts of TheAmerican published in1877and1907respectively and reveals that James hasdepicted what is typical of a globalized society: strong sense of commercialexchange, interwoven economic and cultural relations and constant moral conflicts.All these work together to create totally new interrelationships between individuals,between different cultures and societies. The most striking contrast of the twoversions lies in James’s attitude toward the cultural differences and moral conflicts.While in the first edition James laid much emphasis on the differences, in the second version, he cast prominent importance to the mutual acceptance or interactions ofdifferent cultures. As to the moral conflicts, James suggested a harmonious solution,which sheds light on us to solve conflicts in the globalized context. Meanwhile, withthe employment of the spatial skill of pictorialism, James bridges in his writing thegap between literature as a temporal art and painting as a spatial art, thus opening upa new direction for literature.The dissertation concludes that James’s narrative space is multi-faceted andmeaningful. For one thing, the spatial movement of the characters draws a cross-national route, starting from America and arriving in the European countries. Foranother, the narrative space is essentially a social map, which directs to not onlymyriads of objective social phenomena ranging from the fall of British aristocracy tothe rise of plutocracy, from Euro-American cultural differences to the commercialexchange in globalized contexts, but the subjective, conflicting and changeablemental world of individuals. The narrative space in James’s fiction is also asymbolic system and a spatial metaphor. On one hand, it displays the culturalimplication embedded in houses of different styles, character’s construction ofsubjectivity and harmonious solution to cultural and moral conflicts; on the otherhand, it also shows that James, as a writer of strong sense of morality and socialresponsibility, has made great efforts in creating improved interrelationshipsbetween humans and between cultures, that is, building a harmonious globalizedsociety. The great success of James’s narrative space lies in its fusion of spatialphilosophy with spatial form. Finally, it points out the weaknesses of the dissertationand the author’s earnest hope for insightful advice from experts all over the nation.