A Study Of Henry James's Late Novels From The Perspective Of The Space Theory

Henry James was born in the United States and long settled in the United Kingdom and occupied an important position in the history of British and American literature.Henry James was hailed as “the great novelist in America” and “the brilliant novelist in English-speaking countries”.However,he wasn't known as such a great writer until his death.On the contrary,he was known as a writer who was extremely unnatural and behaved in an affected way.Meanwhile he was criticized for disobeying the readers' needs and expectations.These words were highlighted in his later years.He was jolting with the trend of turbulence in literary criticism from his early classics to three late novels—“The Wings of the Dove”,“The Ambassadors”,and “The Golden Bowl”—which are remarked difficult to read and understand.Whether circumvention and the indirect way of his writing style in his later years was some kind of numbness derived from his the excessive focus on techniques or a pursuit at a higher artistic level.Different critics lay claim to it based on their own grounds.Accordingly,Henry James was on top of the disputed monument for his sharp change in later years.The present studies of James effectively enhanced and expanded the understanding of this master and helped readers further understand his unique writing style.But we also should notice that the scholars are more concentrated in the early and mid-term works of Henry James and lack of attention to his late works.As to the present studies of his late works,it is not difficult to find that the attentions strand on the analysis of some specific novel and the overall concern and study is rare.The systematic cognition and research is found nowhere.Henry James' late works witnessed the start of twentieth century and thus became a mirror to reflect the progress of Europe.The focus on the late works is expected to fully understand the writing purpose of Henry James and the spiritual crisis from the development of modernism.Spatial theory is adopted to interpret the some well-known features that roused the confusion in his works,such as the indirectness,dubiosity,vagueness and omissions.And simultaneously there would be an attempt with the help of the theoretical framework to interpret the unique features of Henry James' s late novels on social,cultural,moral and human beings' consciousness.At the turn of the nineteenth century and twentieth century,the western world unprecedentedly developed with its transportation,technology and other fields.Industrialization and urbanization brought a new experience of time and space for modern people.The analysis of the significance of spatial culture implied in the texts is a great help to understand the influence of those incentives like rationalism and morality on living status,behaviors and values of human beings.Spatial turn is the new model of the sociology and the new perspective of literary research as well.Therefore,this paper starts with the introduction and exploration of space theory,including such typical theorist as Georg Simmel,Henri Lefebvre,Walter Benjamin,Michel Foucault and so on,combined with the close reading of the texts in order to shed light on the spatial settings and spatial connotations of the novels.Focusing on spatial narrative in Henry James' s late novels,we found that the “internal focalization” and “consciousness-orientation” effectively expand the psychological and sensory space of traditional mode of narrative.The changeover between scenes and non-scenes made the novel change into a drama which was created by the collage of different settings and scenes.There are many long paragraphs of still portraits with words and even some flashback narrations.These writing techniques subvert the linear logic of traditional novels which helped late Henry James become the pioneer of modern novels.In addition,Henry James repeatedly adopted the spatial artistic forms like buildings,sceneries,paintings,sculptures and so on.This technique led to a new way of construction and a maximum use of the spatial objects and spatial relations.The exploration of the spatial connotation of the international theme shows that the concept of a nation does not mean a place under the help of the walls and gullies but a combined mode from the intertwinement of thoughts,spirit and sensory organs.Different places own different regional feelings.People from the same nation are apt to express space in the similar way.Therefore,the geographical boundary can be viewed as the ideological segregation which is far beyond the walls and gullies from the perspective of sociology.The spatial framework of the world changed significantly with globalization at the beginning of the twentieth century.The leading characters in Henry James' late novels were all international travelers who seek for ideals and dreams by a long odyssey into different countries.What they made were not only geographical displacement but also the shocks,ebbs and flows.The conflicts,frictions,and adaption entailed the fission and reconstruction.The analysis of the spatial connotation of the city image in late novels is also fruitful.Modern space assumes the complicated relations between man and man,man and substance,substance and substance.These relations are difficult to explain and they are also non – homogeneous.The heterogeneous space is likely to be the typical reasons for the conflicts of different social elements which consequently developed into more complicated,multiple,uncertain life and cultural patterns.The spatial orders include both dialogues and conflicts and the heterogeneous space made cities into places which are occupied by dreams,desires,and crisis.Take Venice as an example which was the background of “The Wings of the Dove”.The writer depicts the night of Venice to imply that this city is a place to make people sad.Finally it became the tomb of Milly.Paris in “The Ambassadors” is a dream city.Strether enjoyed the visual feast and the elegance of hustle and bustle.London in “The Golden Bowl” is depicted as an ivory tower in which there are many delicate things and wealth,but the crisis is buried under its gorgeous coat.James here implies the relationship among the four family members by drawing a weird tower with words.The image of tower symbolizes a truth that the ivory tower will fall down without the enhancement and Maggie became the architect who finally perfected the building,in other words,the relationship among them.The distance between individuals becomes wide and suppressed with the rapid development of the process of urbanization in the west in twentieth century.Social psychological distance forces the individuals retreat towards their inner world.Urbanization made westerners change a lot as for the spiritual world and the feelings of being strange,far,solitary,worried and directionless are popular among them then.People thought they are living in a maze and they can only experience the life with spatial perception.Characters in late novels are lonely figures and they stand in freedom to perceive life.They choose the way of being a dissociative onlooker or stand far away in a specific space.They introspect all the time in silence or observation.They try to establish an experiential world to make up for the lost physical experience in modern society.The leading characters are exploring and seeking all the way in different spatial environment and accomplished different kinds of experiences,hence making a decision among emotion,rationalism and morality.This thesis explores the writing technique and textual connotation of late Henry James based on both forms and contents.Henry James was one of the early writers who were aware of the dimension of space in writing.The international travelers in James' s three later works not only realized the geographic displacement from the perspective of substantial space,but also tried to seek for their dreams,essence of humane,and the meaning of life with status of being an Other.They experienced the whole process of life by spatial perception and pursued the goodness and truth they desired for by obtaining the power and belief through spiritual struggle.