Vulgarity and the Pedestrian Life

     Vulgarity is a word that almost every character uses in The Portrait of a Lady; it is something that they despise because they all pretend to be aesthetics. The characters try to focus on the beautiful and desirable in everyday life. When something negative comes up, they refer to it as being vulgar. They seek to overcome the pedestrian, by living supposedly interesting lives as they concern themselves with the personal lives of everyone else. No character's private life is sacred when they are the center of attention. James paints his characters as true aesthetics, but ironically, through the way the characters act and treat each other, they become vulgar and commonplace.

     Isabel Archer is the focus of attention of almost every male character in the novel. She claims to be a strong, independent woman, but this is not the case because through her own ideals and conception of herself, she restrains and traps herself to one art form. She desires to be more than just another ordinary woman who marries someone and lives an ordinary life; she wants to be adventurous and to never make a decision that could possibly restrict her liberty. She fails though, when she marries Osmund, who restricts her more than any other man would have. She becomes the vulgar that she so detests because she becomes a wife to controlling, cruel man. Osmond destroys the future she could have had. He pretends to be an interesting art collector, but in reality, he is a low class man who is desperate for attention from others. He is the epitome of vulgar in this novel, and Isabel too becomes vulgar when she marries him.

    The other characters are just as bad though, they all put on airs of superiority and pretend to live such high and interesting lives as they involve themselves in the affairs of others. They all seek to be aesthetics, but in reality, they are vulgar and commonplace. What makes them so extraordinary? Nothing. They are just regular people with lots of money and too much time on their hands. None of the characters rise any higher as individuals. The pseudo-aesthetics are only what they try to avoid being: vulgar and commonplace.

The Villainous Madame Merle

Madame Merle, one of the characters involved in my mini-rant about manners last week, has become a character I absolutely despise. She befriends Isabel and gets her married to Osmond all the while lying about her own relationship with Osmond. On top of that, she has abandoned her daughter, leaving Pansy with the belief that her mother died in childbirth. The lack of remorse Madame Merle shows throughout the novel is appalling.

However, she is a very realistic character. There are many people out there who only care for themselves. These kinds of people do not think twice about doing something as horrible as plotting to steal someone’s inheritance by marrying her to someone who is already in love with someone else. They do not think about the repercussions of their actions. The consequences and collateral damage are nothing to them.

It is for the above reason and the above reason only, that I understand exactly why James created Madame Merle. She is the epitome of a self-absorbed woman. I hesitate to use the word villain here, though I do think that she is a villain, because this is a realist novel and not a romance wherein the lines between good and evil are quite distinct. She is the antagonistic presence in Isabel’s life, even though for a long time she seemed to be the friend that Isabel needed.

Even though I realize that Madame Merle is definitely there to be the antagonist and the realistic picture of a self-absorbed person, I still despise her with every fiber of my being. I see no redeemable qualities in her. The very fact that she abandoned her daughter is detestable to me.

Isabel from the Inside

As we delve into the life and mind of Isabel Archer, we begin to see many characteristic approaches taken by Henry James. As Dr. Mitchell mentioned in class, the reader does not look at Isabel from the outside-in, the reader sees Isabel from the inside-out.  There are many very candid moments between the narrator and the reader.

James describes Isabel’s view of herself and her defenses. He also describes her mode of thinking. I have noticed that often her mode of thinking is juxtaposed next to the reality outside her which can seem rather apparent to the reader. She desires to travel and be independent; however Ralph realizes she does not have enough money to survive on. He sees her reality before she does and provides for her from his Father’s will.

Isabel also seems to have this strange sense of idealistic suffering.  She turns down Warburton because marrying him would make her less capable of experiencing life and hardship. Marrying Warburton is not an option to her—it would make her life too simple. She wishes for no one to broach upon her freedom, even if that freedom might be violated unintentionally.  She said to Merle, “No; but you sometimes say things that I think people who have always been happy wouldn’t have found out…a great many people give me the impression of never having for a moment felt anything” (168).James presents Isabel as one who values feeling and experience to a high degree.  It is arguable whether or not her ideal of life is wise or realistic. Isabel wishes for a glamorous story. One can only wait and see whether or not that ideal will be futile, if not dangerous.

My Wifi is Awful; This Post is a Miracle

Does anyone else get the notion that the second part of this novel feels so much less of everything?  It has the effect of having come down from something like a very high, almost metaphysical consciousness to something lower, a more mundane sub-consciousness. 

Isabel’s actions and conversations occur in this fast forward skim over the heart of the situation.  Take, for example, Lord Warburton’s final interview with Mr. and Mrs. Osmond in Rome.  James spends more time telling about the happening than letting his audience experience the situation.  And such occurs for the vast majority of the second half.  With that, the explicit dialogues become much more valuable.  It is in these that it is possible to reconnect with Isabel again; she seems more alive.  But when James returns to accounting for the events, she comes off as someone in a reality show.

By choosing the alliance with Gilbert, which is a less deserving term for all its actuality, Isabel forsook her consciousness.  Now she lives in something like subconscious or perhaps skewed-conscious.  She knows him well, and she knows many others just as well.  No longer is she highly self-conscious; her self-consciousness is subdued.  Her own consciousness seems to serve only the benefit of the others.  And perhaps that is the great fear Mazzella attributed to her in the article, though I still do not agree with it being a fear of sexual possession.  That makes it sound so much like a psychological issue, and I do not believe that is what James would have us believe.

Hunter brings up a great point in labeling Isabel a knight of infinite resignation.  I certainly see that in Isabel.  She could have been a knight of faith, but Gilbert’s presence denied her the possibility—as would any of her suitors for that matter, except perhaps Ralph.  

What's More Important?

In my opinion, Portrait of a Lady asks the question of what is more important, doing what one wants or doing what society wants. At first I thought it was going to be a love-triangle story, but as I kept reading I realized it's more about Isabel, her independence, and her struggle between doing what she wants and doing what is expected of a lady. I love strong female characters, so I was immediately drawn to Isabel, but I was kind of disappointed when I finished the book. I really wanted her to stay in London. She seemed like she had a miserable life in Rome, and I wanted her to choose happiness over duty. "When it comes down to being happy or making the world happy, be selfish,". That is a quote I live by and I very much wanted Isabel to be selfish and not go back to Rome. I think I lost a little bit of respect for her in the end, but I still enjoyed the book very much.

The Portrait of a Resignation

[Special thanks to Sam, who reintroduced this concept to me in Abernathy’s Russian Novels course]

           It has been supposed that Portrait's Isabel is justified in her deference to Osmond in Ch. 41-2 and in her somewhat ambiguous return to him at the novel’s conclusion because she finds her own moral/ethical convictions that allow her to retain her independence and humanity even while trapped in the confines of her adverse marital and social circumstances. As Will correctly mentioned, this falls under the branch of phenomenology, which enables Isabel to attain an authentic personal existence despite outsider opinions and Osmond’s disdain for her. However, I wonder if there is an alternative means of reading Isabel’s choices, perhaps in another existential perspective that says something contrary to James’ intention. Perhaps Isabel is not a maiden of individual victory, but a knight of infinite resignation.

           According to Kierkegaard, the Knight of Infinite Resignation is a type of person who, when in love with another person, finds it impossible to give up on that person because that person is the entire substance of his life and will never go back on the promise of devotion to that person despite the evidence that he should. He never contradicts himself or his love and willingly suffers all manner of pain and disgrace because he has merely reconciled that suffering is inescapable, making an ethical stance to stoically and humbly walk through the storms of life without resistance or hope for change. He will abandon peace and happiness dutifully for the sake of his love, which distinguishes him from the Knight of Faith that seeks justice and truth in his life no matter what the cost and exemplifies his own title of INFINITE (constant) RESIGNATION (compliance).

           Consider now the fate of Isabel in the second half of The Portrait of a Lady, wherein she has foolishly bound herself to a husband that has dedicated himself to extinguishing her personal freedoms for the sake of his own societal benefit and would marry his own daughter away for the same reasons or lock her up in a nunnery as the case may be. They are housed in Rome, an ancient city of timeless traditions and constraints, and wed in a social contract that would be grossly dishonorable to break, so divorce is out of the question and cruel defiance far from her nature, so what is he to do? Suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, that's what, which is not a choice as base as throwing her hands up in frustration and crying out futily into the uncaring night but not the same as internally deciding to find a new hope within herself that can give her the strength to not just make the most of her life but reclaim ownership of it. Instead, she resorts her to her pride and falls back on ethical obligation to her husband and stepdaughter, suffering great emotional distress but still following through with her role in society, despite her former wishes to the contrary. I now wonder if the important point is not whether she is a KoIR, but if she ever had any possibility of becoming anything greater within the framework of James' prose.

Isabel as James

In the second half of Portrait of a Lady, Henry James reveals some of his own belief regarding industrialization and empiricism through the marriage of Isabel and Gilbert Osmond.

After all of Isabel’s fretting over her life and denying all the men who pursued her for the sake of individuality, she entwines herself with the one man who may very well be able to sap all individuality from her. James must have also seen industrial Western society (in which Osmond participates wholeheartedly) the same way.

In chapter 42, Osmond reveals himself to be an egotistic snake hidden in his flowery façade. He sees the world as something to be consciously calculated—and James apparently hated that as much as Isabel does. The last thing either of them wanted was to succumb to the meaningless and calculated life that the Western world presented in the late 1800s. James did not want to be told how to think and what to believe, and neither did Isabel.

James’s apparent repulsion with the emerging society provoked his belief in the idea of phenomenology, a belief totally rooted in the personal experience of the human and his consciousness of it. He claimed a well-defended philosophy that could not be easily disproved despite its inherent difficulty to be definitely proven. It undermined the empirical belief that both Westerners and his representative character Osmond held, refuting them not on their logic, but rather in their perception of the world itself. Without a universal perception, calculated people like Osmond would find it difficult to impose their beliefs upon others. Isabel could, by clinging to a phenomenological belief, defend and retain her life dreams and individuality without having to prove the worth to others.

Culture's Play in the Portrait of a Lady

Again in The Portrait of a Lady we are ushered into a situation in which classes clash. Interestingly, while there are different classes coming together, there is also a clash of cultures. 

The Touchetts are native to America but have lived in Europe for several years. Instead of being colonials in the Americas, there seems to have been a reversal of history and this American family have become like colonials in Europe. Mrs. Touchett , with  her unconventional independence established herself in Florence. Ralph was unsure of which nation he should claim. 

James cleverly added two American young women into the mix of the family.  Isabel Archer, Mrs. Touchett’s niece was staying with the family, and was from New York. Henrietta, Isabel’s friend wanted to report on the differences in culture between Americans and Europeans.

I find it interesting however because the characters seem to create more cultural boundaries than is necessary. Ralph is American yet he says that it is precisely Henrietta’s American patriotism that he dislikes about her at first.  In a miscommunication Ralph insulted Henrietta. Later she told Isabel that Europeans were disrespectful towards women. Could it have been, however, that her own hyper-independence created this illusion?

The reader finds a clash in both nationalities and classes between Isabel and Lord Warburton. Though Warburton loved Isabel immensely, she was hesitant because she was persuaded she could not manage his high society life. She did not wish to be caught up in the system he was born into. She preferred the American way.  Henrietta and Isabel found it absurd that a man should have no work to do with his life.

The clash of classes continues with James’ novel. Now, consider the bigger picture of nineteenth century American literature; will the clash of classes and nationalities be a continuing theme? My speculation is that it will. In light of the history we know from the era, it would be understandable that authors might bring to light such issues. 

Freedom vs. Duty

Were Isabel Archer real and not fictitious, I should very much like to make her acquaintance.  I highly doubt the two of us would become “bosom friends,” but I believe we should get along well but only for a small time, as I also believe I should tire of her.  Her insistent independence fascinates me, and I have found that very same thirst for knowledge and thirst for opportunity in choice within myself.  I appreciate her desire to choose, even if she should choose wrongly. 

But Isabel Archer ignites fear in me for her future, but not in the way her dreadful acquaintance Henrietta Stackpole.  Henrietta believes in holding Isabel in what was instead of letting Isabel find was is within herself.  My fear for Isabel is that she should be both unhappy and unsatisfied in what is and then what eventually will be.  But these qualities in her: these are the things I love and yet fear in Isabel.  Her sense of freedom and liberty to go and do and be are beautiful, but perhaps a sense of duty would do her good.  The will to choose and potentially choose poorly sound noble on paper but in practice are much more difficult.

Then Ralph, sweet Ralph…by choosing to divide his money for her sake, I think he enables her too much.  Perhaps he thought Isabel would turn out better than his mother.  Not that I think he holds ill-feelings toward his mother, but because she has a fortune Isabel would be free of the need to marry and leave that someone isolation.  But needing to depend on someone or something is not a bad thing.  I think that makes us real, and it gives us a sense of duty.  Life void of obligation to anyone or anything seems a lie, in my opinion.  Whether or not one acknowledges those obligations, as long as one encounters people, those people will have their own needs and desires for presence and companionship. 

Altogether, Isabel evokes pity and the sense of impending tragedy.

Etiquette and Friendship

     I don’t quite understand what James means by “good manners.” Especially in regards to what he says on page 163, “As Mrs. Touchett had foretold, Isabel and Madame Merle were thrown much together during the illness of their host, so that if they had not become intimate it would have been almost a breach of good manners. Their manners were of the best, but in addition to this they happened to please each other.” Why would it be “a breach of good manners” if they hadn’t become close in some way? When did the act of becoming friends suddenly turn into etiquette? I understand that James is writing in a different era and that the culture he is describing is incredibly different from that we’re living in today. However, friendship and manners are very rarely described as the same thing.

     So how is Madame Merle and Isabel becoming friends the same thing as good manners? Is it really the same thing as good manners? This question is especially pertinent since Isabel isn’t really sure exactly how friendship works.

It is perhaps too much to say that they swore an eternal friendship, but tacitly at least they called the future to witness. Isabel did so with a perfectly good conscience, though she would have hesitated to admit she was intimate with her new friend in the high sense she privately attached to this term. She often wondered indeed if she had ever been, or ever could be, intimate with any on. She had an ideal of friendship as well as of several sentiments, which it failed to seem to her in this case-it had not seemed to her in other cases-that the actual completely expressed. (163)

First he makes mention of an intimate friendship that they supposedly share that doesn’t breach good manners or etiquette in any way, and then he points out that Isabel doesn’t know what friendship or intimacy really is. This frustrates me completely. I don’t understand it at all. James really doesn’t make any sense with what he says.

"Mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."

Ed. Note – the above quote is from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and is in no way a quote from The Portrait of a Lady. That being said, I find it appropriate concerning the subject matter below, so it fits the bill.

It is likely that the primary point of discussion in today’s blogs is going to concern Isabel Archer, the protagonist and ideal heroine of our novel, but I argue that her character would be so much less without the involvement of Ralph Touchett, whom I would like to call the “peripheral protagonist”. In the triad of men that we meet at the beginning of the novel, Ralph enters as a gangly, emaciated creature that leans over rather than standing upright, slouching by necessity. He is clearly not well and we quickly learn that he is suffering from a serious lung disease, but there is still something disturbing and unwell about all matters of his appearance and personality. If this were any other novel Henry James could easily made him the antagonist or a reprehensible cretin like Dostoevsky’s Smerdyakov or Tolkien’s Grima Wormtongue (HAPPY HOBBIT DAY!)

                Fortunately, James has Ralph serve a much a greater purpose as Isabel’s other half and her contrast. Yes, I mean to say “other half” because that’s exactly what Ralph wanted to be when he first met Isabel (how could he not, considering her brilliant and unabashedly feminine entrance), but realized that he could not and did not want to try and marry her, one reason because they are first cousins and the second simply because he inherently realizes that it would never work out. He makes this decision because is constantly and painfully aware of his illnesses and considers that his demise is not too far away, so to burden Isabel, who has so much life and youth left ahead of her, is a dreadful path for him to take. However he quickly becomes Issbel’s best friend and confidant, and throughout the reading Isabel trusts her heart in his hands, much like Gatsby and Carraway in a certain other American novel. In this way Isabel is a sort of contradiction, for despite her free spirited individualism she is nevertheless tethered to Ralph simply by tapping into his wisdom and friendship, which Ralph uses a means to live vicariously and happily in the only way that he can physically manage. Ralph, too, is a sort of contradiction, for despite his welcoming heart and unending admiration for Isabel, he is cynical and ill tempered on an almost constant basis, driven primarily by the effects of his illness and the way that it has ruined his prospects of a happy life.

They are in love, that is for certain, but Lewis would agree that this is a quality practice of phileo rather than eros taking place, which is ironic in that Isabel tries so desperately to remain free and uncontrolled by the guiles of romance but finds her truest love in the comfort of her own cousin. How far this friendship will go and to what ends it will achieve are yet to be seen, for there is a scent of tragedy about both of these characters that may test their love to its breaking point.

The Portrait of a Lady 1

So far, I love Isabel and Mrs. Touchett. They have a lot of qualities I love to see in female characters. Mrs. Touchett is very independent, and I love her attitude. At one point, Isabel says she likes Mrs. Touchett because she doesn't care what other people think about her. That's exactly what I like about her as well. I'm sure she is the subject of a lot of gossip because she spends so much time away from her husband, but she just lives her life the way she wants to and doesn't care about everyone else. One of the things I love about Isabel is her independence also. I also admire how she always expresses herself. She says she is a get-what-you-see kind of girl, and she is not afraid to ask questions or tell her opinion. Another one of the Isabel's characteristics that catches my attention is the fact that she thinks so highly of herself. I hate how many modern books portray the main female character to have low self-esteem. I think it is more encouraging to have a heroine instead of a damsel in distress, and, in my opinion, it makes for a much better story.

Isabel's Self Portrait

Isabel Archer “held that a woman ought to be able to make up her life in singleness, and that it was perfectly possible to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded person of the opposite sex.”

Not to say that she was opposed to being married, but that she believed that she needed to know herself before she could know someone else. This is why she must leave New York and travel Europe before considering marriage. In this sense, she is not Elizabeth Bennett. She is the ideal woman (according to Ralph and the rest of her lovers) but the same characteristics that make her ideal are what drive her away from marriage.

James raises this question through Isabel: Does a deep knowledge of oneself prepare them for emotional intimacy with another, or does emotional intimacy with another soul lead a person to knowing themselves? Can you even know yourself apart from your spouse once married? I believe that it’s possible, but it seems like this is exactly what Isabel is afraid of. She’s scared to lose that identity, which is pretty understandable since she’s been orphaned and left her country of origin. 

The Hinge

            Henry James stays true to his characters more so than many other writers of his day. And this goes in tandem with others call Jamesian realism. How his characters act is set within the realm of what those characters are capable of doing. Basically, the characters only do what they have the possibility of doing; they act true to their own nature. This is how James stays true to his characters.

            The epitome of this character connection is seen through the character of Isabel Archer. She is a free and independent American woman who cherishes her freedom above anything else. This is the major reason why she declines a marriage proposal from Lord Warburton, because she knows that he would restrict her freedom. She is staying true to herself by protecting her freedom, at the same time, this limits the type of relationships that she can develop with other characters in the novel. She is a very fate-driven character, and this prevents her from accepting Lord Warburton's proposal, which no one in her family can understand why she would do such a thing.  If she gets married, then that limits the way she can live her life. This is seen when she decline Caspar Godwood's marriage proposal, even though he claims that he wants to make her more independent than she already is. She tells him to ask her again in two years and informs him that she "shall not be an easy victim."

            Isabel is the hinge for the entire novel, because all of the characters revolve around her and her decisions. Her development as a character is what interests the other characters the most. Henrietta continually frets about Isabel losing her values and becoming too European, while Ralph leads her to inherit half of his father's fortune, so that she may, "spread her wings [and] rise above the ground." This makes her a type of hinge for the novel. Her decisions, and the way she interacts with the other characters, is what drives the story as she represents James' typical American. 

Isabel's Portrait is Painted in the Negative Space of Others' Desires

I suppose we can do a journal entry type response here. That is fitting considering my own opinions regarding Isabel.

In the first half of Portrait of a Lady, Isabel’s personality dominates the other characters. She obsesses over independence. Her obsession grows to the point that it is prompting other characters to do exactly what she herself fears to do: operate under someone else’s command. The men each desire her, but she desires for them to leave her alone—to cease their affection. Yet why should the men themselves not be independent and choose to love her?

Isabel’s belief grows into a problem only because of the principle behind it. She wants to remain independent. Initially, it is an acceptable belief. She wants to see the world and learn new things for herself. That independence can be admired and, to her credit, she attempts to retain that goal throughout, refusing Lord Warburton for greater knowledge that comes from independence. Unfortunately, the principle comes to control Isabel herself and she cannot escape her own rules. As Isabel frets over Mr. Touchett’s death, she cannot clearly decide whether she should accept the inherited money. Even earlier than his death, she explains that she wants to live untied to anyone and have a candid if not adventurous life (133-134).

In the same scene, Isabel reveals that she does not logically know her actions. The end becomes to remain free of the influence of others and not to best achieve the dream she has of seeing the world. I fear that her character will become childlike, refusing only because others desire, and placing her in a situation in which others control her by reverse psychology despite all her beliefs that she is independent. The rest of the novel should reveal her outcome, but at the moment, I believe she remains independent only to the extent that she operates opposite of others’ wishes—but never strictly on her own.

It only took me 45 minutes to get wifi and post this blog...

Under the current time constraints, I am afraid I will not be able to impose any sort of order on The Rise of Silas Lapham. 

There are still a few bones to pick with Bromfield Corey and the Corey family order of business (or lack of business).  Bromfield is not characteristic of the Corey family tradition.  This is something we discussed in class, but I have to wonder why he is insistent upon this idle life for himself and his family, and for Tom specifically.  It is perfectly understandable for the two Corey sisters to live a more “idle” life.  To define “idle” as I understand it in this context:  leisurely and comfortable, and frankly it makes me think of a realism version of the contemplative life.  I digress.  As aristocratic women, Bromfield’s daughters would not be expected to undertake any role in business, for their only business is to marry well.  But Tom…Tom is stepping up to the plate for the Coreys again—and yet, Bromfield seems confused as to why Tom should want to.  I do not have the answer for why this is so unappealing to Bromfield, but I am left with many questions.  First, why did Bromfield break the line of working with his hands?  We cannot count his art and portraits because his nobility forbids the selling of it.  Secondly, why is he so keen on Tom not working and remaining in comfortable leisure?  But above all I am wondering why Howells chooses this for his Coreys, this pause in the succession, only for it to pick back up with Tom.  My understanding of functional aristocracy is limited as I myself am a middle-class American; therefore, I comprehend it only in theory with no experiential understanding. 

There seems to be an odd parallel between the two families of Corey and Lapham.  Silas Lapham, like Bromfield Corey, breaks through the typical of his fine heritage when he breaks into the business world with his father’s mineral paint/unfulfilled dream.  On paper, the two families are not extremely different.  What makes them different is the Coreys’ long line of successful ventures probably beginning before they ever arrived in America, whereas Lapham is only getting started for his family (and he is off to a rocky start at that).

More than anything, the novel shows that things are not always so picturesque.  It touches the jagged edge of life where romance has no place.  The world is rarely as we think it should be, and often less exciting.  Sometimes the fabric tears and begins to fray; sometimes the paprika is chili powder; and sometimes no matter how hard we try to force them together, maybe one piece belongs to a different puzzle.  

It's the Economy, Stupid

         Ah, the love triangle, that most wonderful and reverend plot device of social comedies. Shakespeare knew it, Jacob and Rachel experienced it, and Howells includes it The Rise of Silas Lapham, but he uses this familiar trope to demonstrate a philosophical position that would not be out of place in an ethics 101 textbook: “the economy of pain”. It appears in Chapter 18 (XVIII) when the minister Sewell is advising Mr. and Mrs. Lapham on how to handle the fact that Irene loves Tom but Tom loves Penelope causing Penelope to feel guilt for Irene. He ultimately concludes: “One suffer instead of three, if none is to blame? That’s sense, and that’s justice. It’s the economy of pain which naturally suggests itself, and which would insist upon itself, if we were not all perverted by traditions which are the figment of the shallowest sentimentality.”

         So what’s going on here? First, notice that these words are spoken by a preacher, who until this point was not even mentioned nor did he play any significant role in the narrative when suddenly he is brought in as the voice of reason. Like I said in my last post, Howells is no stranger to literary tradition, and he once again follows suit by introducing not only a wise man to offer his counsel but a preacher, which at least goes back to Shakespearian times if not further. Even if the writer isn’t Christian nor attempting to proselytize (more on that later) preachers are widely regarded as men of wisdom and study who, even if the protagonist doesn’t directly follow his advice nor totally change his life, will at least gain a fresh, even calming perspective from the preacher that will hopefully help him resolve his struggle.

         Yet this is a strange sermon that the preacher brings, isn’t it? I hesitate to call it utilitarian or altruistic, but it certainly can be defined by what it rails against, that being sentimentality and idealism. As much as I love Ted Dekker his view of Christianity can be very sentimental, almost completely reliant on the supernatural intervention of God with no realistic human action in certain cases (I’m really only referring to When Heaven Weeps) and Sewell would call this nonsense. Well, that may be conjecture, but then I wonder whether or not Howells himself actually believes in the economy of pain, thus using Sewell as a mouthpiece for a moral lesson, or perhaps, like Dostoevsky, he is simply giving the reader another voice and viewpoint to consider that, although not entirely of his opinion, is crucial to the understanding of the story. The logic of the economy is purely rational, that is, purely mathematical, and assumes that one formula or strategy can apply to all foreseeable situations. It is not designed to defeat human suffering entirely as one might assume but reduce it as much as possible by combating the fallacies of emotional dramatism. At the same time Sewell does not completely ignore the heart, for he reminds them that, though the rest of the world would consider Penelope’s self sacrifice noble and pure, “you know at the bottom of your hearts that it would be foolish and cruel and revolting”.

         Can this logic truly as iron clad as it seems? Can one only trust his most rational judgment and should we expect this of the church as Sewell demands? After all, though we open our hearts and try to take in all of the suffering and pain that we can take in for our brothers and sisters Christian love, there’s only so much good that we can do in difficult situations, so maybe what we need to regulate the production of good… is an economy. Boy, the modernism in that last sentence is stifling; I should open a window…

My Attempt to Impose Order

First of all, I don’t know how in the world I am supposed to “impose order” over Silas Lapham. Like I said last week, the narrative frustrates me to no end. So, imposing order may not actually happen. I’ll do my best though.

If there is anything in this book that is unordered that should be ordered it’s the social statuses represented. In a perfectly ordered society, each person in a specific social class would only mix with other people who are a part of the same social class. Aristocrats would only marry other Aristocrats which would eventually lead to problems with descendants later on down the line. But in a perfectly ordered world this wouldn’t be an issue, at least not in the minds of those who follow the rules of this world.

In Silas Lapham however, those not born into the upper classes are able to mix with and marry into the upper classes. There is no order of classes. There is instead chaos, though the chaos makes sense to those living within the boundaries of these chaotic rules. In some cases this works well. In other cases problems arise. The way the Coreys’ speak versus the way the Laphams’ speak is just one example of the wide gap that exists naturally between those born into the upper class and those who work their way up from the lower class to the upper class.

To be completely honest, the non-ordered way of things is the one that I would choose if I had any control over the way the world was ordered. But in reality, there’s a mix. The upper classes and lower classes do in fact mingle, mix, and intermarry. But for a lot of those born into the upper classes, there is an innate want for things to be perfectly ordered and to stay that way. However, if the world is going to continue to progress, this semi-archaic way of thinking must be stopped.

The Rise of Silas Lapham 2

When we think of The Rise of Silas Lapham, we think of Silas’s rise into money and society. However, it is also his rise into self-respect and self-identity. Yes, he does become very wealthy, but the book is about more than his fortune. Throughout the book we are reminded that the Laphams are just normal people. They deal with the same issues many families deal with. Silas works hard to make a life for himself and his family. Because of his greed he loses almost all of their money, and the family has to move back to Vermont. Although, they suffer financially they come out of the situation “morally renewed”. Through his experience Silas learns to be honest and decent. I look at it as a lesson to all of us trying to make something of ourselves. While it is great to have a nice, comfortable life, there are more important things in life. Family, for example, is one of the most important things in life. I think the moral of the story is to not get so caught up in the material aspects of life, and remember that there are things that come before money.   

Howells Promoted Realism

Howells creates a world in The Rise of Silas Lapham that not only illustrates the change in his characters’ lives, but also instructs the reader about Howells’s own philosophy toward life and literature. Howells himself believed that literature and lifestyle should reflect a realistic, non-fabricated world.

What do I mean by non-fabricated? Non-Romantic. He wanted a world that was authentic. He wanted a world that was not propelled by the emotional highs and lows placed on objects and occasions before they were ever experienced.

Romantics excelled at obscuring the world in favor of their emotions. They often would replace the actual world with a fabricated world that would propel them into ecstasy. Unfortunately for Silas, he and all of the company he pursued also believed that the world was made to find pleasure. At one time, he and his family worked not to please others and not to follow others’ ideas of happiness. After his success, Silas replaced his own values with an ideal that could never be reached. He participated in the race to pleasure through money and social status.

Persis, his wife, represents the problem of the higher social order when they attempt to mix the pursuit of emotional highs with the life of the lower class. Both are trying to decipher where in life they should be, but Persis imposes her own mixed morality onto him. With Silas’s paint success, she believes that they have the opportunity to return to the higher social order in which she began. Doing so propels her family back to a Romantic ideal that promotes emotion above their relationships with the world and with one another. Silas shows how Persis influences him when he proceeds to purchase horrific paintings and horrid houses and later allows everyone to influence his choices.

The danger lies not in the objects themselves, but in the obscuring of the objects with emotional highs. Howells knew this and wanted to return to a world in which people were not provoking unnecessary emotions in places where they did not exist, or searching for emotions in places where they could not be found.

Will

Built to Fall

         One reason why I particularly enjoy Realist stories is that, in their efforts to avoid literary conventions and convey life for what it is, they often end up paying homage to the oldest morals in the Western canon. As the previous short readings A White Heron and Belles Demoiselles Plantation proved, you can tell a gritty, down-to-earth, no nonsense narrative and it STILL be a narrative, charged with purpose and beauty (unlike later attempts in the postmodern era to remove such things from the equation). Howell’s The Rise of Silas Lapham is no different, for by the time you’ve read the first fifth of the novel you already have a sense of how the novel’s going to work itself out – namely, a constant internal struggle between ambition and charity, a difficult social romance, and an ultimate moral decision that may or may not result in the loss of material goods in exchange for better reason.  This is because the novel is telling a story that we already know from tradition, but set in a modern age with new language.

          In the first chapter there are constant references to matters of the conscience, the movement from the shared strife that all American businessmen face in climbing the ladder to personal comfort in success, and the belief posed by Lapham that one must “live and learn”. These facets highlight Lapham’s lack of high-minded moral fiber but also suggest that he is driven by personal ethics and a desire to learn, which will form the backdrop of his struggles in the narrative. Elsewhere in the chapter Bartley comments that Mrs. Lapham has “a lovely, refined, sensitive face! And she looks GOOD, too,” to which Lapham responds “she is good”. This sentence continues to suggest that Lapham has a firm grasp on right and wrong by highlighting the dichotomy of Bartley’s perception of physical beauty with Lapham’s knowledge of human value, with the latter knowing which is right to praise.

          Despite his principles he is not without faults, and those are immediately demonstrated in the next two chapters. The narrator tells the reader that the wealthy Laphams not only spent money on garish frescoes and fineries but they also “went upon journeys, and lavished upon cars and hotels; they gave both hands to their church and to all the charities it brought them acquainted with; but they did not know how to spend on society”. This sets a very Ecclesiastical (the book, I mean) situation where the reader can already infer that one of two things will happen by the novel’s end: they will either lose all of their wealth and have to deal with the consequences, they will increasingly become disillusioned with their fortune as it consumes them, or a combination of the two. There is another quote in Ch. 3 that, in regards to his architect turning all of Lapham’s ideas of home construction on its head, “when he recovered from the daze into which the complete upheaval of all his preconceived notions had left him, he was in a fit state to swear by the architect.” Although the Laphams lack social grace and custom, they are nevertheless pulled and swayed by the fashions of the day, as well as by the internal sense of what successful American families should do. Note that Lapham “had not yet reached the picture-buying stage of the rich man’s development” (emphasis added), suggesting that Lapham, for all of his originality and personal principles, is nevertheless just another sheep in the bourgeois herd, destined for all the same peaks and valleys as anyone other aristocrat and may end up no more valuable than the rest.

           What good is personal ambition in the face of universal homogeneity, when you’ve already set yourself on path of spiritual destruction? How valuable is the life of a man who willingly sets his desires on the same exact fields and streams as everyone else? This story is rather brief and has been told countless times, and we already know where it’s all heading, the only question is how.

Keepin' it Classy

The discussion held on the first day of class concerning America and the middle class did not make sense until now.  The aristocratic world of the Coreys is threatened by the rising nouveau riche of the Laphams and ambitious Americans who would inevitably come after them.  As a nation of middle class: America praises the ones who rise from the bottom, she revels in the story of the self-made man who must to overcome obstacles and social constructs.  Those like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, to name but a few, thrill America because they have access into a life the common folk only dream of achieving. The term “American dream” is not simply a phrase; it means something to those like Gates and Zuckerberg, as it once did to Mr. Jobs.  For them, the dream is hardware, software, and social media, all part of the new frontier; for Lapham, the dream is a gift from the land—but the results are the same. 

Perhaps one could rename the Laphams, the Zuckerbergs; and the Coreys, the Kennedys.  Years down the road, say some Kennedy boy was to fall for a Zuckerberg girl.  Then, their world becomes clearer to outsiders.  The Coreys, like the Kennedys, are a society all their own, contained in tradition and ancestry that enforces noblesse oblige.  Their formalities and etiquette require them to acknowledge the Laphams with a grace that springs from duty, regardless of their sentiments and feelings toward them as people.  Such is evident in the Coreys’ more than generous efforts to extend welcome to the Laphams, in spite of their self-made station in society.  Of course this goes well beyond and is hardly limited to the simple matter of marriage.

Howells’ personal voice seems very much present in several of characters, at least from what is understood of his opinions in the Harper’s articles “False and Truthful Fiction” and “Standards and Taste in Fiction”—most especially in Mr. Sewell:

“The novelists might be the greatest possible help to us if they painted life as it is, and human feelings in their true proportion and relation, but for the most part they have been are altogether noxious” (197). 

Sentimentality, romance, and the “Slop, Silly Slop” kind of self-sacrifice are not welcome in Howells’ world of fiction, and frankly it is difficult to disagree with the man on this point. 

Limitless Paint in a Paintless World

I absolutely love the undertones of humor in Silas Lapham. Howells is a genius of subtle, situational comedy. The interview for “Solid Men of Boston” that brilliantly opens the novel, introduces the two main themes: social status and ethical business manners. The Lapham parents offer their daughters a chance to live like millionaire’s daughters, but the girls could care less. The daughters are aware that their family is different from the other Bostonians with old money. Bartley sees evidence this false sense of aristocracy as the interview progresses and the reader is given a glimpse of even more evidence through flashbacks. 

Silas’ love of his mineral paint business ruins him for actually making anything of it. Had he loved it less, he might have been able to share in his business instead of attempting to hoard his success. This is where the difference between love and obsession come into play. There is love in letting go. He has no problem letting his daughters go and marrying because he truly loves them and he wants them to prosper and have lives of their own, but he wants his paint business for himself with no help. The funny thing is, there would be no paint business had it not been for his wife, his father, and Roger- the three people who supposedly are not as passionate about mineral paint as Silas. But it is this passion and Michael Scott-like sense of decision making skills that ultimately drive his business into the ground. This “passion” is also sporadic and fleeting for Silas, as is typical of passions. “He continued a dilenttante, never quite abandoning his art, but working at it fitfully, and talking more about it than working at it.” Discipline is necessary in any art, even wall paint. This particular quote reminded me of a starving artist who has run out of ideas for new paintings and is awaiting inspiration. The contrast of selling the cousin of an artist’s medium and applying it to the world of business results in a man whose motivation cannot keep up with his ambition.

I feel for Silas, and I hope to learn from his mistakes. Do NOT try to pursue your dream alone.

On a side tangent, I think that the reason Irene and Penelope both fell for the same man is the lack of a sensible, “solid” man in their life, and Tom is the opposite of their father. Sorry, Freud.

This might be a stretch, but it cracks me up that their last name is Lapham. Get it? Laugh at ‘em! No? Ok…

Woman's Role in The Rise of Silas Lapham

While I don’t want to be “that girl” that always brings up the topic of woman’s position in a novel, it is interesting to me to note the expectations and particular admirations of women mentioned in The Rise of Silas Lapham.

The first mention of a woman in the book is Colonel Lapham’s mother. He describes her to Bartley as a hard working woman who, much to his amazement, was a wonder in her domestic duties. She was not afraid of work, and she often stayed up through the night finishing her chores. Interestingly, Mr. Lapham refers to his wife in a very similar manner. He remembers their young days when they first started the paint company. She had been a very active part of the company and a close companion when it came to business decisions.  Later in life she had abstained from being involved in the business for the most part. In Chapter four the narrator reveals the thoughts of Mr. Lapham on this topic saying,

 “Mr. Lapham was proud of his wife, and when he married her it had been a rise in life for him…The girl who taught school with a clear head and a strong hand was not afraid of work; she encouraged and helped him from the first, and bore her full share of the common burden. She had health, and she did not worry his life out with peevish complaints and vagaries; she had sense and principle, and in their simple lot she did what was wise and right” (49).

It seems like the author is elevating the image of a hard working, sensible, woman. I have no problem with that, but what might the society of the author’s time think of this woman?

This is perhaps one of the core concerns in the novel. What is the role of an aristocratic woman? Since the Laphams became wealthy, there was then no need for her to employ her worker-bee efficiency. What should Mrs. Lapham do?  It seems like the novel indicates Mrs. Lapham herself did not know the answer to this question. Though she invited people over and did all the womanly things she was supposed to do, she could not quite seem to fit herself into the role of a wealthy woman. 

I cannot quite trace all the implications in her character, however I am interested to learn about the value of work and the value of society's standards in tension here. It will be interesting to learn more about the culture of the time in order to fully evaluate this tension found in the story.  

Class Clash in "The Rise of Silas Lapham"

                                                (The Condemning Class Struggle)

            Silas Lapham is a self-made man of wealth who is hesitant to depend on others for help, especially when it comes to his mineral paint business. Persis, his wife, has supported him through the years and Silas has learned to take her opinions into careful consideration. Howells uses Silas so highlight class distinction and struggle of the self-made man in America during the mid 1900's. As the reader follows Silas through the story and feels his pains via Howell's down-to-earth, homespun writing style, the reader is pulled into the struggle of the business world. This is where emotions can be unstable, especially for country-raised people such as the Laphams. Silas is a stubborn and passionate man, and the only thing more important than his business is his wife, though they do not always see eye to eye. Through Silas, the reader sees that sometimes people who are not upper class material can never truly rise to the ranks of the wealthy in regards to the social standing, and this is because the average man cannot be more than average if he strives to become something he is not. The truly middle class man can never stand in the social circles of the upper class, because they are beyond his reach.

          

              Tom Corey comes from a wealthy family that has retained its wealth and social standing for three generations. This man decides to work for Silas because he sees the opportunity to begin making a life for himself, instead of living off of his parents' money for the rest of his life. He is hard-working and sincere, but even though he is a good worker for Silas he ultimately drives a wedge that further makes this class distinction a prominent struggle in the novel. He means well and falls in love with the oldest Lapham girl, Penelope, but he also stresses Silas out because Silas knows the type of family he comes from; not matter what Silas does, he can never be on equal standing with the Corey's. Even though he is in the process of building a lavish house in order to rise to their level. This is impossible because he is carved from a different kind of wood than they are. He is from the country, specifically Vermont, and he grew up as a hard-working country boy who was not built for fitting in with the upper crust of Boston. This becomes painfully obvious at the dinner with the Coreys when he gets unintentionally drunk while telling war stories. When he realizes what happened the following day he becomes mortified in front of Tom Corey and feels unworthy to be Tom's boss. This is truly a breaking point for Silas, because he blew his one chance to attempt fitting in with the Coreys in their social circle.

            Silas has a personality that makes being a true upper class Bostonian impossible. He is sensible and shrewd, but is not the most intelligent businessman. He struggles with the complexities of the business world because he continually, though accidentally, makes foolish investments. He gambles with the stock market, in an effort to make quick money, and it backfires on him because he rushed into said investments. This is just one example of his brash investments. He loses money by investing in his ex-partner, and this investments pushes him past the point of fiscal recovery. His fall from wealth reaches its lowest point when the house he was building catches on fire and is completely destroyed. At this point the reader knows that there is no way for Silas to recover his lost money and save his paint company, which is in the process of being out-competed by another young mineral paint company. This is the fall of Silas, and he cannot climb up from the depths of this plunge into a financial crisis. In the end, he cuts his losses, moves back to Vermont with his wife and youngest daughter, and lets Penelope marry Tom, which will pull her up the social ladder.

            One of the other things that highlights the class struggle in this novel is the pervading sense of aestheticism. Silas is the least aesthetic man in the entire Boston area. His original plans for his huge house are distasteful and unrefined. The architect refines them though and produces plans for a house that will look quite nice. Silas is a romantic though, which is why he believes that enough wealth will bring his family happiness. He originally thinks that Corey is interested in his youngest daughter, who is more beautiful than his oldest, whereas Corey is more attracted to Penelope because she has more common sense and book smarts than her younger, prettier sister. This provides an immediate contrast between the Laphams and the Coreys. The former is romantic and the latter is realistic. Practicality beats beauty in the upper circles of Boston. Silas is not a caveman, but he is much less cultured than the Coreys, which further emphasizes that the upper class is composed of aesthetics who know how to appreciate true beauty. He does not like books, but prefers lectures and only a handful of plays, which he goes to mainly for the sake of culturing his daughters. His wealth is all he has, so when he loses that he no longer has any way of even trying to be one of the elites. Ironically enough though, he gets more peace through the loss of his money than he ever had while he was at his wealthiest. This is because he learns that family is the most important thing and as long as he has just enough money to get by then his family can bring him more happiness than anything else. Silas is at his happiest when he no longer is struggling with trying to become something that he is not. Howells uses him to show the reader that sometimes one cannot win in the class struggle game and that every self-made man must find true happiness in the social position that he already possesses. The ultimate irony of this novel is the title, The Rise of Silas Lapham, because Silas tragically falls in the financial world and through this fall he rises as an individual, from the depths of selfishness and personal worth based on finance, to the heights of newfound personal worth once he can no longer to pretend being an upper crust Bostonian when he is a middle class family man from Vermont at heart. 

A Woman

Howells narrative style frustrates me to no end. I had a great deal of difficulty following the plot-line. However, Silas’ statement to Bartley concerning women intrigued me greatly. His claim that: “Most of us marry little girls who grow up to look like women” (14). On one side, this makes just a little sense. I mean, there are plenty of women who are considered to be adults by society but who instead enjoy acting like teenagers holding grudges. On the flip side though, are the women who aren’t.  There are some teenagers who act five times older than women five times their age. Then, there is Mrs. Lapham. There are definitely times where she seems to exude this air of “woman” that Silas claims she is. Other times though, she seems to act just like that little girl who has grown up to only look like a woman. She inserts herself into every aspect of his business, when she can, but she doesn’t always make the best business decisions.
           

  The Lapham children are very much like their mother as well. Some of the time they act like little girls who know nothing of the world around them, the rest of the time they have this worldly-wise air about them. Penelope loves reading, but was only able to finish grammar school a year later than everyone else her age, as is her sister Irene. Irene, is incredibly beautiful but doesn’t even acknowledge her beauty at first, she doesn’t even seem to know that she is as beautiful as everyone finds her to be.

I think Silas’ statement to Bartley early on is not completely true. In fact, I think that every woman is sometimes the little girl who only looks like a woman and at other times is in fact the woman that she looks like. And I think that Howells proves this in his depiction of the Lapham women.

Breaking the Aristocratic Cycle

The characters William Dean Howells creates live in an overwhelmingly aristocratic world. The way in which they operate toward one another quickly grows into a sickening affair founded on hearsay and opinions about themselves that they believe others share, but some characters find hope to begin a new cycle.

Characteristic of many stereotypical aristocratic environments, the Coreys’ beliefs emerge from their reaction to the trivialities of life. Intelligence, justice, and even beauty fall aside to make room for characteristics like proper social operation and birthright. Throughout the novel, Mrs. Corey dissuades Tom from associating with the Laphams in business or relationship. Bromfield, too, diminishes the importance of honesty and sound financial strategy because the Coreys who practice it do not have the proper pedigree.

The Laphams act in an inverted, but not always opposite, routine than do the Coreys. They care less for the frills that come from prestigious birth (likely because they do not possess any for themselves) and more for the self-satisfaction that comes from a climbing financial status. Their entirely subjective fashion choices during their early life in the novel prove that they operate without regard for others. Silas epitomizes the attitude with his uncomely choice in housing design in the midst of a socially ordered neighborhood. The aesthetic choices reflect his internal personality. When his business is jeopardized, many escapes appear that any sensible businessman of the time would have chosen, he adheres to his own choices—honorable, yes, but perhaps also prideful. He would rather sink with his ship than protect his business partner and family. His conscious paints him as a thief and murderer afterward, suggesting that he is not entirely convinced that he should pursue the high-flown social order (p. 332).

The Laphams and Coreys both participate in a distanced judgment of the other parties. The parents’ advice to their children grows primarily from illogical—or sometimes overly logical—evaluations of others’ actions. The mothers fabricate meaning from things that may be normally considered passive or subconscious. Their perceptions create a world in which no one truly knows the others nor do they care to know. Every person acts rightly in his or her own mind while the others are less than proper.

Tom and Penelope represent the generation striving to break the pattern their parents had entered. Although they participate in the game by telling every meeting’s affairs to their parents and requesting explanations, they eventually desert the things that are expected as “right” or “best” (p. 357-358). Penelope’s eventual abandonment of her image for love shows that the cycle of self-made perceptions and the necessity for them may be broken.

Will