The drama of discrimination in Henry James' The Ambassadors

Résumé du document

The Ambassadors is clearly a novel: the novel is free, and has the most elastic form. We could be tempted to say that there is no drama in the work. In fact, drama has different meanings. First, it is the name of theatrical plays of a particular kind or period. Secondly, it can mean a situation or succession of events having the dramatic progression or emotional effects on the characteristic of a play, or the quality or condition of it being dramatic. It is a term often refered to by the critics. The drama has links to both feelings and appearances. James gives himself this expression in a passage of the preface to which we will try and give a relevant sense all along this lecture: "The actual man's note, from the first of our seeking it struck, is the note of discrimination, just as the drama is to become, under stress, the drama of discrimination. It would have been his blest imagination, we have seen, that had already helped him to discriminate ; the element that was for so much of the pleasure of my cutting thick, as I have intimated, into his intellectual, into his moral substance."

Extraits

[...] He identifies (VIII, a process , somewhere deept down and feels altered and strange He is integrated as notices Mme de Vionnet (VIII, He has become one of us in a marvellous way Thus, The world of commonplace is no longer his world, and he is too late to size the other; he is old, he has missed the opportunity of youth (Percy Lubbock) But he forms another project and advises Chad against returning home to become a man of business That is why, when Chad is finally ready to return home (His conditions to Sarah is that he will agree to return home if Strether gives him the world), Strether asks Chad to enjoy Paris for a while longer. In the end, the ambassador is captivated by Parisian life. Finally, according to Millicient Bell, in Meaning in The Ambassadors« He and Chad have changed places »because during the «solitary country walk, Strether realises the real nature of the liaison between Chad and Mme de Vionnet and that's when he knows that Chad will go back home and marry Mammie. So Strether loses them too. As he says have lost everything- it is my own logic '. [...]

[...] However, discrimination has not this single meaning. On the one hand, it is the act of discriminating, that is basing treatment or consideration not on individual merit but on other criteria. And, on the other hand, it is the ability or power to see or make fine distinctions: the discernment. Towards what, or whom is there any discrimination in the novel and what does it reveal in those who categorise like that? Why could we speak of a drama: because it provokes some dramatic emotions in the characters, or because we can notice some elements relating to theatrical play in the text? [...]

[...] That's why she exerts a discrimination towards Mme de Vionnet, symbol of Paris A revelation?[ . ] You talk to me about ‘distinction'[ . ] when the most distinguished woman we shall either of us have seen in this world sits there insulted, in her loneliness, by your incredible comparison! It is the voice of Woolett . Strether establishes a gap with Woolett, and at the end of the novel, renounces to his marriage with Mrs Newsome, and would like to come back to America but to start a new life, as if Woollett definitely belongs to his past. [...]

[...] To her shock, Strether rejects her bargain to come home with Chad. But Sarah stay very determined, and has an obstinate position based upon a prejudgment and refused to compromise. Although, like Strether, Sarah has already been to Paris before, she is not fascinated at all by the society and the town's atmosphere, nor is she by the Countess. Furthermore, she tells Strether that she does not perceive any change in Chad but an awful one. Finally, the two characters, Sarah and Waymarsh, perfectly embody the New World, and are regarded as different in Parisian society, and especially Waymarsh, as some curiosities. [...]

[...] It has some dramatic, emotional consequences on Strether. The place, first, and the different persons he meets, then, transform him. He makes comparisons with his previous life and progressively establishes a gap with Woollett. The discrimination can thus be seen in the two directions: from Woolett to Paris, and from Paris to Woolett, although it has been instigating by new England. The drama finally takes place inside Strether, who looks at himself as if the man he was before has disappeared: He makes an important distinction between his previous life and who he is henceforth. [...]