heels-杀出一条血路
Henry
James’
Social
Position in 19
th
Century
---Reasons of Henry
James’
Unpopularity in
19
th
Century
Abstract:
pared
with
Mark
Twain,
Henry
James
seems
to
gain
less
fame
in
19
th
century.
Several
reasons
attribute
to
his
unpopularity.
This
article
analyses
these
reasons from internal
and external facets. And we can see Henry
James’ personality
in
his
masterpiece
The
Portrait
of
A
Lady,
which
is
the
internal
factors
bound
to
unpopularity. Otherwise, the influence
of his family, his experience to Europe, as such
external factors also make
contributions to his unpopularity.
Key words: Mark Twain, Henry James,
unpopularity, internal, external, personality.
Ⅰ
.
Internal reasons:
1.
Henry
James’
personality:
In
most
of
Henry
James’
novels
,
he
depicts
females
successfully.
Female
perspective can be
manifested obviously. His novels are highly
refined and insightful.
With
a large vocabulary, he is
always accurate in word
selection, trying to
find
the
best
expression
for
his
literary
imagination.
Besides,
he
is
one
of
the
founders
and
leaders of a school of
realism in fiction, and he conducts the
conscience-of-science.
Then, we doubt
why he is shameful in his period. From The
Portrait of A Lady, we
can see Henry
James’
personality
attributed to his unpopularity. In fact,
Isabel’
s image
is
Henry
James’
uppermost reflection.
Isabel
herself is
paradoxical
in the pursuit
of
freedom. On the one hand, Isabel
doesn
’
t want to begin her
destiny with marriage, but
it
seems
the
woman’s
unavoidable
destiny
which
involves
her
with
the
constant
suitors. Henry
James shapes the figure so lively. So that we are
likely to confess that
James tends to
be emotional and sentimental. These
characteristics are not allowed in
the
field of literature, people don’
t
appreciate sentimental feelings much at that time.
2.
James’
treachery to America:
As
we
all
know,
Henry
James
is
an
American.
However,
he
changes
his
nationality into English
because of his dissatisfaction toward American
behaviors in
the
World
War
Ⅰ
.
As
a
result,
he
bees
an
American-born
British
author.
Maybe
American couldn
’
t
stand
James’
betray. Thus
leads to his unpopularity.
3.
The difficulty in
understanding of Henry
James’
novels:
His
novels
are
highly
refined
and
insightful.
With
a
large
vocabulary,
he
is
always accurate in
word
selection, trying to
find
the best
expression for his
literary
imagination.
In
19
th
century,
America
is
a
newly-
developed
country,
politics,
economics,
especially
culture
are
not
formed
stably.
For
Henry
James,
his
relative
novels
appear
to
be
harsh
to
understand.
People
are
fond
of
reading
Mark
Twain
’
s
novels, which one of the reasons is the
simplification and amusement in his novels.
This is what Mark Twain is prior to
Henry James.
Ⅱ
.
External reasons:
1.
Family influence:
Henry James was born in a wealthy
family, whose father was a philosopher and
brother
a
prominent
philosopher
and
psychologist.
Both
his
father
and
his
brother
were rather strict to Henry James. In return,
James felt very depressed
living
in
the
family.
In
order
to
escape
the
controlling,
he
moved
to
Europe.
Family also influences
James’
twisted personality-
he
doesn’t
know how to deal
with personal relationship. Besides, he
seems to have the tendency of gay. He
just
flees
when
confronting
problems.
This
may
be
why
the
public
are
not
familiar
with him. Certainly, he is unpopular to citizens.
2.
Culture
collision:
In
the
era
of
Henry
James,
America
is
a
newly-developed
country.
James
’
unpopularity is the right evidence of
American innocence in face of European
sophistication.
Different
peoples
have
their
respective
cultures,
which
are
unique in the world.
However, European sophistication
doesn’t
have patibility
with American innocence. Henry James is
likely to be regarded as the victim of
this
cultural
collision.
Because
of
his
American-
style
writing,
Henry
James
couldn’t
be
accepted
by
the
other
side
of
Atlantic.
But,
Henry
James,
to
our