Sunday, February 19, 2012
Will the Princess Casamassima destroy the working-class hero?
Part 3 of Henry James's "The Princess Casamassima" begins with the working-class radical Hyacinth Robinson visiting the country estate that the P.C. has rented for the summer - he's never seen a place of such luxury and beauty, feels very out of place and strange, she's her typical eccentric and off-putting self, has her officious butler waiting on Hyacinth, which makes him even more uncomfortable, he has no idea how to ac around servants, gives word she'll see him at such and such a time, meanwhile her companion, Madame Gandolfi (?) tells H. not to get his hopes up, she often fails to keep appointments, but the P.C. does in fact meet with H. and takes him (along with Madame G.) for a carriage ride around the property, and keeps trying to persuade him to stay longer - she has no comprehension that he has to work to earn a living (typical of so many Jamesian characters, but in this case she poses as an ally of the workers), at last offers to pay him to work for her, which he decides to accept. The meeting that H. was headed to with the radical German at the end of part 2 is entirely glossed over, so we have no idea what kind of plot of scheme H. has pledged himself to engage in - he's like a ticking time bomb. The question is, will the P.C. destroy him, deracinate him, dominate and control him - or will he destroy her and her kind? James has never do directly or powerfully taken on the issue of class conflict: what a surprise, coming from this author!
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