Washington Square
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Washington Square is a compact, tightly constructed story that focuses with almost unwavering gaze upon the Sloper family, or more particularly, on Catherine Sloper, a sweet, ordinary, rather dull young lady who falls in love with a man her father is convinced loves her purely for the inheritance she stands to gain upon his death. This early novel of Henry James' alternates between biting, witty exchanges amongst the characters and introspective, sensitive exploration of the feelings and thoughts of Catherine and her father. The narrator - never named, though at times he is quite chatty towards the reader - chooses not to take sides, instead displaying the different facets of each character as they are, leaving questions of personality and intent up to the reader.
It is usual in a novel involving a young lady and a potentially disastrous suitor that the female in question be beautiful, intelligent, resourceful, kind - even if she doesn't know it. These stories tend to follow her development from innocent to experienced, which is one of the many reasons why Washington Square plays out so differently. Catherine is, we are told, 'not ugly; she had simply a plain, dull, gentle countenance. The most that had ever been said for her was that she had a "nice" face'. Later, her father compares Catherine's intelligence to that of a bundle of shawls. He often laments Catherine's lack of qualities, and so does Catherine, and so does everyone else. She is a submissive, almost subservient in her attitudes, willing to submerge her ideas - if she has any - and bend with the will of her father. Enter love, however, and slowly a change begins to take place.
Morris Townsend is the man Catherine falls for. She had never experienced the interest of a male before, indeed, her life seems to have been somewhat sheltered. When Morris enters her life Catherine's father, Dr Sloper, who never had much hope for his daughter, becomes determined to prevent them from marrying. Sloper is the type of father who wishes a specific future for his child, so they will 'be happy', and yet when their happiness chooses a different direction, they become stubborn, obstinate, and, in this case, quite hurtful and damaging.
Neither Morris nor Dr Sloper are particularly admirable characters. Granted, both are intelligent and even charming, with the novel's most enjoyable moments coming from the interaction between the two. They snipe at one another during their very clever exchanges where epigrams fly and bon mots are thrown about with abandon. However, Morris is shown - rather bluntly - to be interested in Catherine's money and not herself, which he finds tiresome, and Dr Sloper is concerned with breaking the tiny backbone that has emerged from he knows not where within Catherine's heart.
Do we love Catherine? Is that the intent of this novel? The answer is - no. Catherine truly is plain, in the sense that there isn't much to her. She is confused by the larger forces in her life which seem to determine the direction of her future without any real input from herself. She believes that both Morris and her father have her best interests at heart, even when it is clear to the reader they do not. Whenever poor Catherine dares to speak her mind, Morris or her father are ready and willing to stamp it down. Her father can be quite manipulative. After asking Catherine to give Morris away, he says, 'Have you no faith in my wisdom, in my tenderness, in my solicitude for your future?', and later, when she stands by her man, he asks, 'You make nothing of my judgment, then?' Poor Catherine is left to wonder what to think, when all she knows is she loves her father and wants to marry Morris.
During the course of the novel, Catherine develops attitudes which distinctly reject her father's plans, but she also, to the surprise of Morris, refuses to go along with everything he says, either. There is a clear impression throughout the work that, should she choose Morris, she will be exchanging one master for another - the names may change, but the overall life of Catherine will not.
Henry James is known for his dense - some call it impenetrable - prose, and for his fondness for deeply exploring the inner workings of his characters. Washington Square is slightly different to his others works in this regard, perhaps because it is an earlier novel. The prose can be quite circumlocutory, with multiple clauses embedded within a single sentence, long rambling comma filled descriptions and niceties of expression that seem to exist purely to avoid stating the blunt truth of the matter. But it is these techniques which serve also to highlight the confusing world around Catherine, and the difficulty she finds in untangling the intention of the two very strong men who wish to control her life. James, at his best, is a phenomenal writer, and happily for the reader of Washington Square he is completely in charge of the material. The narrator is confident in expressing the feelings and thoughts of the major and minor characters, using tact, grace, eloquence and insight to create his little portraits.
Whether or not Catherine will marry Morris and defy her novel, though an important part of the novel, is not the primary thrust of James' work. It seems clear from the outset the direction the story will take, and this initial belief becomes true. Where the strengths of the story lie is in the growing independence of Catherine, her understanding of herself as a person capable of expressing intent and determining the direction of her life by herself. Catherine is an innocent in a world which is, invariably, destructive towards such people. She learns this the hard way, but there is something undeniably 'Catherine' that remains, even to the bitter end. Washington Square, while not a masterpiece on the level of The Portrait of a Lady, nevertheless explores its theme well, and does so with an assured hand. Catherine's life, though somber and small by today's standards, does evoke sympathy within the reader. The final line is very sad, because it was inevitable, and because, deep down, the reader knows that it is the best life Catherine could have had.
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Where To Start Reading Henry.
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Forget the old Warner Brothers movie THE HEIRESS. The screenwriters ultimately didn't understand Catherine Sloper, the heroine of WASHINGTON SQUARE, the Henry James novel they adapted.
Henry James himself excluded this early work from the so-called NEW YORK EDITION of his works. I suspect Catherine was so much like himself he felt embarrassed for having created her.
Nevertheless, this is a straightforward novel. The experimentation of James's later work certainly is not here, but there is an astonishing determination. It was only his second or third novel.
It's about Catherine and her father. Too much has been made of the fact that Catherine's in a world which strives to crush her. James wishes to show us how one person can menace another; even his own daughter. This is what THE HEIRESS misses. It tries to make Catherine's suitor and her aunt villainous. They're fools, not villains.
What drives the plot is the question of whether or not Catherine will survive her father's bloodless cruelty.
Readers interested in the history of New York City will be intrigued by the description of Catherine's meddling aunt walking past construction sites where now-famous buildings stand. Henry James grew up on Washington Square. He's looking back at his own foundations, as it were.
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Totally Lovely
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I read this book for my A Level class and to begin with we found it a bit wordy and did not identify with Catherine Sloper in the slightest. I am pleased to say that this is one book that improves with further study. I have now completed University and so haven't had an opportunity to re-read Washington Square as often as I would like. But it is a book that is remarkably easy to read over and over again, each time finding yourself identifying with Cathering more and more. The story itself is tragic. A sweet, shy girl, painfully aware that she is neither clever nor pretty. Desperate to please a father who fails to appreciate the more important qualities she does possess. The one man who pays her any attention is revealed to be a heartless gold digger and her aunt seems more interested in imagining a dramtic romance between the two than whether or not her neice is hurt. The gentleness and subtlety of the story is reflected in Catherine's nature and both benefit from being read carefully and repeatedly in order to derive the full meaning.
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Excellent Read
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This was one of James' finest creations. The budding romance stiffled by the protective father, a reoccuring trauma in every day life brought magnificantly to life in this novel
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A woman's life
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An excellent, short novel that probes the traditionally most important events of a woman's life -- her marriage opportunities. James portrays a woman who is as much the victim in society of her lack of beauty as she is of the two men in her life: a father who is at best negligent and often overtly cruel and a fortune-hunter who is breathtaking to behold but morally empty. James has the courage to demonstrate through Dr. Sloper's character (the father) the hardness and even abusiveness with which men treated women who lacked beauty or great wit. And he added a swain who pretended to treat the heroine in a finer manner, but who was merely after her money. Catherine Sloper learns her lessons slowly but seemingly well. Written beautifully, James has a small masterpiece of social commentary here, with a fair and objective presentation of one woman's life. Delightful to read, but sad that the heroine must cease to search for happiness merely because men have taught her not to trust their protestations of love.
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