Henry James Journal

Fady Keilo
2/19/09
Eng 48B
Henry James Journal

“He worked for a living, however, and lacked the experiences of select schools, university, and army service, the common bonds of masculine society. He was furthermore a man whose tastes and interests were, according to the prevailing standards of Victorian era Anglo-American culture, rather feminine, and who was shadowed by the cloud of prejudice that then and later accompanied suspicions of his homosexuality.” (www.wikipedia.org)

During the period of time that Henry James lived in, his position in society was quite a strange one. As an expatriated American, Henry James lived in the very rigid structured social ladder of British society of the time. As the son of a fairly wealthy theologian and intellectual of the 19th century, Henry James was exposed to European society at a fairly young age as he traveled across Europe for long periods of time. Having lived in European society for over two dozen years, Henry James visited America for the first time in twenty five years in 1905. As a protest to his country not joining the war on the Allied side, fighting against the Central powers, James officially expatriated America and became a British subject.

As a writer about American society and the comparisons and contrasts that it shares with European society, James is famous for comparing the often beautiful, civilized, but corrupt Old World with the bold, brash, and often aggressive American style of society. However, more than just that, James is famous for a lot of his works and the allusions to the feminist movement and other equality based themes. As an American man in Europe, James wrote very often about the trials and tribulations of the feminist movement and was often attacked for it. Not known for having any kind of the more common masculine bonds with other men in society, such as school or army service, James was often ridiculed and accused of being a homosexual, as if it were a negative thing (which back in the days, and to a lesser extent, even today, is a very prevalent notion). Add to that the fact that James was famous for writing about feminist topics and novels about the struggles of women, and the fact that the majority of James male friends and accomplices were either openly or suspected homosexuals and bisexuals, and you get a rather controversial figure in American and Trans-Atlantic writings that is hotly debated ‘til this day. It’s quite strange that upon reading about James and his biography, I find that although James is very famous for his writings, it seems he is almost just as famous for his “queer” (strange) lifestyle (pun intended ) and the controversies surrounding his lifestyle. Furthermore, for an American to expatriate and become a British subject seems to be a very daring and controversial move for an author.