Henry James on Edith Whartons: Belated Souls

Within Henry James' essay he writes about creating believable characters, how important it is to have the readers cling to them so that they can put themselves inside the story. In Edith Wharton's Belated Souls there isn't any characters that seems too out there for one too connect with. We can all understand being in a relationship, friendship or romantic, that becomes repetitive and boring persay, then when someone new and exciting comes along they grab our attention, it's human nature. Even the very setting is realistic, Wharton doesn't add anything extreme enough to push the reader out of the story and question where the character was coming from; each one of her characters has a purpose, a reason for what they say or do she doesn't add random people in the story.
Wharton's ending isn't really the "fairy tale" ending either,to the point that Lydia leaves her boring husband to travel the world and ends up getting married to Gannet it is, but there is another part of it that seems different on how they come to the idea of getting married. It's almost as if there is a part of them that hates the very idea of getting married espically Lydia, except she finds herself coming back to marry instead of being alone. James talks about the ending shouldn't be as "mechanical" as most of them have been instead you should get something out of it. The reader questions almost why she goes back, she hates the idea of marriage and almost everything it stands for yet she chooses it over trying to find love again. I know it sounds like I'm contradicting myself from the first paragraph to this one but Wharton still doesn't bump the reader out instead she makes them wonder why they wouldn't choose the same path that Lydia does. I think that's really what James was saying about the ending and how it should have a point not just a finsih. With hers makes the reader examin themselves and their own ideas.
Also in Souls Belated there's a main storyline of how these two run away together only to become the very thing they had once mocked, but there's more to the novel then that. She also introduces at the hotel a couple, The Lintons, that are in the same lie and predictament that they find themselves in; but Warton also makes sure that there are a few couples that stand for everything that Lydia hates and yet she sides with them. It shows a very different part of Lydia and Gannetts character that wasn't available in the begining and maybe even starts to show them changing. It gives the novel more than just the blunt storyline, adding the color that Henry James talks about on pg 564 in The Art of Fiction.

Summerized Henry James

Henry James' critical essay "The Art of Fiction" is about how writers face problems when creating fictional novels. How novels used to be seen as novels and that's it, not anymore or less (pg556: "a novel is a novel, as pudding is a pudding.) but now readers take everything they read to heart, unknowing whether it is true or not. James also come to contradict himself because he says that you should write about what you know (End of pg558) yet he is appalled when Anthony Trollope tells his readers that his characters and events are make beleive (pg556). He also relates literature and writers to artist and the creations they make, showing how the two have many similaraties on how the readers/viewers emotionally connect with their peices of work. Yet with artwork you know what it is, and you take it for that; whereas when people read novels they aren't always aware of the mistrust that authors may use, and the readers may be hurt without any knowledge. He goes on to address endings and how there are different views on what makes a good ending whether you're they type who likes the "happy ending" with marraige, babies, ect. Or if you're the type who beleives a good ending has that of a fufillment to it, knowing that even though it didn't work out in the end the character still defined who they were. He ends that section with the idea that fairy tale endings are endless but whats important is that a voice has come out in the ending. He touches on how quilckly characters are being produced and that there are more bad than good, that today it is easier to make a crappy character then take the time to evolve and produce one that can make an impact;beleiving that they must be realistic for the readers to relate to. It allows the readers to become apart of the novel, and really embrace the story that they are living through the characters. As we hit the next part of his essay he discusses the differences of the story which is believed to be the essence of the novel; the actual purpose of the novel. But there is more than just story to a novel, you need the mystery the details that make the story interesting; that allows you to become involved within the novel. He wraps it up with the obvious statement that a great novel depends on the mind that it is written from.

Test Post

Checking, just to make sure