Dear Serial Readers,
Today we conclude the six-part serial by Henry James. I found these final chapters of WASHINGTON SQUARE quietly satisfying, like Catherine Sloper herself. She rallies forth in her own quiet but determined way to refuse the two men who have refused or disappointed her, her father and her lover. She refuses to accommodate her father's wishes that she marry eventually and she refuses to promise him that she won't marry Morris, because she has no desire to satisfy a father who has disappointed her in his low regard for her. But Catherine also refuses Morris's renewed proposal after some decades. In that finale, she tells Morris that she didn't marry because she didn't "wish to" and that she had "nothing to gain." It's true that her father reduced her inheritance because she refused to make the promise he required, but she has enough money and property, and a comfortable life. She's a spinster by choice, and as such James gives us a new kind of heroine. I'm also intrigued by Catherine's "ancient facility of silence"--she's a woman of few words (in contrast to the babbling Mrs. P.) and yet her quiet determination speaks volumes.
As other Serial Readers have noted, we have some interesting gender reversals--it is Catherine who is the strong, silent type, not noted for her physical beauty or charms, but deeply attracted to these qualities in Morris, whose body and face (both young and middle-aged) get far more words in this story than does Catherine's. And she enjoys material independence--she has the money which Morris must marry into because of his seeming inability to make money himself--again a position more typical of women. So, again, I found Catherine's life at the end, even with that "morsel of fancy-work," quietly satisfying because she has refused both men's wishes and because she does have a life of financial autonomy and activity--not to mention that Washington Square home! Your thoughts?
Please join the next serial, Serial Readers! You can sign up for installments of Dickens's CURIOSITY SHOP via "Mousehold Words" (see sidebar) by requesting the e-delivery of TWO installments per week! Next week, chapters one and two! See the next post too!
Serially celebrating (Dickens at 200),
Susan
1 comment:
I don't have much to add, other than to say yes, and yes! I also was satisfied by the end. I was quite glad that Catherine did not promise her father anything, and that she was able to keep her home and to continue to house her aunt and to live on her own. I was glad that others had wanted to marry her. I'm interested in why she didn't want to; in part the novel does its best to keep the reader guessing until the end as to whether she will end up with Morris. I like that he is handsome in middle age *and* that he has failed at business (my vindictiveness there). It is deeply satisfying to see Catherine reject him, and also satisfying that she had no need to but would have been happy to just never see him again.
I wonder how disturbed contemporary readers would have been to have a heroine not marry. There was a time in my life when I would have hated it. And even now, I wish Catherine had had a happier life with more affection from others, romantic or otherwise. But it's quite satisfying, as Susan says, that after her father's death she can support herself in the same lifestyle she had with her father. And I enjoy imagining the city moving up to greet her.
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