The Subtext of Violence in Henry James The Wings of theDove: The Sacri

The Subtext of force-out in Henry pile The locomote of the dive The Sacrificial CrisisA reading of Henry James 1902 novel The Wings of theDove is particularly fitting for this restitution ofSchuylkill for several reasons. This after-hours novel is rife withrepresentations of multiple, often overlapping overt positionsthat the close reader is forced to reckon with. These subjectpositions include, but are non limited to, James as authorand as a self-referring subject of the novels Preface,who perceives and performs out of doors of the designation of author.The reader must also consider James unreliable vote counter as asubject who engages as both detached observer and protagonist,and whose equivocal transformation of events includes labyrinthineaccounts of the contents of other characters consciousness. Andfinally, we the reader, are rendered subject to our make ambivalentinterpretation of events. James complex representation of so manysubject positions has, not surprisingl y, earned his late work thereputation of being difficult. However the student of humansubject formation enjoys a uniquely Jamesian-inspired jouissanceif he or she is persistent and enjoys a good slow read.In this paper I hope to show how James offers the reader aparticipatory glance into the complex mechanics of human subjectformation. I argue that The Wings of the Dove re-presentswhat anthropological literary critic Rene Girard terms thesacrificial crisis, an act of strength that is endorsed andenacted by a community--a bloody ritual whose sole purpose is to desex harmony to the community, to reinforce the socialfabric...and establish order(8).According to Rene Girard in Violence and the Sacred,violence proliferates within a community when social distinctionsamong individuals or groups become upset or are contested. Morespecifically, when the established social hierarchy is challengedthrough rivalries, jealousies, quarrels and acts of dissent,community infighting escalates into reciprocal acts of vengeanceand retribution. confederation violence is contained, says Girard, bya collectively sanctioned, climactic event--the blood sacrifice.The blood sacrifice is a unanimous yet limited act of violencevented upon that representative of the community who is deemedresponsible for the belching of internal discord.In other words, a scapegoat is selected by the group. Thissacrificial subst... ...he processof determination a surrogate victim constitutes a major means... by whichmen expatriate from their consciousness the truth about their violentnature...(82-83).The bad violence inherent in Kates enterprise has notactually been eliminated--the potential for someone else to deviseand successfully execute a similarly ambiguous plan still existsafter we close the book (in position such a plan is executed by MaggieVerver, the heroine of James finis novel The Golden Bowl--thenovel which has been called the novel to end all novels). But inThe Wings of the Dove Jame s contains and controls theviolence temporarily, thus taking the place of and serving the sameancient function as the primitive blood sacrifice.Works citedAllen, Elizabeth. A Womans Place in the Novels ofHenry James. London Macmillan Press, 1983. Brooks, Van Wyck. Two Phases of Henry James. In TheQuestion of Henry James A Collection of Essays. Ed. F.W.Dupee. New York Holt, 1945. 120-27. Girard, Rene. Violence and the Sacred. Trans. PatrickGregory. Baltimore Johns Hopkins UP, 1972. James, Henry. The Wings of the Dove. Ed. J. DonaldCrowley and Richard A. Hocks. New York W.W. Norton and Company,1978.