Catherines Inner Self in Henry Jamess Washington Square :: Henry James Washington Square

Catherines Inner Self in Henry Jamess uppercase SquareMuch is said of the internal reality of the characters in Henry Jamess myth Washington Square. It is seen as a psychological novel where most of the action takes place in the minds of the characters. In an essay titled, Washington Square A Study in the Growth of an Inner Self, James W. Gargano addresses the internal reality of the character Catherine Sloper. Within the essay, Gargano argues that James anatomizes the process by which Catherines active, secret existence transforms her into an imaginative fair sex (129). Although a few of his premises seem far-fetched, I agree with the major arguments of his critique. Most of his examples support his thesis well.Early in the essay Gargano states that, in Jamess fiction, naivete may wear the look of an empty mind, but it is often the ideal preparation for receiving life fully and impressionably (130). Gargano then tells us that Catherine will feel more intensely because she has no t known strong emotions before. According to him, her ingenuousness is the key to her genuineness and her sense of seeing, feeling, and judging life for the first time (130). I feel this is a key element in understanding Catherine.Gargano also brings out how well James traces Catherines developing insight (131) into her own nature. He refers to the part in the novel where James writes, She watched herself as she would have watched another person, and wondered what she would do (qtd. in Gargano 131). Then Gargano adds, it is hard to write off as dull a young woman with such a vivid contact with her own development and Gargano also felt that James intended the dullness to be ascribed to the bright people around her who never even glimpse her hidden abysses (131). This is an interesting viewpoint, which, when applied to the novel, adds a deeper perception of the characters.Some of Garganos other premises were not as insightful for me. For example, I had disarray with what Gargano call ed Catherines transcendentalizing imagination that causes her to create beautiful figments of Townsend that possess her and become the paramount value of her life, and other attachments, no matter how strong, must somehow accommodate themselves to it. (132). This contention tends to smear Catherines intelligence as well as her grasp of reality.I also disagreed with one of Garganos conclusions that, loss is the real goal for which Jamess central characters are secretly striving, that they involve life only to see that it falls below their lofty expectations and that mastery and transcendence are gained by renunciation (135).