Verena's Innocence: The Dispute Over the Control of the Voice in Henry James' <em>The Bostonians</em>

Abstract

Henry James' The Bostonians is one of those literary works whose nature tends towards ambiguity and resistance to reductionist interpretations. Today, the gender studies' perspective allows us to surpass such interpretations, and to access the text's core —what holds it together— so as to explain its primary opacities. Thus, the first part of this article is dedicated to the analysis of the story's main character, Verena, as a figure void of the extraordinary and trapped in an unending number of ideological discourses which, in turn, shape her as a constructed identity. Consequently, Verena's self is left silenced; paradoxically, her voice, her gift, is exclusively used to communicate the wishes projected by other characters. The second part of the article, which moves from the private to the public sphere, is an attempt to allegorically interpret Verena and the dynamics of desire which surround her. This second level of analysis will facilitate a reading of the text as less ambiguous, offering an interpretative key based on the notion of character as the spokesperson of a given ideology or set of values. Finally, the article concludes with James' vision of a dystopic society, hesitant between two ideological alternatives which are far from justifying the reality to which they refer.