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James's Spectacles: Distorted Vision in The Ambassadors
- The Henry James Review
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 26, Number 1, Winter 2005
- pp. 39-51
- 10.1353/hjr.2005.0004
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract
In his use of pictorial themes and framing motifs, Henry James explores the possibilities of sight and visual distortion. This paper shows that James's interest in this theme was intensified by the deterioration in his own eyesight. It also examines James attitude to vision in The Ambassadors (1903). In this novel James deals with problems of appearance and perspective, and presents a range of spectacle-clad characters, each with their own optical idiosyncrasies. This paper probes the connection between James's novel and Hans Holbein's painting The Ambassadors (1533) and argues that for James the distorted vision can offer the keenest insight.
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