Re-exposing the Jamesian Child: The Paradox of Children's Privacy

This article surveys the tensions in James's representation of childhood, from his novels of the 1880s to his later autobiographical works, between his belief in the necessity of privacy to enable the child to secure and develop a sense of individual personhood and the potential risk of privation incurred by the complete dissociation of childhood from the broader arena of human life. Central to this account is his delineation of the challenge provoked by the emergence of a modern, publicized, yet nevertheless "obscure" child figure and the process of demonization she seems to incur for thwarting a more treasured ideal of the transparently innocent child.