Perfection, Beauty and Suffering in "The Two Faces"

Perfection, Beauty and Suffering in "The Two Faces" by J. Peter Dyson, New College, University of Toronto Henry James's shortest tale, "The Two Faces"—one that seems to have pleased him, since he recalled the technical challenges as "thrilling" and described the value of the finished tale as "peculiarly an economic one"—has received short shrift from the critics since it was first published in 1900. Silence has been its fate for the most part; disgust and boredom the reaction it produced in the author of J\ Reader's Guide to Henry James, leading thereby to a commentary on the tale that would guide unsuspecting followers into a critical ditch. One* is reluctant, In searching for the cause of neglect, to concede that the tale presents a "problem"; but there is, perhaps, a sense that James, who often lamented his propensity to expanslveness, has in this instance compressed his material to the point where an uninformed reading might well produce an unsympathetic response. But the very air of concentration emanating from the tale should lead experienced readers of James to see it for what it is—a distillation of much that he had been dealing with fictionally over the preceding twenty years and more. The purpose of this essay Is to elucidate, by drawing on other relevant works in the canon, James's achievement in "The Two Faces" and to indicate its place in a main line of development. Only in solving the "thrilling" technical problems arising from its brevity was James able to place in perspective the paradoxical, profound human truth that is both central to the tale and so characteristic of his thinking at the turn of the century. As "The Two Faces" begins, Shirley Sutton is on the brink of a commitment to Mrs. Grantham, a London society hostess. Prior to the action of the tale, Mrs. Grantham's former lover, Lord Gwyther, has thrown her over, becoming rather too quickly engaged to and marrying an innocent young girl from outside their circle. Realizing that he has almost certainly antagonized Mrs. Grantham by his cavalier behavior, he takes, on his return to London from Germany with his bride, the bold step of requesting Mrs. Grantham's help In launching his inexperienced bride into society. By putting Mrs. Grantham on her honor as protectress, Lord Gwyther hopes to forestall her probable desire for revenge. Sutton, a witness to the request in the opening scene of the tale, quickly grasps that Mrs. Grantham's treatment of Lady Gwyther will be a test of her magnanimity, indirectly resolving his scarcely-acknowledged uncertainty as to whether or not she ¡s a "safe nature" (p. 253). Lady Gwyther, making her social debut during a country weekend at Burbeck, appears, under the tutelage of Mrs. Grantham, so badly dressed as to be socially ruined. Sutton, perceiving Mrs. Grantham's viciousness in her treatment of the other woman, abandons her. The triangular pattern underlying the tale, incorporating oblique vision as a device to explore the phenomenon of perception and the growth of consciousness, is a variation on that used two years before in The Turn of the Screw. In the earlier tale, much of what the governess describes herself as perceiving—we must set aside the particular problems raised by the first person narration in The Turn of the Screw in contrast to the third person used In "The Two Faces"—Is perceived by her in a ricochet 1. "The Two Faces" was first published as "The Faces" in Harper's Bazar, 15 Dec. 1900. My parenthetic citations are to The Complete Tales of Henry James, ed. Leon Edel (Philadelphia: Llpplncott, 1964), Xl, 239-55. James's remarks about "The Two Faces" are quoted from The Art of the Novel, lntrod. R. P. Blackmur (New York: Scribner's, 1934), p. 179; S. Gorley Putt, A Reader's Guide to Henry James (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 292-93. The most valuable commentary on "The Two Faces," in my view, is Eleanor Tl !ton's in the paragraph she devotes to it in her foreword to The Marriages and Other Tales (New York: Signet, 1961), now unfortunately out of print. 116 2 kind...