Playing the Game of Life: The Dilemma of Christopher Newman and Isabel Archer

65 PLAYING THE GAME OF LIFE: THE DILEMMA OF CHRISTOPHER NEWMAN AND ISABEL ARCHER1 Nancy Morrow* A fascination with the rules that regulate social groups makes a comparison between Henry James and the French novelist Honoré de Balzac almost unavoidable. William W. Stowe argues persuasively that both Balzac and James practice a variety of "systematic" realism in that both novelists "describe and analyze systems of behavior, communication, exploitation, and so on that structure the world" at the same time that they rely on these systems to "structure their texts and to provide them with figurative language."2 But while this approach to the problems of nineteenth-century Realistic fiction underscores an important similarity between Balzac and James, it obscures a key difference between them: Balzac defines and illustrates how systems of behavior and communication work; James, on the other hand, explores what happens to unique individuals caught up in such systems. As James himself says of Balzac, he carried his characters "about in his pocket" like "a tolerably befingered pack of cards, to deal them about with a flourish of the highest authority whenever there was the chance of a game."3 The game, not the players, who serve only an instrumental function in the structure of experience that the novelist devises for them, engages Balzac's interest. In contrast, the metaphor James chooses for himself in his early novels is that of the "biographer"4 whose job it is to select and present those events that highlight his subject's unique character. James focuses not so much on the "game" of the plot in the novel (in other words, the structure of experience) as on the "players," or characters, who play it. The individual's response to the systems that structure social experience provides the subject matter of two of Henry James' early novels, The American (1877) and The Portrait of a Lady (1881). Both are novels of education and social initiation, raising questions about the individual's citizenship in cultural or political groups. And yet neither novel conveys a precise or historically accurate account of either Europe or America. In both novels, but most clearly in The American, *Nancy Morrow is a Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of California, Davis. She has previously published articles in Early American Literature, Women's Studies, and American Literary Realism. She is currently working on a book that explores the themes of art and vocation in American women writers. 66Nancy Morrow "Europe" and "America" are little more than "theories," or more precisely, textual constructs, which enable James to explore the contradictions between different sets of rules. "America" consists almost exclusively, in The American, oí Christopher Newman's evaluation of his own world, what he believes America and its people to be; "Europe" is, in turn, constituted by Newman's interpretations (both accurate and inaccurate, both precise and willfully imprecise) of European society. As Americans who have come to Europe in order to learn more about themselves and about life, both Christopher Newman and Isabel Archer prove to be eager students, anxious to learn the customs and conventions of the world in which they find themselves. Newman employs M. Nioche to help him practice French conversation and urges his guests to explain their jokes to him. When he reveals to Valentin de Bellegarde his ambition to marry Claire de Cintré, he implores the Frenchman to teach him the proper forms: "I want to do what is customary over here. Ifthere is anything particular to be done, let me know and I will do it. I wouldn't for the world approach Madame de Cintré without all the proper forms."5 By professing his willingness "to do what is customary," Newman demonstrates his respect for the rules of social interaction as well as a naive confidence in his ability to master those rules and to realize his ambitions. Isabel Archer similarly urges Mrs. Touchett to instruct her in the proper forms: "I always want to know the things one shouldn't do."6 But unlike Newman, Isabel does not promise to follow the rules she learns. She tells Mrs. Touchett, who suspects that Isabel wants to learn the rules simply...