Urban Talk: Communication across Class and Gender in Watch and Ward

Abstract

This article discusses both verbal and non-verbal communication in James’s first novel Watch and Ward(1871), more specifically in the three final chapters set in New York. In a novel in which other locations remain largely undefined, James’s portrayal of New York—his first extensive fictional use of his birthplace—stands out as a powerful evocation of a nightmarish urban environment wherein the heroine, Nora Lambert, feels under threat from the moment of her arrival. There, men, women, and things all convey the brutal message that relationships are purely transactional and human beings are nothing but commodities.