“It seemed to have to do with something else . . .”:

This chapter argues that what Maisie knew, as conveyed to readers of Henry James’s novel, can fruitfully be considered and interpreted in terms of Bion’s theory of thinking, and especially his concepts of K and –K and the container/contained relationship. K signifies the desire for knowledge; knowledge which W. R. Bion believed must continually be created in every mind, by linking feeling with thinking and the inner world with the outer. As Henry James developed as a novelist, his attention became more and more engaged with the minds of his characters, and with the nature of their thinking and the “knowledge” it was based upon. The chapter focuses on a work of art contemporary with the birth of psychoanalysis, and created without access to psychoanalytic thought, to support S. Freud’s contention that the Oedipal situation is the problem that must be faced on the road to knowledge.