ABSTRACT
Henry James was a renowned American-English novelist, nominated on several occasions for the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the brother of William James (1842–1910), one of the most influential theorists on the nature of ‘emotion’ in contemporary psychology (see source 38). The excerpt below is taken from his novel What Maisie Knew. The story explores the experience of the young daughter of two narcissistic divorced parents, Beale and Ida Farange, who use the child as a pawn in their own emotional dramas. She lives six months in each household and is cared for by a series of nannies, one of whom the beautiful Miss Overmore marries her father. The book is written from the perspective of Maisie, as she tries to negotiate these movements between households and to understand and ultimately learn from the bewildering behaviours of the adults around her. The text draws closely on contemporary philosophy and psychology, not least the work of William James, where Maisie is produced as a sensate creature learning and shaped by her environment, becoming a nuanced social actor as she learns to attach meaning to her observations of the world. The book offers both a moral commentary on the impact of divorce and parental selfishness on the upbringing of children, and an account of how children learn and mature through their emotional and sensate educations.
