39 pages • 1 hour read
Henry JamesThe Aspern Papers
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1888A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Personification
Personification is the attribution of human characteristics or actions to nonhuman objects. In The Aspern Papers, James uses personification to characterize architectural spaces. The use of personification is fitting in the context of the story, given the value the narrator places on the object of the papers as a kind of holy relic mystically containing the actual presence of the revered poet. This device further serves to characterize the setting of the Bordereaus’ home, in which most of the narrative takes place.
When Mrs. Prest and the narrator view the house, he describes it as having “an air not so much of decay as of quiet discouragement, as if it had rather missed its career” (54). The notion of a house being discouraged or experiencing missed opportunities characterizes it metaphorically as an entity with feelings. James’s use of personification associates the house with a melancholy tone, rather than only describing its visual characteristics. Personification also contributes to the narrator’s representation of his relationship with the house. Thinking about the lack of contact he has with the Bordereaus, the narrator looks at their windows and their “motionless shutters became as expressive as eyes consciously closed, and I took comfort in thinking that at all events though invisible themselves they saw me between the lashes” (78). This extended metaphor of the windows as eyes, including lashes, emphasizes the fact that, in the absence of a connection with the Bordereaus, the narrator begins to feel a sense of rapport with the house itself.
Parenthesis
Parenthesis is a sentence construction in which the main syntax is interrupted by an aside, which is set off with punctuation: commas, em dashes, or parentheses. The use of parenthesis enables a writer to include additional detail or information of tangential relevance to the basic construction of a sentence. A parenthetical clause can be removed from the sentence without affecting its grammatical correctness. The word parenthesis comes from the Greek for “alongside.”
In The Aspern Papers, parenthetical clauses characterize the narrator’s thought process. James’s use of parenthesis as a literary device also suggests his place within the transition from realism to modernism. Specifically, James uses parenthesis to add detail to the narrator’s thought process, represented within the prose itself. This foreshadows literary modernism’s technique of stream of consciousness—epitomized by early-20th-century writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf—in which characters’ thoughts are represented in the language and syntax of the writing.
Parenthetical clauses also contribute to the sense that the narrator is addressing the reader directly. The narrator employs parenthesis to provide more detail or an explanatory note for the benefit of the reader. This technique facilitates the development of a rapport and a sense of familiarity on the part of the reader toward the narrator.
Polysyndeton
Polysyndeton is the repetition of coordinating conjunctions, like “and” in a sentence. It produces an effect of a multiplicity of information and detail. James employs complex sentences throughout The Aspern Papers to characterize the narrator’s thought process. When the narrator hasn’t yet succeeded in forming connections with the Bordereaus, he describes how he occupies his time instead. A passage in this section of the novel provides a significant example of polysyndeton:
I had an arbour arranged and a low table and an armchair put into it; and I carried out books and portfolios (I had always some business of writing in hand), and worked and waited and mused and hoped, while the golden hours elapsed and the plants drank in the light and the inscrutable old palace turned pale and then, as the day waned, began to flush in it and my papers rustled in the wandering breeze of the Adriatic (79).
The repeated use of “and” in this passage has two primary effects. First, it indicates the passage of time, as the narrator fills his time while unable to gain admittance to the ladies’ social sphere. Second, it indicates the narrator’s perspective on the time as full and pleasurable. As he reflects on the time period retrospectively, the narrator thinks about his multitude of experiences and emotions as he “waited and mused and hoped” during his time in the house.
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