52 pages • 1 hour read
Henry JamesWashington Square
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1880A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Home as a Place of Leisure and Social Commentary
Washington Square often has the feel of an 18th-century comedy of manners, such as those of Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Sheridan. This kind of play and novel reemerged in popularity during the latter part of the 19th century. Most of the novel’s “action” takes place in the limited setting of a home’s parlors and studies and revolves around a limited number of characters, all of whom derive from the same social class. The witty verbal banter between characters, particularly seen in Dr. Sloper’s dry humor and Mrs. Penniman’s comic persona, illuminates not only their personalities and quirks but also their underlying agendas. The narrator, too, often observes the action (or lack thereof) with a satirical eye. In the drawing-room drama, the mannerisms and habits of the upper classes are skewered to critique the conventions of so-called sophisticated society.
The house in Washington Square serves as the setting—and symbol—for many of the interactions among the characters. The “solid and honorable” home functions to keep the upper-class characters separated from the rest of the bustling city, inviting an “ideal of quiet and genteel retirement” (16). The inhabitants are not corrupted by the chaos of the city, with its growing working class, immigrant communities, and urban sprawl. In this way, the setting allows for the cast of characters to maintain a claustrophobic focus on Catherine; she is the heir not only to the Sloper fortune but also to the family’s social status. The wealth that insulates the family also breeds idleness; Mrs. Penniman has nothing better to do than to nurse romantic fantasies and interfere in Catherine’s affairs. Finally, the house becomes a place of contention between competing male authorities, with Townsend attempting to usurp Dr. Sloper’s place, both in his study and with his daughter.
The drawing room, or parlor, also serves as the place where verbal banter and pointed barbs are exchanged among the characters (excluding the ever-polite Catherine). Dr. Sloper makes his objections to Townsend’s overtures toward Catherine known, at first, through witty remarks. After meeting Townsend, Dr. Sloper complains that his behavior is too forward and his manners too familiar. When Mrs. Almond suggests that the doctor must make Catherine see the flaws in Townsend’s character, Dr. Sloper replies, “I will present her with a pair of spectacles!” (41), implying that anyone with clear vision should be able to see them. For her part, Mrs. Penniman becomes deeply invested in the relationship between Catherine and Townsend, as her highly developed dramatic sensibilities rule her. When Catherine becomes disturbed and excited, Mrs. Penniman surely follows suit. The narrator says, “If there was any agitation going forward, Mrs. Penniman was not a person to forfeit her natural share in it” (151). Thus, neither of Catherine’s supposed protectors is to be trusted; their agendas are hidden beneath the comic quips and exaggerated behavior. Their sophisticated wit shields them from honesty and smothers their compassion.
Filial Duty Versus Romantic Entanglement
The most vivid description of Catherine Sloper’s character comes from her father, who views her as “excellently, imperturbably good; affectionate, docile, obedient” and truthful (11). In his eyes, Catherine embodies the role of a dutiful daughter, a role he believes should be the only one she fulfills. Thus, when she meets and falls in love with Morris Townsend, these qualities are called into question. At this point, the primary conflict in the novel is between Catherine’s sense of duty to her father and her romantic feelings toward Townsend, of whom her father disapproves. The vehemence of Dr. Sloper’s antipathy toward Townsend is motivated not only by his judgment of his character but also by his ideals of propriety. Both Dr. Sloper and Townsend are motivated by self-interest rather than by concern for Catherine. Eventually, she must make a choice, and she chooses to defy both of them.
Early in the novel, Catherine is uncomfortable about even giving the appearance of challenging her father, and she puts off revealing her decision about Townsend. The sense of excitement Catherine feels in potentially choosing Townsend against her father’s wishes shows how much her father dominated her decision-making before that time. Even when she believes her father is wrong, she feels the duty to “abstain from judging her father too harshly, and from committing any act of open defiance” (78). Catherine shows her respect for her father in the way she approaches him, always knocking and gaining permission to enter before going into his study, for example.
Catherine’s devotion to her father is portrayed as a deep character trait, perhaps due to her lack of a mother. At the beginning of the affair with Townsend, Dr. Sloper is not overly concerned about Catherine’s decision; he believes she will eventually see reason and side with him:
Poor Catherine was not defiant; she had no genius for bravado, and as she felt that her father viewed her companion’s attentions with an unsympathizing eye, there was nothing but discomfort for her in the accident of seeming to challenge him (47).
Thus, he concludes she will acquiesce to his demands. Yet, in this area, as in so many others, the doctor underestimates his daughter. She is not as weak-minded and unformed as he thinks. The image of Catherine that Dr. Sloper conjured in his mind no longer fits the young woman seeking her path.
Catherine’s dawning understanding that she owes her father less respect and loyalty than she has previously thought comes as she realizes that her father does not possess the love and affection for her that she thought. As she comes to understand that his affection for her has either diminished or perhaps never existed, she feels she owes him less and less. When Dr. Sloper fails to be a loving and caring father, Catherine believes that the contract between father and daughter is broken. When Dr. Sloper demands that she renounce Townsend, Catherine calmly replies, “I would if I could, Father; but I can’t” (121). Dr. Sloper refuses to accept this and spends the rest of his life trying to prevent the marriage.
The doctor’s efforts are successful. Catherine never marries Townsend. However, this is due as much to the insufficiencies of Townsend’s character as to her father’s interference. As Catherine matures, enduring disappointments and disillusionment, she comes to think for herself. Her refusal to participate any further in the drama of Mrs. Penniman, the social propriety of her father, or the wealth-seeking of her suitor frees her to become an autonomous self. She must, like most 19th-century heroines, sacrifice something for this freedom; she abandons her ideals of filial connection and romantic love to achieve her independence. When Townsend asks her why she never married, she replies simply, “I had nothing to gain” (179). She gave up filial and romantic intimacy to live out her days free from the burdens of male authority.
The Influence of Affluence
Each character has a unique relationship two wealth and power. Dr. Sloper inherited and amassed enough wealth to control his surroundings and even other people. Catherine Sloper, by contrast, can rely only on her inheritance from her mother to sustain her if she defies her father’s idea of a good marriage. Townsend has little and is in search of a fortune, and while Mrs. Almond secured her financial status through marriage to a wealthy merchant, Mrs. Penniman remains under her brother’s authority because she gave up her opportunity to better herself financially by marrying a minister. Money, or the lack thereof, underpins nearly every decision the characters make, and their decisions are shaped by the expectations and opportunities (or lack of opportunities), provided by the gender.
Dr. Sloper, as a successful physician from a wealthy family, fits perfectly into an American environment in which you “must either earn your income or make believe that you earn it” (5). He believes that Catherine’s chances for furthering the family’s financial standing lie in her making a good marriage. But his concerns about financial wealth both explain and adversely influence his most important decisions. He offers Mrs. Montgomery money to support Townsend, which startles and insults her. The doctor provides a trip to Europe for Catherine to help her forget Townsend, which widens the rift between them. He floats a potential job to get Townsend away from his daughter, ignoring the fact that she is in love with him. He discounts her feelings in the process. Finally, in limiting Catherine’s inheritance, Dr. Sloper reveals a desire for control that reaches beyond his life. Dr. Sloper makes choices to protect his family’s wealth but not his family.
Townsend lives in a style that requires money. The novel suggests that if Townsend were born into a wealthier family, his faults might never have surfaced. Townsend’s interest in and desire to control Catherine’s fortune become the primary elements of his character. Townsend’s conversations with Mrs. Penniman often reveal his main concerns. As he unromantically calculates his options with Catherine, Townsend asks, “It is your belief that if she marries me, he will cut her off?” (85). Not surprisingly, the first discussion of a will in the novel comes from Townsend. He is also the first person that Catherine has ever heard of in the upper classes with neither fortune nor occupation. He declares Dr. Sloper’s work a “loathsome profession” without any suggestion that he would prefer to work at another. He would simply prefer to inherit it idly.
Catherine possesses enough money to settle into the Washington Square home at the end of the novel; the inheritance from her mother provides her with financial stability even though Dr. Sloper writes her out of his will. That kind of security is not afforded to her two aunts: Mrs. Almond marries well but perhaps below her social status, with a full household to care for, and Mrs. Penniman marries poorly and thus must live under the rules, regulations, and threats of her brother. Ultimately, Catherine’s affluence buys her some sense of security, but struggles over money cost her the close relationship she once enjoyed with her father and the marriage that might have made her happy. Her decisions are determined by the limits of her inherited wealth and the limited economic opportunities of her gender.
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By Henry James
