摘 要

亨利·詹姆斯是19世纪现实主义文学和心理现实小说的代表人物之一，其代表作有《一位女士的画像》等。然而因其文风晦涩难懂，对其作品的研究数量不算太多。并且现有的研究大多只关注他的几部代表作，以及贯穿他所有作品中的最典型的写作特点、主题，或一些文学理论在他的作品当中的运用，研究内容主要有亨利·詹姆斯作品中的欧美文化冲突、小说中人物的心理活动解读、女性主义或结构主义等在其作品中的体现等。本文将着重讨论亨利·詹姆斯在小说《赝品》中使用的暗指的写作手法，探讨作者通过含蓄委婉的方式表达和影射的隐含内容，第一章介绍了作者的相关信息和《赝品》的主要内容并对现有的研究进行了综述。第二、三、四章通过分析小说中的人物对话、旁白叙述等，分别阐述对比、暗示、反复手法在文中的应用，具体分析作者通过这些手法影射的关于人物性格、人物关系和情节的内容。结论部分对全文内容进行了总结并指出了本文的不足。本文旨在帮助读者透过繁杂的语言现象更好地理解亨利·詹姆斯的作品，引起更多学者关注詹姆斯的其他作品，尤其是一些不出名的作品中独特的写作手法。

关键词：亨利·詹姆斯；《赝品》 ；暗指；对比；暗示；重复

Abstract

Henry James, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism and psychological realism, wrote many prestigious novels like The Portrait of a Lady. However, since his works are often too obscure to be fully understood, the researches about his literary works are not so many. Among which, most present researches tend to cast more interest on his most representative works and mainly focus on the most typical features and general themes permeating in all his works or penetrate the practical use of some literary theories manifested in his masterpieces. Those studies often cover the topics such as the cultural conflicts between America and Europe, the psychological activities of characters, female subjects and theory of structuralism in Henry James’s works. However, this paper will focus on Paste to study the technique of innuendo Henry James used in this novel, by exploring the hidden content the writer wants to convey or epitomize via implicit expressions. The first chapter introduces the author and his work Paste and reviews the present literature. The chapter two to four will respectively analyze the use of contrast, hint and repetition in innuendoing characters’ personalities, character relations and plots in the story, through the elaborate textual analysis of characters’ dialogues and the narration part. The last chapter summarizes the paper and points out the limitations of this paper. The purpose of this paper is to enhance better understanding of the implied meanings of James’s novels and arouse the awareness of further researches on James’s more works, especially some distinct writing methods used in his many not-so-famous novels.

Key Words: Henry James; Paste; innuendo; contrast; hint; repetition

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The writer and his works 1

1.2 Literature review 2

1.3 Structure of the paper 4

2 Contrast in Innuendoing Personalities of Main Characters 5

2.1 Arthur’s indifference, venality and hypocrisy 5

2.2 Charlotte’s sentimentality, innocence and honesty 7

3 Hint in Innuendoing Character Relations 9

3.1 The unhappy marital relations between Mrs. Prime and Mr. Prime 9

3.2 The immoral love affair between Mrs. Prime and another man 11

4 Repetition in Innuendoing Plots 13

4.1 Mrs. Guy’s unscrupulousness in gaining the necklace 13

4.2 Arthur’s shady deal to sell the necklace 14

5 Conclusion 16

5.1 Summary 16

5.2 Limitations 16

References 17

Acknowledgements 18

Analyzing Innuendo in Henry James’s Paste

1 Introduction

1.1 The writer and his works

Henry James was born in a rich intellectual family. His father is an influential philosopher and utopian religionist, but he often deals with things in an oversimplified and crude way. And his brother, William James, is a prestigious psychologist and philosopher in his era, with excellent accomplishments and high reputation in many areas. Therefore Henry’s childhood life was affluent, with no worry about food and shelter, but unhappy because of the heavy pressure from his family. His life experiences had much influence on the subjects and background settings in his later works. He was brought to Europe since 12 years old and long lived there, during which he was required to take aesthetic education and got access to all kinds of European culture, and therefore, in his books, cultural conflicts between America and Europe are often mentioned. He also befriended with people from different classes, so he was familiar about upper-class extravagant lives and decent etiquettes, and knew much about poor scholars’ hard livings as well. His creations always appeal realistic just because those writing resources almost all derive from his real life experiences.

He is regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism and the initiators of psychological fiction. His prestigious works are often addressed as the precursor of the stream of consciousness, casting deep influence on 20^th-century modernism. However, his achievements are not acknowledged and appreciated by mass people until the second American Renaissance, because his novels are usually brimmed with awkward expressions and piled metaphors. When comparing his works with the contemporary Mark Twin’s colloquial novels, readers definitely prefer the latter ones. In his early age, James generally fixed eyes on constructing crashed plots and sophisticated characters to reflect social problems in reality. When it approached to the later period, however, he transformed the focus of the story, from the outside descriptions to characters’ psychological portrait. He attempted to display any subtle inner-world activities of the characters so as to express his own attitudes towards the whole society. Therefore, accompanied with this conversion to psychological description, his language accordingly became more lengthy and obscure. But with the further study of his works, those novels which were underestimated by critics as too refined and conservative, gradually gain acknowledgement as the symbol of unique Jamesian style, and his unprecedented contributions to literary creation in realism are highly approved.

As for the story Paste, the development of the plot is deceptively simple. It tells about Charlotte Prime, a governess, who attends the funeral of her uncle’s second wife. The cousin, Arthur, gives her some cheap costume jewelry left behind by his stepmother, an actress, including a thought-to-be-valueless necklace. Charlotte thinks it might be of some value while her cousin does not think so, because if the necklace is expensive, it may be given as a present from another man who has sexual relations with her stepmother, considering the low income of both his parents who could not have access to the real jewel. Later Charlotte happens to take out that necklace for performance use. As Mrs. Guy, an upper-class lady tells, it is a real one. But driven by the sense of righteousness, Charlotte finally decides to return it to her cousin who promises to have it professionally appraised. Later Arthur writes her that the necklace is worthless. Surprisingly, when she runs into Mrs. Guy again, she is shocked to see the necklace worn by Mrs. Guy and realizes that she has been cheated. The logic line of the plots is very clear and even plain, but the author pays much efforts on the cumbersome language and detailed representation, which adds difficulty but pleasure of the reading.

1.2 Literature review

Domestic researches concerning Henry James can be dated back to the 1920s when his works were first introduced to China and translated into Chinese, but the peak time is actually till the 1980s when some scholars made substantial breakthroughs on this prolific novelist. The main directions and subjects about his works can be divided into three aspects.

First, some researches fix eyes on James’s representative works themselves and interpret the incomprehensible contents in those works. Zhang Yan analyses the two core contradictions in Henry James’s Daisy Miller, and talks about the reason of Daisy Miller’s tragedy（张燕，2012）.Cong Xiaoming writes an essay about another explanation of the ending of The Portrait of a Lady. And Zhou Xiaohong makes a characteristic analysis of Milly Theale in Henry James’ s The Wings of the Dove（周晓红，2010）.

Secondly, several papers research on the specific usage of some writing techniques or literary theories in Henry James’s works. Wang Yuehong discusses the meanings of images used in his three novels-- The Aspern Papers, Daisy Miller and Washington Square, to point out that James’s writing style embodies the spirit of modernism(王跃洪，2012). Wang Yanwen studies the implied meanings of images like the park, the house, the moon and the old Roman City in The Portrait of a Lady and reveals their respective functions in themes and plot designs. Chen Qiuhong thinks the carefully planned metaphor in The Golden Bowl is a fantastic and bizarre creation largely coloring his description in the story(陈秋红，2012). She also cites the origin of those metaphors from The Bible and explains the support knowledge including religious ethics, philosophic conceptions and some universal truths reflected from the Bible. Bao Wei and Fu Jingchuan take Daisy Miller and The Ambassadors as examples to study the dramatic writing features of Henry James(包薇amp;付景川，2014).

Thirdly, some researches tend to explore the themes and intentions of Henry James’s works. Ding Pu makes comparision between James’s early work Daisy Miller and the later one The Ambassadors to learn the international theme—conflicts and integration of European and American cultures(丁璞，2009), and Cheng Xin talks about feminism and feminist movements manifested in James’s The Bostonians(程心，2014).