Content provided in partnership with
Relativism and the Expression of Value Judgments in Henry James's "The Next Time" - Critical Essay
Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1997 by Jose Antonio Alvarez Amoros
I pointed out earlier that there are words or phrases in "The Next Time" that do not become resemanticized, although at first sight they would count as excellent candidates to undergo this process. It happens that the frame of reference instrumental in their interpretation is openly expressed, and this fact inhibits alternation.
- Most Popular Articles in Arts
- Art since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism
- Free-standing cardboard sculpture
- What makes a successful business person? Business people who are tops in ...
- Take advantage of local advertising: TV, newspaper or magazines? If your ...
- Tino Sehgal at the ICA
- More »
In chapter 2, for instance, the narrator reflects on Limbert's efforts to vulgarize his style in order to succeed as a correspondent for The Blackport Beacon, such efforts being called "a perfectly respectable task" (316). In principle, one could assume that this expression must be read against a background of literary pragmatism, because Limbert's task is only properly respectable inasmuch as it can rescue his family from financial disaster; on the contrary, if looked at from a perspective of literary quality, nothing could be less decorous than Limbert's pursuit. This case is strictly analogous to that of "noble course" discussed above, except that it is qualified by a prepositional complement that makes Limbert's "perfectly respectable task" especially respectable "for a man with an appealing bride and a contentious mother-in-law" (316). This qualification emphasizes Limbert's pecuniary needs and draws the reader's attention to their influence on his creative task to the extent of dispelling any interpretive doubt. In chapter 3, there is a similar case, but the intended frame of interpretation is specified here by means of an independent sentence and not a prepositional complement. The passage occurs when the narrator recalls "the sense of his [Limbert's] being on the heels of success, coming closer and closer, touching it at last" (327; emphasis added). Here the denotation of the italicized term is only preserved within the frame of literary quality, because, in a context of commercialism, as we know, it rather signifies "failure." Yet the quoted fragment is followed by a sentence that leaves little room for doubt ("Of course when we said success we didn't mean exactly what Mrs. Highmore for instance meant" [327]), particularly when the reader has already processed sufficient information about the frame of reference characteristic of Jane Highmore to be able to determine, by implication, the correct reading of the word in question.(8) Finally, I would like to bring up a third example in the sentence "There was something a failure was, a failure in the market, that a success somehow wasn't" (308; emphasis added), in which the narrator comments on Jane Highmore's odd desire to be a commercial failure in the hope of gaining intellectual appreciation. The same pattern recurs once more: an intercalated explanation ("a failure in the market") forces the reader to interpret the italicized word unilaterally and thus hinders the true relativization of sense.
