James's "The Patagonia": a critique of Trollope's "The Journey to Panama."

Studies in Short Fiction, Wntr, 1995 by Adeline R. Tintner

In an 1867 letter, Trollope identifies the tale's origin as having occurred when he had the job of telling a lady "going out to be married that her intended husband was dead. . . . She at once asked to have a large trunk brought to her. In the course of an hour I found her packing and unpacking the trunk, putting the new wedding clothes at the bottom and bringing the old things, now suitable for her use, to the top. And so she employed herself during the entire day" (Thompson 347-48). In the stow, Trollope expresses this detail by having Miss Viner tell the reader that all the contents of her "big box" had been paid for by her fiance so that, when she is told he is dead, she is found by Ralph in a room whose "floor was strewed with clothes," in preparation for her return (Trollope 363). James follows this pattern also. Just before Grace disappears, she tells her stewardess that she cannot receive Mrs. Nettlepoint in her cabin because "she was packing a trunk over," a detail clearly suggested by Miss Viner's getting rid of the wedding clothes which had been on the top of her box ("Patagonia" 343). After this detail, the narrator meets Grace, who looks pale and, as we find at the end, has now decided to end her life. At this point she asks the narrator whether he would "know" her fiance, whom he had met before in Paris, "when you see him?" indicating to him, as he later realizes, that he should be the bearer of the news of her death ("Patagonia" 344).

There is another detail that James seems to have found in Trollope's story. Ralph, in "The Journey to Panama," is confronted by the problem of breaking the news of the fiance's death to Emily Viner, just as James's narrator is burdened with the fact that he must break the news of Grace's death to her fiance. Ralph considers, "Who should tell her? And how would she bear it?" (Trollope 361) "And above all would this sudden death of one who was to have been so near her, strike her to the heart?" (Trollope 361). He continued to feel that "it was incumbent on him that Miss Viner should not hear the tidings in a sudden manner and from a stranger's mouth" (Trollope 362). James follows this procedure, but changes it. And it is in this change that we see another divergence from Trollope's treatment. Having recognized that, by Grace's preliminary questions, she had "delegated to me mentally a certain pleasant office," that of breaking the news of her death to her fiance ("Patagonia" 348), the narrator approached the fiance who remained speechless. "I had to speak first. . . . I told him first that she was ill. It was an odious moment" ("Patagonia" 349). This silence about his actual execution of his unpleasant task indicates a correction that lames has made of the talkativeness of Trollope's characters and the obviousness of their remarks. James, in a contrary fashion, uses silence as opposed to Trollope's garrulousness. His tale ends in silence as to the details of the revelation of the tragedy, much in contrast to the way Trollope had managed it and had built it up into a big scene.