Narrative “Aberrations” in The American

Henry James’ The American is a difficult book to discuss in narratological terms. Because of this, it is exactly the kind of book that should be discussed from that point of view. The narration of the novel defies a simple analysis that would break it into easy terms like “narration,” “description” or “argument,” such as “Narratology” might suggest (Bal 12). The narration establishes for itself a set tone, a set tense, and is given from an established point of view. Those conventions are occasionally broken. These asides are examples of what Bal calls “Focalization,” where a difference is addressed, between the narrator’s “vision” or perspective, and the reader’s likely perception (38).

This defiance is most apparent when the author commits what Wallace Martin calls “aberrations.” An aberration can occur when the narration makes a distinct break from its normal mode, by disobeying a convention of verb tense, for example, in order to emphasize the speaking present, as opposed to the past tense of the narration. An aberration can occur with a break from the third person, which James uses by default, except in certain places where the first person is used, either to draw attention to the narrator or the audience. “Aberration” may not be the perfect word for it, but the word does describe the startling way that this narrative technique makes its point.

These aberrations are worth considering for a few reasons. First, in a well-crafted narrative it can be assumed that they are not abominations, which is to say that they are intentional, and therefore emphatic. The aberrations point to important ideas in the narration. Aberrations are interesting to a reader because they can simplify things, they offer clarification. Second, aberrations are interesting because they offer complication. The presence of aberrations in a well-crafted narrative helps to blur certain distinctions that critics have devised to categorize the different roles that narration plays as narration, description, or argument. Abberations are one way to bring narration beyond the level of merely mechanical craft.

From its opening scene, The American is a story that presents itself in a way that seems very aware of the very fact of observation that is happening in it. Observation itself is an early thematic element, in an art gallery, full of portraits, while the narration is portraiture of the main character. “We have approached him, perhaps, at a not especially favorable moment; he is by no means sitting for his portrait. But listless he lounges there” (James 12). It should be noted that the rest of the paragraph, from which that quotation is taken, is written in the past tense and in the third person.

The effect of this shift, into a shared first person narrative, and into the present tense, is that the shift draws the reader closer to the subject. “We” that approach the subject includes the reader. That reader is encouraged to consider the character of Newman as a portrait artists might, whether he poses for it or not.

This first aberration sits alongside the exposition of the story and the character, and it introduces the reader to what kind of narrator this is, who mentions about Christopher Newman, “our friend’s countenance” and “our friend’s eye.” (19). Care is also taken to mention the reader’s eye, by calling him “the gentleman in whom we are interested” (21). This kind of address introduces to the reader the fact that the interest may, on occasion, be directly addressed.

Wallace Martin describes James’ method of exposition, where the narrative stems from a “germ”, or a main idea, such as “The American”, and everything else is built upon that main idea. James’ literary narrative would differ from another kind of narrative like history, because history has “a prohibition against filling it with conjectures”(72). James’ usual narrative is decidedly like history in many ways, however his use of aberrations are decidedly unlike history.

The early aberrations in The American serve as an emphatic way of insisting upon what that “germ” is for the narrator, and so also for the reader. Once the germ has been clearly established, a kind of historical account can be given.

Wallace quotes James’ assertion that a novelist should “regard himself as an historian and his narrative as history … As a narrator of fictitious events he is nowhere; to insert into his attempts a backbone of logic, he must relate events that are assumed to be real” (59).

The aberrations in the induction do not disappear once the narration has begun its more historical account of the events leading to the main conflict. After narrating Newman’s introduction to Mrs. Tristam, and after describing her “marked tendency to irony” and explaining that “her taste on many points differed from that of her husband”, the narrator mentions:

It should be added, without delay, to anticipate misconception, that her little scheme of independence did not definitely involve the assistance of another person, of the opposite sex; she was not saving up virtue to cover the expenses of a flirtation (42)

This is a clever sentence. On the surface, it is the kind of aberration that clarifies. In case the reader should suspect that Mrs. Tristam is having an affair, the narrator’s corrective hand is there to steer the interpretation back onto the proper course, but something else is happening here. This is one of the subtlest aberrations in the book, but it does draw attention to itself, to its own statement, and probably not because the presence or absence of an affair is the important issue. Once again, James has used an aberration to point out an important idea. In the beginning of the novel, aberrations were used to point to the main idea. Here, an aberration points toward a main theme. The more important issue is the matter of a woman’s independence, and what she does or does not do with it, which is a central theme throughout the book. This aberration is one of the introductions to that theme.

Any suspicion about the reason for the aberrations might be confirmed, a few paragraphs later, when it happens again.
Mrs. Tristam, then, undertook to be exquisitely agreeable, and she brought to the task a really touching devotion. How well she would have succeeded, I am unable to say (42)

This is an example of the kind of aberration that complicates things. A reader might be taken aback, and exclaim “unable to say! How can that be? This narrator is, or was, omniscient!” This kind of break from the narration is not exactly part of telling the events in the usual, almost historical kind of way. It is not James’ usual kind of description, either.

An aberration, the way James uses it, is most like an argument. It makes a point. It draws attention to something. The aberrations can’t exactly be classified as narration in the argumentative mode, because they are descriptive, and they are not very far removed from the events of the story.

The reader is directly addressed, with an appeal to reason, in the middle of the depiction of the events following Madame de Cintre’s long awaited acceptance. Regarding the telegraphs, “the next time he encountered old Madame de Bellgarde he drew them forth and displayed them to her. This, it must be confessed, was a slightly malicious stroke; the reader must judge in what degree the offense was venial” (150).

This aberration calls attention to something ominous. The sin, that is, telling the old Madame about the engagement, may have been more than a venial sin.

In the ultimate break from the narration, the conclusion, the fact that the text is nearing an end is indicated with a statement of what “we know”. Brooding over his loss, Newman asked himself, in his quieter hours, whether perhaps, after all, he was more commercial than was pleasant. We know that it was in obedience to strong reaction against questions exclusively commercial that he had come out to pick up aesthetic entertainment in Europe; it may therefore be understood that he was able to conceive that a man might be too commercial (372).

Perhaps this, too, is “to anticipate misconception”, in case the reader had formed a final judgment of Mr. Newman that did not include the degree to which he might have been to blame for his misfortune.

By drawing attention to itself, the narration in The American is able to call attention to its main ideas in an interesting and compelling way. The use of a conciliatory narration at the onset of the story enables the reader to understand that this narrator will make certain points in this way. The aberrations call attention to important characters, main themes, contrasts that would be otherwise very subtle, and a general interpretation of the events of the entire novel. In retrospect, the “aberrations” in James’ narration can be seen as indicators of what is important in The American.

Works Cited

Bal, Mieke. Narratology : Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto ; Buffalo : U. of Toronto P., 1997.

James, Henry. The American. New York: Dell Publishing Co, 1960
Martin, Wallace. Recent Theories of Narrative. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.