DENIED A VOICE of their own by social and legal prohibition through most of Western history, women have often had to allow men to speak for them. The scarcity of women writers, much less lesbian writers, means that the lives of women have either been ignored or interpreted by male writers attempting to fathom their point of view. Still, in some cases it is better to have men speak for women than for women to have no voice at all. One example is Henry James, whose interest in the lives and perspectives of women even included a thinly disguised lesbian theme in his 1877 novel The American.
Now Henry James was a gay man, albeit a rather closeted one, and in this respect he is not alone in showing an uncanny insight into the subjectivities of women (Oscar Wilde and Tennessee Williams come immediately to mind). Perhaps because they’ve suffered many of the same kinds of oppression, gay men and women often show a special understanding of one another. In earlier periods, especially the late 19th century, when women had very little voice, gay men would integrate the plight of lesbians into their writing through subtle asides and implied story lines. Henry James—whose sister may have been a lesbian—was a master of such coded gay stories. Many of his novels and short stories have been studied by GLBT scholars for their gay subtext, including strong lesbian undertones in his novel The Bostonians, which has been thoroughly dissected.
While this theme is most pronounced in The Bostonians, it is certainly present in other James novels. The relationship between Lizzie Tristram and Claire de Cintré is an integral component of The American. Mrs. Tristram is largely absent from the story, but her connection to Christopher Newman and Claire de Cintré has her intertwined in the central plot. Though never explicitly stated, there is clearly a love connection between Mrs. Tristram and Claire de Cintré. Indeed, this relationship is the driving force behind the narrative. Lizzie and Claire attended school at a convent, where they formed a very close and intimate friendship. Such bonds between two women were not uncommon in 19th-century American life, and they appeared in the literature of the time, often transforming traditional love triangles. In The American, James inverts the notion of erotic love triangles described by the late Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Instead of the usual formation of two men and one woman, James places a man in the pivotal position between two women.
The exact nature of the “romantic friendship” between two women in 19th-century America has been much debated (how physical was it?), but it was clearly an uncommonly intimate and loving relationship in many cases. Lillian Faderman has argued that “being ‘in love’ meant experiencing intense feelings of affection and devotion, which were more likely to have found occasional expression in generalized sensual rather than specifically genital contact.” This was due in large part to the strict gender roles that governed society and the restrictions on intimacy between the sexes, so that husbands and wives were often emotionally isolated from each other. James was no stranger to the idea of intimate relations between women: George Eliot (née Mary Ann Evans), one of his muses, is said to have had a female “admirer.” A relationship between Claire and Mrs. Tristram would have been fairly normal.
James uses a commonly occurring phenomenon for establishing the connection between Lizzie Tristram and Claire. Intimate bonds between two women were commonly formed while they were away at school. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg traces several such relationships: “Sarah Butler Wister first met Jeannie Field Musgrove while vacationing with her family. … During two subsequent years spent together in boarding school, they formed a deep and intimate friendship.” Another pair, “Molly and Helena met in 1868 while both attended the Cooper Institute School of Design for Women in New York City.” This pattern was also employed in literature. In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Kavanagh (1849), Cecilia and Alice Archer, the two “lovers,” are described as “bosom-friend[s]at school.” In Oliver Wendell Holmes’ A Moral Antipathy (1886), Euthymia and Lurida are also schoolmates. This pattern appeared in both life and literature, and James employs it in The American. Claire and Lizzie met at the convent, where they attended school together. Mrs. Tristram views this meeting as the redeeming facet of having had to attend the convent school. In her own words: “I took a tremendous fancy to her, and she returned my passion as far as she could.”
The closeness between Claire and Mrs. Tristram finds no parallel in either woman’s connection to any other character, including their husbands. Claire very much keeps to herself. The only time we encounter her outside of her home or the convent is when she’s first introduced at Mrs. Tristram’s house. Claire also makes another exception for Mrs. Tristram. When Christopher Newman proposes marriage to Claire, he’s the one who has to take the initiative to hold her hand, and she does not let this intimacy last long. When she first appears at Mrs. Tristram’s, however, it is Claire who takes hold of Lizzie’s hand, and she makes no attempt to keep the contact brief.
The exclusion of men is further underscored by the lack of intimacy exhibited between husbands and wives. Mr. and Mrs. Tristram certainly don’t enjoy marital bliss: “Newman hated to see a husband and wife on these terms, and he was sure one or other of them must be very unhappy.” Claire is also unlucky in marriage. She does not, in fact, want to marry in the first place. As Clair’s younger brother Valentin explains to Christopher, it was only a month before the wedding that Claire first encountered her intended, and everything had already been arranged: “She turned white when she looked at him, and white she remained till her wedding-day. The evening before the ceremony she swooned away, and she spent the whole night in sobs.” Indeed, after her first marriage Claire promises never to marry again, in effect swearing off men for life. She doesn’t even want Newman. When she’s searching for a reason why she might accept him, he says, “Your only reason is that you love me,” and Claire’s response, described by the narrator, is not exactly a ringing endorsement: “for want of a better reason Madame de Cintré reconciled herself to this one.” Newman basically accepts his own proposal.
According to Sedgwick, “the power relationships between men and women appear to be dependent on the power relationships between men and men, [which]suggests that large-scale social structures are congruent with the male-male-female erotic triangles.” In The American, Mrs. Tristram is the one with the power; the relationship between Claire and Christopher is ultimately her doing. Mrs. Tristram is the first to introduce the idea that Newman ought to marry: “Mrs. Tristram suddenly observed to Christopher Newman that it was high time he should take a wife.” She then builds up Madame de Cintré in Newman’s mind by extolling her in the way a lover might praise a beloved. She refers to her as “the loveliest woman in the world. … Among all women I have known she stands alone; she is of a different clay.” Through her description she sows the seed of Newman’s admiration. She is also responsible for persuading Claire to indulge Newman’s attempts at courting.
In the scene when Newman first meets Claire, Mrs. Tristram clearly communicates a desire for Claire to consider Christopher as a suitor. She and Claire are holding hands in farewell when “Mrs. Tristram seemed to have formed a sudden and somewhat venturesome resolution, and she smiled more intensely. … ‘I want Mr. Newman to know you,’ she said, dropping her head on one side and looking at Madame de Cintré’s bonnet ribbons.” When Claire expresses how this would please her, she’s looking at Mrs. Tristram, not at Newman. She’s indulging Mrs. Tristram’s desire; she is not attracted to the American. Newman’s success is dependent on Mrs. Tristram’s influence over Claire as a result of their intimacy. The triangulation of power that Sedgwick highlights is inverted in this situation: Newman’s power over Claire is dependent on the power relationship between the two women.
Traditionally, women were seen as a commodity to be exchanged, as Sedgwick points out: “The total relationship of exchange which constitutes marriage is not established between a man and a woman, but between two groups of men, and the woman figures only as one of the objects in the exchange, not as one of the partners.” In The American, however, it is Newman who is used as a commodity. Being rich, he can offer Claire a continued life of comfort, including escape from her overly controlling family. In addition, as Newman is a friend of Mrs. Tristram’s, it is also possible that she would get to see Claire more often, considering that Newman gives Claire the choice of living anywhere she wishes. Of course, this might not happen.
As Newman is an American, it is possible that the two might decide to leave France. Mrs. Tristram undoubtedly recognizes this danger, for when Newman tells her about his first proposal to Claire, she exhibits some signs of jealousy: “she had counted too much on her own disinterestedness.” However, she continues to support the union, because it would still serve as retribution. Claire had to give Mrs. Tristram up after the convent because the latter was not a part of her social circle. Mrs. Tristram sees this as an offense, and she refers to Claire’s circle as “terrible people.” Newman is a means of exacting her revenge. She knows that Claire’s mother Madame Bellegarde will not approve of Newman, and his marrying Claire would be an affront to the Bellegardes in the eyes of the Marquise.
Mrs. Tristram establishes a relationship between Claire and Newman for a purpose. There is a possibility that the marriage will bring her and Claire closer together, but, failing this, their union will serve as vengeance. Using Newman in this fashion is a power play; here the woman wields the power, not the man. This is a clear inversion of Sedgwick’s triangle theory: “in any male-dominated society, there is a special relationship between male homosocial desire and the structures for maintaining and transmitting patriarchal power.” Newman holds no power over Claire except that which he has by virtue of Mrs. Tristram; thus patriarchal power is not at issue. According to Sedgwick, “[Male] homosexuality is the law that regulates the sociocultural order”; however, the female-female bond governs Newman’s interaction with Claire.
Mrs. Tristram constantly apologizes to Newman, claiming that his relationship with Claire was her doing; this says it quite well. She is the instigator of Newman’s courtship of Claire, and she’s able to do this because of an intimate bond that she shares with Claire. As these relationships were quite common in 19th-century life and literature, it makes sense that Henry James would use such a connection in his novel. In employing such a structure of intimacy, he inverts the more frequent triangle involving a woman between two men, and instead places a man at the center. Neither Claire nor Mrs. Tristram wants a man; they are far closer to each other than to their respective husbands or suitors. Their inability to be together was the sad fate of homosexual relationships at the time; such relationships could not be overtly recognized. Therefore, Christopher’s courtship of Claire is the talk of the novel, but Mrs. Tristram’s connection to her is the engine.
References
Faderman, Lillian. “Female Same-Sex Relationships in Novels by Longfellow, Holmes and James.” The New England Quarterly. Vol. 51, No. 3 (Sep., 1978).
Faderman, Lillian. Surpassing the Love of Men. William Morrow and Company, Inc. 1981.
James, Henry. The American. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1978.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men. Columbia University Press, 1985.
Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Vol. 1, No. 1 (1975).
Solomon, Melissa. “The Female World of Exorcism and Displacement,” in Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction, edited by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Duke University Press, 1997.
Katherine Mullen, who recently completed her MLS at Simmons College, lives with her partner in Boston.
