The Masquerade of Social Selves in What Maisie Knew by Henry James

Abstract

The paper discusses the Social Self represented in the novel What Maisie Knew (1897) by Henry James. Its representation is analysed under the lens of his brother‟s (W. James)
psychological theory outlined in The Principles of Psychology (1890). The concept of the Social Self in What Maisie Knew may be seen as taking shape in the images of five adults: a
father and a mother, a stepfather and a stepmother and a governess. All the adults fail to fulfil their social roles as parents, apparently because their material and spiritual Selves are
stronger than the social one. The representation of the Social Self in the novel is achieved via fixed focalization; the Social Selves of the (step)parents are presented from a little child‟s innocent, subjective point of view. The child becomes the eyes and the ears of the novel, that is, the reflector character through which the novel is narrated. Henry James almost never crosses the boundary and the radii of Maisie‟s perspective which is strictly kept throughout the entire narrative. It seems that through his novel H. James indirectly blames the English society where unhealthy ethics prosper and in which the devaluation of morality and ideals occurs.