Model
Digital Document
Publisher
Florida Atlantic University
Description
Language of spatial movement, the arbitrary placement of
values on a vertical scale, operates in the fiction of
James as a means of expressing central themes, as well as
minor themes that "depend" from them. The placement of
something on a scale, either high or low, indicates the
difficulty of permanence or of "fixing" in a world where
change is a necessary condition of life. In "The Lesson
of the Master" the idea of perfection as the apex of the
vertical scale develops conflicts and ironies. The artistnarrator
in "The Real Thing" thinks in terms of the
paradoxical perpendicular scale in practicing his art
of illustration. In "The Birthplace" Morris Gedge manifests
a more complex, ironical version of this idea in his obtuse
and non-fixed values.
values on a vertical scale, operates in the fiction of
James as a means of expressing central themes, as well as
minor themes that "depend" from them. The placement of
something on a scale, either high or low, indicates the
difficulty of permanence or of "fixing" in a world where
change is a necessary condition of life. In "The Lesson
of the Master" the idea of perfection as the apex of the
vertical scale develops conflicts and ironies. The artistnarrator
in "The Real Thing" thinks in terms of the
paradoxical perpendicular scale in practicing his art
of illustration. In "The Birthplace" Morris Gedge manifests
a more complex, ironical version of this idea in his obtuse
and non-fixed values.
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