75 pages • 2 hours read
Henry JamesThe Bostonians
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1886A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Though he had wanted to join the Union cause, a childhood injury prevented Henry James from fighting in the Civil War. In 1915, he renounced his American citizenship, partly because of his frustration that America had not yet entered World War I. He lived for the rest of his life in England, where he spent much of his time performing relief work with soldiers. How might these events be reflected in Basil Ransom’s view of masculinity and the “womanisation” of his generation?
Is the novel told from Basil’s point of view, or the narrator’s, or James’s? Where does the narrator appear to disagree with Basil, and what is the effect of the narrator’s editorializing throughout the novel?
James said of The Bostonians that he wanted to write “a very American tale.” What is the vision of America presented in The Bostonians?
In an 1886 review of The Bostonians, Horace Elisha Scudder wrote, “When we say that most of the characters are repellent, we are simply recording the effect which they produce upon the reader by reason of the attitude which the author of their being takes toward them. He does not love them. Why should he ask more of us?” Do you agree that the characters are repellent? How does the this affect the message of the novel?
Where does James use humor in The Bostonians? What is the effect of this humor on readers’ impressions of the characters?
James wrote that he did not mean for the title of the work to refer to all Bostonians but rather to Basil’s impressions of Olive and Verena. How do Olive and Verena represent Boston, and how does Boston represent the North? How does Basil’s referring to Olive and Verena as “the Bostonians” suggest he is a foreigner, and what does his being like a foreigner say about post-Civil War America?
Discuss the women in The Bostonians. How do they fit various traditional stereotypes of women? How should we reconcile the fact that Basil often assesses them accurately with the fact that he himself is depicted as a misogynist?
How, in The Bostonians, does one’s appearance reflect one’s character? Consider Basil Ransom, Olive Chancellor, Miss Birdseye, and others.
The literary realism movement was a response to Romanticism, which focused on the power of emotion, imagination, and the individual. Realist novels seek to portray the reality of everyday life, rejecting the dramatization of the Romantic tradition. How is The Bostonians an example of a realist novel? Is it an accurate, realistic portrayal of everyday life, of people, and of society?
How does James use the setting in The Bostonians? What is the effect of the detail with which he describes the setting? From whose point of view do readers see the setting? What is the effect of our seeing only northern locations?
Related Titles
By Henry James
