The Aspern Papers

While the narrator and protagonist of The Aspern Papers uses a pseudonym and eventually tells Tita his real name, the reader never learns either the real name or the pseudonym. The use of first person serves to characterize the narrator in detail, because the reader has access to his thoughts and reactions. At the same time, this narrative perspective emphasizes The Distorting Effects of Hero Worship, as the narrator’s understanding of both himself and the other characters is distorted by his all-consuming obsession with the dead poet Jeffrey Aspern. While James employs dialogue frequently throughout the narrative, some passages feature the narrator paraphrasing a conversation—emphasizing the subjective quality of the narrative. For example, the narrator’s initial conversation with Juliana moves from dialogue to paraphrased dialogue: “‘Please to sit down there. I hear very well,’ she said quietly [. . .] I took possession of [the chair], telling her that I was perfectly aware that I had intruded, that I had not been properly introduced and could only throw myself upon her indulgence” (65). This shift from direct dialogue to exposition is significant because it enables James to include subjectivity and ambiguity; the reader understands the sense of what the narrator said, but not the words he actually used to say it. This ambiguity emphasizes the possibility of unreliable narration: In this case, the narrator may be summarizing the conversation to present himself in a more flattering light. Similarly, James employs parenthetical clauses frequently, as asides in the narrator’s thought process or to provide additional details. Parenthesis creates a sense of intimacy between reader and narrator, as the clauses are often directed toward the audience the narrator is writing for, but it also highlights the degree to which the protagonist is both in control of the story and not fully in control of his own thoughts and feelings.

Due to extensive conversations regarding the cost of the rent, money functions as a motif in this section of the novella. Juliana’s motivation to accept the protagonist as a lodger is monetary, as she hopes the money will help to provide for Tita after Juliana’s death. Surreptitiously, she is also trying to gauge the protagonist’s wealth and thus his suitability as a marriage partner for Tita. If he is willing to pay the exorbitant rate indefinitely and without protest, it suggests that he will also be able to provide for Tita indefinitely. As soon as he does voice a reluctance to continue paying such a high rent, Juliana interrogates him about his work and income. The narrator’s discomfort at discussing money with his idol’s muse characterizes him as a romantic and provides insight into his hero worship of Aspern. The narrator views “chaffering with Aspern’s Juliana” (67) to be odious, which suggests the disconnect between his romantic ideal of her as represented in poetry, and the reality of meeting her. Money therefore provides a tangible representation of the tension between representation and reality that appears throughout the novella’s characterization of Juliana. Money indicates figurative rather than literal value in the novel: The narrator knows that the rooms aren’t worth what he pays for them, but they are valuable to him because they offer the possibility of getting close to the Aspern papers.

The Aspern Papers was first published in a series of three installments in The Atlantic Monthly, and James creates suspense across chapter breaks in keeping with the demands of this publication format. For example, the second chapter ends with a statement about what Juliana is about to say—“the remark she made was exactly the most unexpected” (64)—and the remark itself is the first line of the subsequent chapter. The first-person narrative perspective is another source of suspense, as the narrator becomes increasingly desperate to obtain the letters and his overwhelming emotion begins to overtake the story. The novella also includes more subtle suspense, through instances in which the narrator relates his often-intense emotional response to an event or speech before revealing what was actually done or said. The break between Chapters 2 and 3 is an example of subtle building of suspense, foreshadowing the larger suspense built throughout the novel. Because the narrator is speaking retrospectively, he already knows what has happened to the papers, but the reader doesn’t find out they are eventually destroyed until the end of the narrative. This technique of suspense building in relation to small, everyday events contributes to the reader’s experience of being invested in what might otherwise seem to be a low-stakes event: not life and death, but the preservation or destruction of an archive. While the subject matter could initially be perceived as mundane, James uses suspense and perspective to ensure that the reader feels the all-consuming importance this archive has for the narrator.

Because all primary characters other than the narrator are women, the unreliable narration also functions as an exploration of patriarchal assumptions about gender. The narrator begins the novel with his assessment of the idea Mrs. Prest has given him: To convince the Bordereaus’ to rent him a room to get closer to the Aspern papers. He comments that “it is not supposed to be the nature of women to rise as a general thing to the largest and most liberal view [. . .] but it has struck me that they sometimes throw off a bold conception” (50). This passage exemplifies the narrator’s perspective on women, which vacillates between respect and dismissal. He acknowledges that her idea was the catalyst for the events of the novella, and that he wouldn’t have thought of it himself, but is simultaneously derisive and prone to credit stereotypes, evidenced by the use of “supposed to” and “the nature of women.” Similarly, the narrator’s admiration of Juliana is reserved for the idea of her as represented in Aspern’s poetry, and not for the real woman. He is evidently uncomfortable with the realities of her life and with her as an individual, as suggested by his reaction when she discusses financial matters.

The setting of the Bordereaus’ house is described in detail in this section, and the descriptions of its architecture convey the pathos of Privacy and Reclusiveness. James often employs personification in his physical descriptions of the house, an “air of quiet discouragement” (54), for example, to match what the narrator sees as the quiet discouragement of its inhabitants. The fact that the novel is set in Venice, but the primary characters are all expatriates is also significant. During the narrator’s initial conversation with Tita, he asks whether she and her aunt are American, to which she replies, “I don’t know; we used to be [. . .] it’s so many years ago – we are nothing” (61). This declaration of non-identity represents the dark side of James’s own expatriate life. Like many of his characters, James himself left the US for Europe in search of a fuller immersion in life and culture. The Bordereaus, alone in their decaying castle in a slowly sinking city, have moved in the opposite direction—not toward life and culture but away from these values. They have lost their Americanness without becoming Venetian, or European, and according to Tita they are now “nothing.”