Zolaesque Naturalistic Shadows and European Discourses in James's Fiction: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The several French ideological practices and French characters in the fiction of the American novelist Henry James led some critics to believe that James belongs to the French naturalistic school of Emile Zola, and that the ideology in his fiction is French. This paper examines the extent to which ideological practices in James's fiction play a role in determining the character's fate. The paper asserts that despite the European ideological pressure upon James's American characters in European historical contexts, James's treatment of the effect of such ideology on the characters is not French. Unlike Emile Zola who renders his characters victims to the corrupted ideological practices of the old-world Europe, James renders the ideological temperaments of his American characters to be in conflict with such European contexts and practices. James's treatment of ideology falls more under the category of American Realism than the Zolaesque French naturalism, for as the latter portion of the paper will argue, James's characters are behaving according to the ideological context of a specifically Emersonian ideology. To enforce this argument further about James's art, the paper compares the ideological practices and mode of fictional representation in James's The Portrait of a Lady and Zola's Nana, to assert that James's art is realistic and American, despite the French naturalist shades in his fiction.