The protagonist of the novel that Henry James himself considered to be his best is Mr. Lewis Lambert Strether, an American editor and a widower with close ties to the wealthy and sternly Protestant Mrs. Newsome. This lady’s grown son, Chad, has been touring Europe for some time, delaying his return to the family fold. Mrs. Newsome turns to Mr. Strether for assistance, offering to send him to Europe on a generous allowance in order to bring Chad home; for Mr. Strether’s part, he has reason to expect that he may eventually be accepted as a marriage partner to Mrs. Newsome, and so of course he answers her call for help with her son.
As the novel opens, Mr. Strether has only recently landed in England, having been dispatched as Mrs. Newsome’s “ambassador” to Chad. At the outset, his mission is clear: find Chad, separate him from his European attachments, and bring him home as soon as possible. On his very first day in Europe, however, Mr. Strether meets the charming Maria Gostrey, an American expatriate and a lady of independent means and ways.
In Paris, Mr. Strether learns that young Chad is deeply attached to Madame de Vionnet. Since she is older than Chad, Mr. Strether persuades himself, as long as he can, that the relationship is an innocent one, but circumstances finally force him to recognize the truth of their affair. In the meantime, Mr. Strether has himself become transformed by Europe and given up on his promise to retrieve the young man; his delay in bringing Chad home causes Mrs. Newsome to send another set of ambassadors, her no-nonsense sister, Mrs. Pocock, her brother-in-law, Jim Pocock, and Jim’s naive sister, Mamie. These sturdy Americans prove to be immune to Europe’s attractions, and they cannot comprehend why Chad and Mr. Strether are entranced by their idyll in the Old World.
In the end, Mr. Strether decides that he will return to his native land, although he regrets that he will lose the company of Maria Gostrey. For his part, Chad remains firm in his intention to stay in Europe.
The clash between the behaviors and expectations of Americans and Europeans was a favorite subject for Henry James. Americans not infrequently come out the worse, as in The American (1876–77) and Daisy Miller (1878). Europe is James’s great symbol of refinement and cultivation inextricably conjoined with decadence; it is the place where materialistic American Protestants can finally find a scale of comparison that dwarfs the achievements of the New World, especially in the arts. Mr. Strether’s finer sensibilities blossom in this new environment, as Chad’s had also done, but the older man feels the call of duty more strongly and is able to surrender his new enjoyments to go home.
Bibliography
James, Henry. The Ambassadors: An Authoritative Text, the Author on the Novel, Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton, 1964.
Mizener, Arthur. Twelve Great American Novels. New York: New American Library, 1967.
Stone, Albert E., ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Ambassadors: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1969.
Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis
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