On The Absence Of Motherhood In Henry James's Novels

Henry James is a literary master in British and America literature and is considered as'the father of international novelist'. His works have been widely studied by scholars both in China and abroad. Yet there is a very common phenomenon in quite a lot of his works, which has been neglected by many critics. That is"the absence of motherhood". This paper intends to analyze four of his major works: Daisy Miller (1879), Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881) and The Turn of the Screw (1898) so as to illustrate"the absence of motherhood"symptom in his literary creation.The reading of Henry James criticisms shows that there are only a few mentions of the absence of motherhood, but there is no study concentrate solely on it. So this paper takes this as the argument, in the hope to provide new insight to Henry James study. This thesis tries to explain why there is the absence of motherhood in Henry James's novels. The thesis attempts to analyze reasons for the absence of motherhood in Henry James's novels from two aspects: Henry James's social background and his life experiences.In Henry James's times, the United States of America is a young nation, and lacks culture accumulation. Henry James is deeply impressed by the glorious European culture, and at the same time, is greatly embarrassed by the meager American culture. The role Henry James's mother plays in his education is not as important as his father. These experiences make the role of the mother less important in his writings. Henry James's social background and his life experiences explain why there is the absence of motherhood in his novels.