An Interpretation Of The American Cultural Identity In Henry James’s International Novels

The issue of "cultural identity" didn’t become hot and well-discussed until the coming of the post-colonial age in the 20th century With so many colonial countries getting their political independence from their former colonizers, the people of the former colonial countries began to think about their native culture and concerned themselves with the cultural identity of their nation. However, the intellectuals of the United States have been concerned with the issue of "cultural identity" long before. After the New World got rid of the British colonial control and was founded as a new country, the intellectuals in America were eager to build a cultural identity of their own nation to help claim their political independence. There were basically two different views on the building of American cultural identity. The cultural nationalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson advocated that the American people should get themselves free from the influence of European cultural inheritance and build their cultural edifice in their unique way; while another group of American intellectuals with Henry James as the most distinguished representative held a cosmopolitan view on this issue. In order to examine his native culture and national values more clearly and objectively, James went to the European Continent and made comparison and contrast between the American and the European cultures. James’s view on the American cultural identity found its best expression in his "international novels". Most of the characters in James’s novels were American expatriates in Europe, who experienced the cultural encounters, struggled between the two cultures in dealing with the cultural disparities and finally realized the necessity of reconstructing their cultural identities in the alien cultural setting. In his two most mature works The Portrait of a Lady and The Ambassadors, James presented the two protagonists as the prototypes of their countrymen. Through the spiritual enlightenment as well as the perfection of the protagonists during their journeys in Europe, James expressed such an idea that the American people were able to have a better understanding of their own culture when examining it in an alien cultural context; they could find out the differences between the two cultures and adopt the merits of other forms of civilization to perfect their own and finally reconstruct the cultural identity of their nation into an ideal one. This view of James exerted a profound influence upon later generations of American writers in dealing with their national cultural identity.This thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the concept of "cultural identity" and discusses the issue of the American cultural identity. This chapter presents two different views of the early generations of American intellectuals on the formation of American cultural identity, particularly tells about Henry James’s view on this issue. Through conducting textual analyses on two of James’s best works The Portrait of a Lady and The Ambassadors, Chapter 2 summarizes the deep-rooted American national characteristics embodied by James’s expatriate characters, which were closely related to the cultural identity of America. Chapter 3 is of great importance to this thesis. By analyzing the two novels and the protagonists in them, it reveals the American expatriate characters’examination of their own culture and their pursuit of an ideal American cultural identity in the European cultural setting. In this chapter, the theories on cultural identity of some cultural scholars of the 20th century such as Paul Gilbert and Stuart Hall are used to interpret the struggle of American expatriates in redefining their cultural identities in an alien civilization and their pursuit of an ideal national cultural identity. Here James’s foresight in viewing the identity issue is clearly manifested. The conclusion part illustrates the influence of James’s view upon the writers of the later generations and summarizes the significance of James’s ideas on the American cultural identity.