Stalking the Biracial Hidden Self in Henry James’s The Sense of the Past and “The Jolly Corner”Posted in Articles, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Passing, United States on 2010-08-10 02:16Z by Steven |
Stalking the Biracial Hidden Self in Henry James’s The Sense of the Past and “The Jolly Corner”
The Henry James Review
Volume 25, Number 3, Fall 2004
pages 276-284
E-ISSN: 1080-6555,
Print ISSN: 0273-0340
DOI: 10.1353/hjr.2004.0027
Stephanie L. Hawkins, Assistant Professor of English
University of North Texas
This essay argues that, for James, the visible face and body conceal some genetic “reality” or heritage, which he figures in both The Sense of the Past and “The Jolly Corner” as the specter of unacknowledged racial difference. In both works, James fuses evolutionary biology and the ghostly, thematizing turn-of-the-century anxieties regarding miscegenation. By transforming a narrative of time travel into one of racial passing, James both literalizes the psychological phenomenon of a “hidden self” and exposes the central paradox of double-consciousness: the simultaneous recognition and rejection of one’s “hidden” racial differences and sense of estrangement from the national family.
Read the entire article here.