“Brooksmith”
The speaker’s apathy towards the ‘house in Mansfield Street’ is a psychological stimulation. The speaker acknowledges, “When I pass the house in Mansfield Street I remember that Arcadia was there. I don't know who has it now, and don't want to know; it's enough to be so sure that if I should ring the bell there would be no such luck for me as that Brooksmith should open the door.” This pronouncement indicates that the speaker is exercising flagrant Avoidance. The speaker is disinterested in the house since it would stimulate the recollections of the late Mr. Oliver Offord and Brooksmith. Calling at the house would be analogous to the aggravation Mr. Offord’s remembrances which it would be dismal and painful.
The ubiquitous fireside at Mr. Offord’s house magnifies the physical and uplifting temperateness in the house. Henry James expounds, “Finally his own fireside had become a summary of his habits. Why should he ever have left it?—since this would have been leaving what was notoriously pleasantest in London, the compact charmed cluster (thinning away indeed into casual couples) round the fine old last-century chimney-piece which, with the exception of the remarkable collection of miniatures, was the best thing the place contained. Mr. Offord wasn't rich; he had nothing but his pension and the use for life of the somewhat superannuated house.” Although Mr. Offord was not affluent, his home offered a flush ambiance that would not be substituted by money. The temperateness of the house elevated him obstinately and engrossed associates who were categorically thrilled by staying there. If the house were icy, then it is likely that it would not have prompted repeat stopovers.
Based on Lacanian psychoanalysis Mr. Offord is Brooksmith’s utter Objet petit a. In a passionate concession, Brooksmith avows, “Mr. Offord was MY society, and now, you see, I just haven't any…Ah if you could give me some one like him! But there ain't two such in the world." Mr. Offord, prior to his departure had been Brooksmith’s life; thus, his death, is equivalent to the expiry of Brooksmith’s object of desire. Even if Brooksmith were to find another occupation as butler with one of Mr. Offord’s enduring associates, that friend would not fit in Mr. Offord’s place for Mr. Offord is unconditionally nonpareil.
“The Altar of the Death”
“The Altar of the Death” is a classic manifestation of outright Imaginary Order. Stransom consents to the Imaginary Order to dominate his lifecycle: “Of that benediction, however, it would have been false to say this life could really be emptied: it was still ruled by a pale ghost, still ordered by a sovereign presence... He had needed no priest and no altar to make him for ever widowed. He had done many things in the world—he had done almost all but one: he had never, never forgotten. He had tried to put into his existence whatever else might take up room in it, but had failed to make it more than a house of which the mistress was eternally absent.” The ghost that overshadows Stransom’s life amplifies the Imaginary Order that heartens him to live like a widow even though he had not wedded Mary Antrim before her departure. The resolution of widowhood bestows him the illusion of having ever been Mary Antrim’s spouse. The Imaginary Order houses Mary Antrim in George Stransom’s illusional existence.
As a result of Imaginary Order, Stransom categorically transforms death into his religion. Henry James explicates, “ Quite how it had risen he probably never could have told you, but what came to pass was that an altar, such as was after all within everybody’s compass, lighted with perpetual candles and dedicated to these secret rites, reared itself in his spiritual spaces…Gradually this question was straightened out for him: it became clear to him that the religion instilled by his earliest consciousness had been simply the religion of the Dead.” Clearly, Stransom’s veneration of his late fiance’s memory is tantamount to charismatic religion because he is unequivocally fanatical about the memories. The altar that he allocates to the adulation of death are founded in his unconscious which does not want to banish the recollections of death. Accordingly, disassembling such altar would necessitate mystical and non-physical contrivances. Stransom registers in a religion that would not license him to get in the Symbolic Order of wedding another woman. The consecration of Mary Antrim transfigures her into Stransom’s immortal god.
