Summary
The novella begins in media res with the narrator, who remains unnamed, explaining how he has revealed his plans for a trip to Venice to Mrs. Prest. Over the course of the first chapter, he slowly tells of his scheme to enter the home of Miss Bordereau, a former lover of the deceased American poet that the narrator is studying, Jeffrey Aspern. Juliana Bordereau and her niece live in Venice (although they too are American)—a fact that the narrator has learned from Mrs. Prest, who had been their neighbor fifteen years prior.
From Mrs. Prest, the narrator learns that Miss Bordereau and her niece live in an old, dilapidated palace, far out of the public eye. They are so reclusive that when Mrs. Prest came by, they refused her company and she was never welcomed into their home beyond the central hall, which the narrator finds discouraging, since his goal is to read the private love letters Juliana exchanged with Aspern, and he therefore must gain Bordereau’s trust. Although Mrs. Prest offers to show him their house, the narrator confesses that he has already been to see it the day after he arrived in Venice on the recommendation of Jeffrey Cumnor, the only other “worshipper” of Aspern’s work who shares the narrator’s obsession with Aspern’s biography.
The narrator explains that he hopes to discover more about Aspern’s character through the private letters between Aspern and Juliana, and even goes as far as to compare Aspern to a god that he worships. Aspern suffered an early death, and the narrator, along with Jeffrey Cumnor, is determined to discover as much as he can about him. Juliana is Aspern's only surviving contemporary; a fact that the narrator is amazed by, as it seems that she has slipped through the cracks and been overlooked by other prying reporters and writers of the time.
Mrs. Prest and the narrator take a gondola to look at the Bordereaus’ palazzo. The narrator notes how large it is, and hopes that because it is so big, the Bordereaus will be more likely to have a spare room for him to stay in. He expresses his doubts that the Bordereaus will accept guests, since when Cumnor wrote to them previously, the niece wrote a terse response telling him to leave them alone and that they would not want to show any of the letters to him. However, the narrator took the niece’s response as a sign that she knew Aspern, due to her calling him “Mr. Aspern,” which the narrator believes shows that she was familiar with him. The narrator finishes explaining his plan to Mrs. Prest by telling her that he will take on a false name while attempting to court the niece in order to access the letters. He has arranged for all of his mail to be forwarded to the local banker so that the Bordereaus will not see his real name, and for Cumnor to write to him at the Bordereaus’ palazzo using his false name.
A maid lets the narrator into the palazzo. Juliana’s niece—a young woman who he finds out is named Tita (in later versions of the novella, she was renamed as Tina)—comes downstairs and the narrator attempts to convince her to let him re-do the house’s garden. Miss Tita is quite reserved, at times seeming dazed, and does not accept the narrator’s emphatic arguments that the house needs a beautiful garden. She tells him that they are too poor, and that her aunt never comes down from her room anyways due to her old age. Additionally, she tells the narrator that she doesn’t know how they would host him while he worked on the garden, since the rooms of the house are almost bare and they lack the money needed to furnish them. The narrator, unabashed, proposes that he find them furniture and help with the house. Miss Tita tells him that she will think about his proposal.
When the narrator returns to the house, he goes into the parlor and is stunned to see Juliana. He is overwhelmed at first and immediately begins to feel a deep connection to Aspern, while simultaneously being horrified by her extremely old age, which has made her resemble a “grinning skull” rather than the divine woman he was expecting. The narrator realizes that because she is so old, she could die very soon, and he would be able to access the letters. The chapter ends on a cliff-hanger, as Juliana begins to say something to the narrator that is left unrevealed until the next chapter.
Analysis
One of the most crucial features of The Aspern Papers is its narrative voice (the style in which the story is told, which conveys the character, tone, and personality of the narrator). The narrator remains anonymous; his true identity is never revealed. This narrative omission places the reader in a position that mirrors Miss Tita’s and Juliana Bordereau’s, who only know the narrator as a stranger under a false name. Like the two women, we are pushed to trust the narrator through his words. As readers, the narrator’s obscurity forces us into a position of trusting him, because his perspective is the only one that we receive. Simultaneously, we are aware of how limited that perspective is due to its use of the first-person “I,” which allows us to only see the narrative’s events from his viewpoint.
This technique allows James to structure a double narrative; there is the story, composed of the events, and then there is the narrative of how information is dispensed or obscured by the narrator in his own re-telling. For example, it is unclear when Chapter I is temporally set at first, since the narrator begins his narrative by explaining Mrs. Prest’s role within his plan. By introducing Mrs. Prest before himself, the narrator is able to deftly obscure himself from the reader’s attention within the first few pages. He credits Mrs. Prest with undoing the “Gordian knot” in his plan, which means that he believes Mrs. Prest’s suggestions allowed him to overcome the intricate problem of trying to gain access to the Bordereaus.
The narrator dispenses information in a tactical manner, and the narrative is dictated by his consciousness—his stream of thoughts—rather than a strict linear timeline. This temporal flexibility also allows the novel to rely heavily on foreshadowing, as the narrator references the future and the past even when he is explaining an event as it occurs. For example, at the end of Chapter II, the narrator states that the emotions he experienced “come back to me now almost with the palpitation they caused,” using the past tense and explicitly referencing the fact that he is writing the narrative from a point that is temporally distant from when the events actually occurred. He goes on to tell the reader that “[he] grew used to her afterward,” foreshadowing what will come of his relationship with Juliana.
The first chapters also establish an important motif about the narrator’s relationship to the deceased poet that he studies, Jeffrey Aspern. The narrator routinely uses religious language to describe his feelings towards Aspern and the research he does about Aspern’s life. He calls himself a “worshipper” of Aspern and even goes as far as to use an extended metaphor to describe Aspern as a “temple” where the narrator and Jeffrey Cumnor serve as “the ministers.” He idolizes Aspern, going as far as to call him a genius and one of the “most brilliant,” “most genial,” and “handsomest” men.
The narrator’s feelings toward Aspern are important to note in relation to the narrative voice described above. The narrator’s perspective is not objective and omniscient, and his love of Aspern reminds the reader of his bias. The reader cannot forget that we only view Aspern through the narrator; there is no objectivity in his assessment. Similarly, as the narrator describes Juliana, his perspective and obsession with Aspern seep through when he characterizes her based on what he recognizes from Aspern’s work, rather than his observation of the woman who is actually in front of him. This tension between objectivity and narrative subjectivity through the narrator’s limited perspective keep the narrative shrouded in a kind of second-order mystery about the nature of the story itself. What kind of effect does the narrator’s manipulation of the truth have on the reader? Can we trust the narrator? Do we sympathize with him and his obsession?
