Maisie’s Loss of Innocence Eleonor Botoman College

“Jamesian” is a term frequently used by literary scholars to describe the psychological assemblage of individual identity, a realization of consciousness and selfhood through knowledge and action, credited at times to both Henry James’s literary works and his brother William’s Theory of Self (Bayley 149). In Henry James’s 1897 novel, What Maisie Knew, the central figure of young Maisie Farange appears to embody these ideals. Caught in the middle of the chaos of love affairs and divorces, the little girl matures into an assertive, moral individual. At the novel’s conclusion, the reader is left with the sense that Maisie has escaped the immorality of the adults of her life. She has preserved her “unspotted soul” (James 5) by leaving with sensible Mrs. Wix. However, as Edward Wasiolek argues in his article “Maisie: Pure or Corrupt?”, that argument is not sufficient to describe the change Maisie has undergone throughout the novel. Wasiolek challenges previous analyses of Maisie’s character by suggesting that her soul has indeed become corrupted from absorbing the sexual drama and selfishness from the adults around her. This corruption is what gives her the power to take control of her life and sacrifice Sir Claude and Mrs. Beale....