Theme of Duplicity in

THEME OF DUPLICITY IN THREE SHORT STORIES OF HENRY JAMES THE LIAR, THE REAL THING, AND THE BEAST IN THE JUNGLE Nazan Gokay Theme of Duplicity in Three Short Stories of enthalpy mob The prevaricator, The Real social function, and The Beast in the Jungle The genius of heat content James human beingifests itself in duality of meaning in both his shorter and long-lived works. Appearance and positionuality provide for two levels of expression. On one level the origin is explicit as told by the fabricator, only if underneath lies the uncertain meaning which is in a sense the main theme of the level.The equivocalness is usually embedded in the narrative it is the occupation of the attentive proofreader to seek it out, understand it and enjoy it. James does non make this task easy for the reader. His style is subtle, vague, and demands a lot of attention. One clue to the solid meaning of Jamess stories is the irony employed. Most of Jamess narrators atomic number 18 unreali able in the sense that they are deceptive. Their unreliability is either a result of their blindness or unawareness of their situation and environment, or an conceited engagement in their own affairs so as to stress reality.The unreliable narrator misleads the reader. The Jamesian irony clarifies the story, brings out the real meaning on a lower floor the spare and reveals the unreliable narrator. The Liar is a perfect example of the use up of an unreliable narrator and the existence of two levels of meaning, the real and the apparent. Although the story is not told from a first person point of view, the narrator confines himself barely to the mind of Oliver Lyon, a tonalityer and former suitor of Mrs. Capadose. The events are enter through Lyons mind and we perceive people through his eyes. consort to Lyon, Colonel Capadose is a villainous liar who has to be exposed. Lyons conception of Capadose as a liar and his envy of the Colonel have blinded Lyon to appreciate him as an amiable human being which in fact he is. Lyon faithlessly plans to expose the Colonel in a portrait he will incommodet as the liar and eventually renew his friendship with Mrs. Capadose. Lyons write up of the event is the apparent and superficial meaning of the story. Colonel Capadose is the liar and he has weakened his wife through their geezerhood of marriage, for at the end of the story she, similarly, lies in order to save her husband.Lyon, as the disillusioned hero, watches them depart from his behavior, thinking that he had trained her too well. On a deeper and more significant level, Oliver Lyon is the real liar. Although Colonel has been known as a liar, he is a harmless man who is only engaged in a favorable game. In society, in human relationships, one has to wear a mask. Lyon himself points out at the dinner party that people like others not because they are strictly effective but because they are skillful in deception. Lyons treachery is often more significan t than Colonels social games.Lyon tries to violate the integrity of some other mans character moreover, he plans to expose him to the public. Subtle but definitely present Jamesian irony brings out the essence of the story. The most frank ironical device is the name Oliver Lyon, who is the real liar. The exposure of the couple at the end is ironically at the expense of Lyon who loses forever any outlook he might have had with this ideal woman, the woman that he has love for so long. Through the story Lyon plots against the Colonel, but in fact he is bringing about his own disillusionment.In this manner, the real meaning of The Liar emerges as a result of Lyons self-defeat, not from humiliation of Colonel Capadose as Lyon had anticipated. The circumstance of The Real Thing is slightly different than the The Liar. Although the theme of duplicity, wave-particle duality between the apparent and the real is still the central issue, there is no unreliable narrator. In The Liar the su perficial is conveyed through accounts of the unreliable narrator and the real is embedded in the ironical and false character of Oliver Lyon. In The Real Thing the dichotomy between the real and the apparent is explicitly stated.In this story James is concerned with the mission of the artist who seeks for communicatory and imaginative realism in potential nothings rather than in concrete, constituted real things. Mr. and Mrs. Monarch, as their names imply, are types or norms of a ace humanity. They are ideal, real, and aristocratic in life, but they are not refine for art. When the painter tries to paint them, their portraits materialise as rigid, photograhic images. The painter-narrator discovers that Miss Churm and Oronte who are socially nothings prove to be the real things for art.They can adopt aristocratic poses collapse than those who are really aristocratic in life. On a social level Mr. and Mrs. Monarch, a gentleman and a lady as the gatekeepers wife announces them, are the real things. The social institution, their married life is perfect, they are devoted to each other. On an aesthetic level, the artists imagination is the real thing. On this level the reality of Monarchs is no overnight valid Miss Churm and Oronte replace them. The irony of the story rests on the fact that for the artist, the represented subject is more essential than the real thing. The Beast in the Jungle is the story of a man who is haunted by revere and expectation simultaneously that something will happen to him. John footslogger is the exemplary blind hero of James. His self-indulgence prevents him from seeing the reality, thus his view, through which the story is narrated, is unreliable. John Marcher is similar to Oliver Lyon in that his self-deception results in inflicting pain to others, although his motives are not aggressive like Lyons. Marcher is not a villain as Lyon is. He causes Mays and his own lugubriousness unwittingly.His flaw is his blindness, but cert ainly not treachery. His situation is as ironic as Lyons in that he tries to be ordinary and cloud his uniquenesss, while he is unaware that his uniqueness is that he is, in fact, ordinary. The paradigm meaning is conveyed through the two characters of the story. John Marcher manifests the superficial and apparent aspect, while May Bartram presents the real and underlying theme. Most of the story is cerebrate through John Marchers point of view as the The Liar was told through Lyons point of view.The underlying theme is evince in the dialogues with May Bartram, who is a very perceptive and intelligent woman. currently after she has made his acquaintance, she sees his real issue. She comes to love him, but he is too engrossed in his expectations to notice her unquestioned presence and friendship. As years go by she sees it not happening. Finally, before she dies she tells him that It has come, but he is still unaware. His moment of recognition comes when he visits her grave and realizes that he has anomic her forever, and that he is the man, to whom nothing on earth was to have happened. As in the other two stories, the names of the characters are significant in stressing the theme of duplicity. Marcher is winter May is spring. Marcher is fear May is love. Marcher advances in a stately manner, but never reaches May in her lifetime. In The Liar and The Beast in the Jungle unreliable narrators are used to convey and stress the double meaning. In The Real Thing the dichotomy between the real and the apparent is presented as a puzzle confronting the artist. In either case the theme of duplicity is employed to agree richness and depth to the meaning of the stories.The double meaning, irony, and unreliable narrators have plow indispensable elements of Jamesian fiction. BIBLIOGRAPHY Matthiessen, F. O. Henry James The Major Phase. New York Oxford University Press, 1963. Powers, Lyall H. Henry James An Introduction and Interpretation. New York Holt , Rinehart a nd Winston, Inc. , 1970. Stone, Edward, ed. Henry James Seven Stories and Studies. New York Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. , 1961. Tompkins, Jane P. , ed. ordinal Century Interpretations of The Turn of the Screw and Other Tales. New Jersey Prentice-Hall, Inc. , 1970.