A Glimpse of the Truth : How Manners Produce Charm in What Maisie Knew

Abstract

This article reads Henry James’s What Maisie Knew as novel of manners that reflects how people’s relationships and perceptions of others are affected by manners. Although many critics have investigated the problem of “knowledge” in their readings of the novel, “ignorance” has not received much attention. What Maisie Knew illustrates how both mystery/distance and intimacy/closeness produce charm; manners allow one to wield social power over other people through mystery and distance, but at the same time, knowing each other’s unique manners makes people look irresistibly charming to each other. As Roland Barthes explains in Camera Lucida, punctum makes its possessor unique, and similarly, charm marks its possessor a distinct being in the novel. Yet just as Barthes cannot find his mother’s essence in innumerable pieces of pictures after her death, James’s characters fail to see other characters fully and coherently just by recognizing the vividness of their charm. James suggests that manners make individuals continue on their way to knowledge by giving and withholding it and that one should keep wondering about others even though they can only catch a glimpse of truth.