Anxiety of Influence: Reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady

Abstract

Edith Wharton’s literary relationship with Henry James has been a subject of much critical debate wherein Wharton is often positioned as James’s devoted follower. This paper reflects upon this relationship by reading Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and James’s The Portrait of a Lady and examines how, while sharing various thematic interests, both the authors depart significantly in their aesthetic and social concerns. Wharton, undermined and trapped under James’s shadow, diverges from James’s psychological introspection of the self and interior lives of his characters. Her interests are centred on broader social contexts, critique of social convention, and gender hierarchies. The paper tries to assert her autonomy and show how her writing is distinct from James’s, despite their similar literary preoccupations.