Charting an Ethics of Desire in The Wings of the Dove

Abstract

Why do philosophers and literary theorists consistently return to ques tion of ethical behavior in Henry James, a writer who, as Lee Clark Mitchell recently observed, resists any simple notion of human psychology or ethical engagement?1 As we struggle to understand Isabel Archer's return to her disas trous marriage, Lambert Strether's commitment to fantasy of Madame de Vionnet, Maggie Verver's agonized contemplation of a successfully imprisoned Amerigo, and Milly Theale's construction of a space in which she can hold on to her desire, we are riveted by complexity of these characters' emotional and ethical responses. We return to James not only because his characters' dilemmas refuse simple resolutions (perhaps any resolution) but also because we experi ence suffering and paradoxical triumph of those who pursue their desire to its most far-reaching conclusion. James's characters are nothing if not willful— and ultimately alone—in their quests. Like figures from ancient Greek drama, they demand everything and give up nothing, enacting Jacques Lacan's ethical claim that the only thing of which one can be guilty is of having given ground relative to one's desire.2 In doing so, these characters seem to call into question, or at least complicate, Kantian categorical imperative and ideal of disin terested action, offering a radical ethical alternative. James's characters enact, I will argue, an ethic of desire.