Fear of Falling and the Rise of Girls: Lamarck's Knowledge inWhat Maisie Knew

Abstract

To the extent that living things diverge from type, are they abnormal … or are they inventors on the road to new forms? What if [Woman] were no longer trained to marry, but trained to live? She would be, as a being, very other than she is now. In TheStudy of Dolls (1897), the psychologist G. Stanley Hall observes that when children hold conversations with their dolls, the “doll is taught those things learned best, or in which the child has the most interest” (51). In Henry James's What Maisie Knew, published in the same year as Hall's study, we overhear Maisie Farange's tête-à-tête with her French doll, Lisette. After Maisie has been away for a while, Lisette “tried hard to discover where she has been.” “Maisie replied to her … as she, Maisie, had once been replied to by Mrs. Farange: ‘Find out for yourself!’” (419–20). A child of divorce who shuttles between her parents' houses, Maisie often wonders where her mother, Ida Farange, has been or where she is going. At the close of the novel, Ida seems to be off, again: “I'm thinking of going to South Africa,” Ida announces, “but that's none of your business.” “No, I won't tell you. You can find out for yourself’” (550).