The Work of Being Worked (For): Intimacy, Knowledge, and Affective Labor in the Works of Henry James

Abstract

Abstract: Henry James's late works operate within a vibrant social economy, as "the working and the worked were in London, as one might explain, the parties to every relation" ( WD 201). I contend that James's social economy hinges on affective labor, a range of both paid and unpaid exchanges that involve emotional management and situate his characters in relationships of proximity, intimacy, and knowledge. By juxtaposing spaces of waged and unwaged affective labor in The Wings of the Dove and In the Cage , James reveals how it simultaneously facilitates the operation of a capitalist system and enacts a form of resistance.