제임스의 신여성 : 「보스턴 사람들」연구

James"s New Woman: A Study of The Bostonians

&nbsp;&nbsp;Among the Jamesian canons, The Bostonians(1886) deals with politics and sexuality the most directly by capturing the "New Woman" in the postbellum age of America. The central confrontation of the novel is in possessing the young, beautiful, and eloquent Verena Tarrant which develops between Olive Chancellor, a homosexual radical feminist leading the women&quot;s suffrage movement and Basil Ransom, a heterosexual conservative opposing it. Basil attempts to save Verena from lesbian Olive and marry her to preserve a healthy home.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;For some critics, James is regarded as a feminist writer due to his women characters with strong self-consciousness and intelligence. But James&quot;s attitude toward the "New Woman" portrayed in The Bostonians raises an argument on James as a feminist. Is he a feminist who sympathizes with the "New Woman" character participating in the women&quot;s movement? Or, does James agree with the male discourse in the age insisting that the "New Woman" causes sexual degeneration and "race&nbsp;&nbsp;suicide"?<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Although James is a realist who recognizes that "the situation of woman" is "the most salient and peculiar point" in the 1880s, he does not support the feminization of American culture for masculinity will then be blotted out from the world. The fact that James&quot;s perspective on lesbian Olive and the feminist movement is also negative proves that he agrees with the male discourse of the age on the "New Woman." To many, The Bostonians seems an anomaly in the Jamesian canon, but he might have revealed his frank and unconscious view on women in this anomaly.