restlessness and the american dream

7/28/2019 Restlessness and the American Dream

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Noorulain Khaliq

Restlessness and the American Dream: Desire in Henry James

The world we live in today is defined by differences, in culture, in class, in politics.

Income inequality has divided America and many other developed nations into the haves and the

have-notes, the 1% wealthiest earners and the rest. Uprisings have sprouted up in the Middle

East, Europe and across the United States calling to overwhelming attention the economic

divisions separating the whole nation. The upcoming presidential elections feature polarized

parties that have nurtured the existence of two radically different political cultures within one

country. Henry James The American is a novel which has as its heart a meditation on the effects

of differences on an industrializing global landscape and on the human soul. The barriers of an

alienating modern society have turned Newman into a perfect allegory for this current stage of

Western capitalism that we are experiencing today: a state of never really belonging, brought on

by the way consumerism has abstracted humanity from itself, and from its surroundings.

The protagonist lives a life of difference, exhibited by his desire to constantly travel and

live abroad versus residing in his native America. He decides to go to Europe to experience the

pinnacle of the culture it has to offer. An ambitious industrialist, he makes it a point to spend his

money on things that will be of value of him. He wishes to see the best art, taste the best food,

and locate the woman most suitable to be his wife. In short, he wants to shop. The reasoning and

the way in which he goes about experiencing is a symptom of the capitalism that has had such

a grasp on him and others like him. Newman perceives the culture industry, the mode of

production that he most closely associates with the sophistication of Europe, to be of value

according to the terms of his American, more materialist industry, which can appropriately be


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described as relative to consumption. Because he imagines Europe to be essentially similar to

America save for some heightened elegance, Newman sets out to acquire European products on

his own capitalist terms, as a buyer.

This is a condition of the hyper-capitalist identity that America has crafted for itself, and

that persists, even more pervasively, today. Newman lives in a society that runs on the

rationalization, or compartmentalization, of experience and life. The majority of peoples lives

consist of working in exchange for money, work which imparts some value to the economy as a

whole. This money can then be used in exchange for other goods and services. Eventually, as

Marx puts it, the relations between people become displaced by a relation between people and

objects, through a system of use-value. The America of James's time is too tied to systems of

material production then to systems of cultural production, such as those exhibited by Paris.

When Newman travels on the wealth he has accumulated, he does so to acquire, and not to

experience something more. Though he covets the intangible riches that Europe offers, he lacks

the ideological awareness to enjoy them.

James deliberately addresses this cultural difference when he juxtaposes the Bellegardes,

the prototypical aristocratic family, with the American capitalist Newman. As members of a

ruling class elitism, the Bellegardes at first do not take a liking to Newman, being the lowly

American that he is. But when Claire, the woman Newman eyes to be his wife, urges Valentin to

make amends with Newman in chapter 7, he finds much to admire:

My place in life had been made for me and it seemed easy to occupy. But you who, as I

understand it, have made your own place, you who, as you told us the other day, have made and

sold articles of vulgar household useyou strike me, in a fashion of your own, as a man who

stands about at his ease and looks straight over ever so many high walls. I seem to see you move


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everywhere like a big stockholder on his favourite railroad. And yet the world used to be

supposed to be ours. What is it I miss?

Here, James makes a very astute analysis of a shortcoming that befalls both parties in the

conversation. Valentin, praises Newman for having the means to be able to travel the world as he

pleases and project by way of confidence his feeling of being right where he wants to be. He

explains that his father had told him as a boy that it was a quality that was assumed a Bellegarde

to have; namely everything that one desires. Contrary to the rest of his family, Valentin in a way

envies Newman for seemingly being at peace. This is far from the truth, however. He is in fact,

in Paris searching for that thing that he wants.

This perpetual transience that Valentin sees in Newman is actually a peculiar kind of

restlessness that Alexis de Tocqueville cites as a condition of American capitalism. In his essay

Why the Americans are so Restless in the Midst of their Prosperity, de Tocqueville contrasts a

small village in the Old World of stationary existence with Americans, constantly on the move,

and consistently unsatisfied with the riches that they have. His fundamental distinction is that

the former do not think of the ills they endure, while the latter are forever brooding over

advantages they do not possess. In capitalism, all men are created equal, from a certain point of

view. Though some without a doubt have a certain advantage over others, the American Dream

positions every citizen as having the same opportunities for success and happiness as any other,

as long as one works hard. Newman, as a graduate of this school of thought, is exemplary of the

paradox that is the subject of de Tocquevilles essay, that the desire of equality always becomes

more insatiable in proportion as equality is more complete. In other words, when everyone has

the same chance at success, every individual toils in order to have just as much as those who are

at the top of the game. This contrasts from Valentins situation and that of the French aristocracy,

which relies on order, tradition, and the hierarchy of privilege to remain intact. Valentins world


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was made for him and he does not question it any more than the underclasses of his nation

question theirs.

Newman, always questions his world though, a restless motion that de Tocqueville

identifies as an unfortunate symptom of the American capitalist machine. As the latter so

eloquently closes his essay, American society is such that there is more room for enjoyment than

in the Old World, but, on the other hand, it must be admitted that man's hopes and desires are

oftener blasted, the soul is more stricken and perturbed, and care itself more keen. After years

of working to earn enough to attain happiness, Newman finally goes off to find what he wants.

What he finds is that he can never attain it because it does not exist anymore. American industry

has abolished it, that is, the possibility of a real human connection with each other and with his

surroundings.

restlessness and the american dream

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