The Wings of the Dove

1200 د.ج

The Wings of the Dove-Henry James

The Wings of the Dove is a tale of desire and possession, of

love and death. It is in essence a simple story, but one that

opens up the great subject of art: life itself. To tackle this,

James moves between fairytale storylines and the startlingly

modern techniques of his testing late style. An unspeakable

subtext lies beneath the silence. Distinct points of view and

different centres of consciousness betray the dislocation of

the social facade from the desolation beneath. For all the

familiar signs, there is a gulf between glamour and the

underlying threat of loss. The eternal triangle of romance is

played out here like a game on an international stage for the

very highest stakes. It centres on ‘the dying girl who wants to

live – to live and love.’ But those closest to her are in

competition for what she can leave behind. Milly Theale, ‘the

heiress of all the ages’, is imaged as a dove, a princess, a

Renaissance beauty, but these symbols come at a dreadful

cost. By the end of the novel we know, ‘We shall never be

again as we were!’

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