| Washington Square marks the culmination of james'sapprentice period as a novelist.With sharply focused attention upon just four principal character,james provides an acute analysis of middle-class manners and behaviour in the New York ofthe 1870s,a period of great change in the life of the city.This change is explored through the device of setting the novel's action during the 1840s,similarly a period of considerable turbulence as the United States experienced the onset of rapid commercial and industrial expansion.Through the relationships between Austin Sloper,a celebrated physician,his sister Lavinia Penniman,his daughter Catherine,and Catherine's suitor,Morris Townend,James observes the contemporary scene as asite or competing styles and performances where authentic expression cannot be articulated or is subject to suppression |
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