The practice of power in Henry James' The portrait of a lady, The wings of the dove and The golden bowl

The following study of power in three novels of Henry James reflects not only the continuing fascination of James with this facet of experience but his meceaflng concern with its manifestation and controlled implementation in the relationships between people which constitute an integral part of life. Compatible with the progressively complex treatment of the issue of power in the novels in question, is the gradual shift in emphasis, from The Portrait of a Lady to The fielden Bewi, from power as a locatable entity to power as a process; and consistent with this is the increasingly self-conscious (conscious of itself) style of James himself where his style of writing parallels his concern for a process of writing (and reading) that is an end in itself rather than just a means to an end. Although I do not deal specifically with the question of James' style, the differences between The Portrait of a Lady and The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl in terms of content are reflected in terms of style - both James' and my own - so that the relatively simplistic approach in The Portrait of a Lady is superseded, in The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl by one of increasing complexity and subtlety