Key Themes
If there's any genuine interest in these plays, it resides in the character of Paul Doubleday, the heir to a large fortune who has been kept in virtual isolation because others fear what he might do if he enjoyed complete freedom. Paul is based on Henry Wykoff, a distant relative of James who was kept in much the same kind of isolation, as described in the novelist's autobiographical book, A Small Boy and Others.
The twist is that both the real Wykoff and the fictional Doubleday turn out to be much more dependable and reliable than anybody had thought. This idea might have made for an intriguing psychological narrative by James, but instead he wasted it in the mediocre farce of The Reprobate. There are few if any themes that can be extracted from The Album, except that constant stage bustle can be painfully unfunny.
Read more about this topic: Theatricals: Second Series
Famous quotes containing the words key and/or themes:
“The word “forbearance” is the key to a happy home.”
—Chinese proverb.
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)