Key Themes
The melodramatic doings in Watch and Ward probably caused James some embarrassment in later years, and it's easy to see why he disowned the book and spoke of Roderick Hudson as his first novel. Still, many critics have pointed out that melodrama always held a certain fascination for James. Watch and Ward is only a particularly gauche example.
James' technique is primitive at such an early stage of his career. Nora's development into the beautiful swan from the ugly duckling is told rather than shown, and Fenton is a stock villain of the most routine kind. Still, hints of the master-to-be are apparent from the well-described scenes of New York low life and the charm that Nora eventually displays.
A humorous side note is some of the erotic language that James slips into the novel. At one point Roger "caught himself wondering whether, at the worst, a little precursory love-making would do any harm. The ground might be gently tickled to receive his own sowing; the petals of the young girl's nature, playfully forced apart, would leave the golden heart of the flower but the more accessible to his own vertical rays." William James and William Dean Howells were uncomfortable with such imagery, though Henry might have enjoyed their uneasiness.
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