Key Themes
James originally wanted this novel to resemble one of Gyp's superficial but entertaining novels of social decadence. But the material drew him on, and he wound up with a lengthy book about Nanda's eventual rejection of the often sleazy social circle around her mother. A lot of the characters who drop by Mrs. Brook's house are certainly no saints, and hypocrisy and deceit seem to be their favorite pastimes.
Mr. Longdon represents an idealized previous age of better morals and manners. He wants to see Nanda safely married and away from what he views as her mother's corrupting influence. Although the book ends with Nanda preparing to stay at his country house, there are no guarantees as to how her future will play out.
With the novel cast almost entirely in dialogue, it's sometimes difficult for the reader to detect the characters' genuine motives. But there's little doubt James meant the book as an attack on what he saw as the increasing irresponsibility and immorality of the society around him. James was always careful to sweeten this rather dour message with a lot of witty satire on the foibles of Mrs. Brook's social circle. He was particularly proud of his treatment of the resourceful if not overly honest Mrs. Brook herself.
Many critics see the novel as parallel in theme and setting to James's earlier novel What Maisie Knew, with Nanda as a slightly older version of Maisie.
Read more about this topic: The Awkward Age
Famous quotes containing the words key and/or themes:
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)
“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)