Wings of the Dove (Barnes & Noble Classi - Henry James [10]
Milly’s character is initially presented through the eyes of Susan Stringham, who is accompanying her to Europe. Susan’s role in Wings is similar to that of Maria Gostrey in The Ambassadors or to Colonel Bob Assingham’s role in the narrative structure of The Golden Bowl. James refers to this literary device as the ficelle (literally, a little piece of string), by which he means the use of a lesser character to facilitate the flow of events and to link the major scenes.4 One day in Switzerland, while looking for Milly, Susan Stringham sees the book Milly was reading left by the side of the trail and follows the path that leads to the edge of a precipice. She sees Milly sitting in a precarious position on a rock slab, gazing down at the valley stretched out below her. For a moment Susan is frightened, thinking that her friend might be contemplating suicide. She is afraid to call out for fear that a sudden disturbance might startle Milly and send her over the edge. Then, as Susan contemplates her friend, she slowly realizes that as Milly “was looking down at the kingdoms of the earth ... it wouldn’t be with a view of renouncing them. Was she choosing among them or did she want them all?” (p. 106). She understands that her friend is not running from life but hungers for life. Shortly, Milly announces to her friend that she wants to go directly to London. She has evidently had enough of Switzerland’s bucolic charms, and wants to be at the center of activity in the world’s most bustling metropolis.
Susan Stringham happens to have an old friend in London from the days before the marriage to her late husband. This friend of her youth, now also widowed, is Maud Manningham Lowder, who is Kate Croy’s aunt. Susan writes to her friend Maud, and upon their arrival in London renews the friendship. Milly, with her “heir of all the ages” qualities, quickly captivates Maud, and is introduced into Maud’s London circle. Milly’s wealth, though she carries it gracefully, inevitably attracts attention. In the London scene of the day, wealth makes one “a great personage.” Maud and her friends treat Milly as such, although they also regard her as eccentric. Milly is sensitive enough to see that she is being patronized, and wishes she could escape from the stereotype. She especially wants to be respected by her new friend Kate and by Merton Densher (whom she had met in New York when he visited the city as a journalist). Milly sees that the Londoners she meets seem preoccupied with money, but she does not yet understand the deeper currents and plots being hatched around her. For the moment she is happy to be caught up in the excitement of London, in broadening her knowledge of the world (and her knowledge of herself). She is living more fully through her new friends.
Milly is a symbol of the innocent but thoughtful American guided by an innate idealism and an intuitive sense of what is right. Milly, like her country, is without a significant past to shape her identity, and is also without culture but is hungry to learn. In Kate, equally a creature of her circumstances, opposing qualities are represented: She is shrewd, knowing, a survivor by temperament and by necessity. She is driven by values forged within a framework of practical reality. Her values are purely exigent, and she is on the make because she has no other choice. In the general condition of fin-de-siècle England, Kate suffers both