Book 12 Summary and Analysis
Summary
After Strether returns to Paris, he receives a telegram from Madame de Vionnet asking him to come to see her at 9:30 that evening. Ignoring the added message that she would come to him at any time should he find that more convenient, he sends her a reply that he will be there.
Madame de Vionnet informs him that she knew she had not fooled Strether. She tested him and he passed. Chad had let her do this; Chad always let her have her way. She knows Strether will view her as selfish and vulgar, but she asks him to stay with her anyway. She also knows that his life has changed because of her. She starts to cry, and all of a sudden it strikes Strether how old she looks. She tells him that she has wanted him all along. Strether replies, as he leaves, that she has had him.
Strether plans to see Chad the next day, since it had obviously been arranged that he should see Madame de Vionnet first so that she could prepare the way. However, Chad is not at home. It occurs to Strether that he and the comtesse continued their trip that he had interrupted. Later in the week, he goes to visit Miss Gostrey, who tells him that Madame de Vionnet has been to see her. It appears that she came for news about Chad, whom she has not seen for several days. The comtesse had assumed he was with Strether, and Miss Gostrey did not know what to tell her.
Miss Gostrey finally admits that she had left Paris so that she would not have to lie to Strether about Chad and Madame de Vionnet’s relationship, which she knew was actually an affair all along. Strether says that little Bilham had also lied to him, since he knew the truth as well.
Miss Gostrey tells Strether that Madame de Vionnet fears that he has taken his final leave of her. Strether admits that he has; he plans never to see her again. Miss Gostrey says she is sorry for all of them.
Strether goes once again to Chad’s apartment and sees Chad standing on the balcony, just as he had seen Bilham so long ago. Saying good-bye, Strether tells Chad that he will be a brute if he leaves Madame de Vionnet. Chad strikes Strether as incredibly young, much younger than Madame de Vionnet. He reiterates to Chad that if he leaves, he will not only be a brute, he will be “a criminal of the deepest dye.” Chad tells him that he has been in London to look into opening an advertising office there. Strether is convinced that he has sold the comtesse out for the sake of a lucrative career.
Strether goes to say good-bye to Miss Gostrey. In response to her question, he tells her that it is definitely over between him and Mrs. Newsome, but he has decided to go back to Woollett. Miss Gostrey asks him if he suspects that Chad has found another woman in London. Strether is not sure. He refuses Miss Gostrey’s request to stay. He is going home to start his life over.
Analysis
Lambert Strether, who all along has chosen to believe the best in people, has been duped and betrayed by practically everyone. In his naiveté, he believed that Chad and Madame de Vionnet’s relationship was virtuous, as Miss Gostrey, Bilham, and Chad and the comtesse themselves declared. He has reported this to Mrs. Newsome, knowing that he was being put to the test by her on a successful...
(This entire section contains 961 words.)
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completion of this mission, but alll of them lied to him. Abandoned by Woollett, he chooses to abandon Paris.
The Strether that arrived in Europe at the beginning of the novel was subservient, gullible, innocent, and good-hearted. He believes, on meeting Chad, that Paris has changed the young man for the better. In the end, Chad is, as characterized by Strether himself, a brute and a criminal of the deepest dye. He is, in fact, worse for being in Paris. Strether himself has changed. Now enlightened, however, Strether decides to save himself. He rejects Madame de Vionnet and refuses to stay with her. He rejects Miss Gostrey, refusing her plea to remain for her sake, even though she is plainly in love with him. He rejects Chad, the person he had come to save, who has condemned himself by rejecting Madame de Vionnet, despite his insistence all along that he would not do such a thing. Mrs. Newsome and the Pococks have rejected him. At the end, Strether finds himself alone.
He now has no attachments and is no longer subservient. He has achieved the freedom he felt initially in Chester, yet this freedom has been hard won. He chooses to make his own life, but to make it within the confines of his home town of Woollett. He is a new man, but how he will fit into the old town is at question.
James, as a lifelong bachelor, revisits his frequent theme of bachelorhood. Yet in The Ambassadors, the traditional marriage is seen through different eyes. Whether it is for financial gain, an adulterous affair, or true love, James presents the relationship between a man and a woman with a cynical eye. Strether’s true freedom seems to be shown in the fact that he is no longer controlled by any woman, not Mrs. Newsome, nor Madame de Vionnet, nor Miss Gostrey. It is an outright rejection of marriage that has given him this freedom. Strether’s failure as an ambassador, as a savior of a young man in love, ends up with his saving himself against societal expectations of the proper role of a gentleman.
