Critical Evaluation
The term “vampirism” has been used to label those characters in Henry James’s fiction who will stop at nothing to get what they want. Often it is a psychological sort of vampirism in which one person bullies another into submission. In The Aspern Papers, the vampirism is more substantive. The young scholar wants something that belongs to someone else—the papers—and he schemes to get them regardless of the consequences to their owner, the aging and infirm Juliana Bordereau, or to her penniless niece, Tita. In his ruthless quest for these papers, he is not above lying, dissembling, flattering, even stealing. At the same time he lies to himself, rationalizing his duplicity, justifying his strategies as necessary in an effort to rescue valuable materials from a selfish old woman who does not appreciate their value.
As is the case with so much of James’s fiction, no character in The Aspern Papers is above reproach. It is clear from the first encounter that the scholar has met his match in the crafty old Juliana when she charges him an outrageous rent, which he pays without batting an eye. At that moment, both recognize that they are adversaries, but Juliana has the upper hand because she has the papers (or so she lets him believe). She uses her age and eccentricity to her advantage. Likewise, Tita, though slow to catch on, soon enough sees how, by letting herself be used, she can play both ends against the middle. She becomes the go-between, deceiving both the scholar and her aunt. When her scheme backfires, she takes revenge on the scholar by telling him she has burned the papers. It is exquisitely cruel revenge, all the more so if it is a lie and there never were any papers.
The irony is bitter in this story, for it is quite possible that time, energy, and cunning are expended over papers that either do not exist or do not amount to much. Tita’s renunciation of the scholar—after she has burned her bridges—is a moment of the most hollow triumph, for in winning the game with the scholar, she has lost even more than he has.
Much has been made of James’s keen dramatic sense, and it is nowhere more evident than in The Aspern Papers. At select moments along the way, there are climactic scenes at the end of which a curtain seems to fall. There is, for example, the highly theatrical scene in which Juliana catches the scholar as he is about to pilfer the papers. Then there is the scene in which Tita drives the scholar away with her thinly veiled proposal of marriage. The most dramatic scene occurs when Tita, in a chilling turn, renounces the man who has rejected her and boasts of how methodically she destroyed the papers and how long it took because there were so many.
The moral world James’s characters inhabit is a warped one in which perceptions are distorted and traditional values perverted. To begin with, there is the question of obsession. It is clear that the scholar and Juliana share a common obsession with Jeffrey Aspern. In her case, it has made her a mean-spirited recluse whose dependency on Tita has robbed her niece of a life of her own. Even more selfish and inconsiderate is the scholar whose interest in Aspern the poet has degenerated into his interest in Aspern the celebrity. He, too, is willing to exploit Tita in his determination to possess the papers.
There is also the curious question of renunciation, a common theme in the works of James. Ordinarily,...
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renunciation is an act of contrition, but for Tita it becomes an act of revenge against a man who trifles with her affections and against an old woman who drains Tita’s lifeblood to sustain the memory of an ancient passion. Tita destroys her inheritance when she destroys the papers. Thus, James presents the seemingly noble act of turning one’s back on evil as an even subtler manifestation of evil.
It would be a mistake, no matter how serious the subject matter, to overlook the humor in The Aspern Papers. The characters in this story are not dealing in matters of great importance. The letters, if they do exist, could be mere drivel; at best, they would probably do little except add to the gossip surrounding a legendary literary figure. To the scholar, the papers are valuable, not because of what they contain (after all, he has not yet seen them), but merely because they exist (if, indeed, they do). He expends a ridiculous amount of time, money, and guile in the pursuit of something so uncertain and, as far as the world is concerned, unimportant. He cuts a ridiculous figure as he loses at his own game and never really realizes how much he has lost. Tita may play a monstrous joke on him, but she too is more a comic than a tragic figure when the joke turns out to be on her.
Ultimately, the key to the brilliance of this story is to be found in James’s decision to have the scholar narrate his own story. In “telling on himself,” so to speak, the scholar reveals how naïve he is; he learns nothing from his experience. Instead, he remains a poor judge of what is going on. This is why, at the end, the scholar can only stare at the (probably worthless) picture of Aspern and write to Tita, “When I look at it, I can scarcely bear the loss—I mean of the precious papers.”
In writing this story, James reveals the shameful side of scholarship. The novel condemns the use of any means, no matter how devious, to exploit the famous, especially invading their privacy and violating their personal effects. The irony is that James knew it would probably happen to him after he was gone (it did).
