39 pages • 1 hour read
Henry JamesThe Aspern Papers
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1888A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Juliana’s Eyes
While Juliana’s eyes are an important element of Aspern’s poetic representation of her, she obscures them for most of the narrative. According to Tita, she does this in order to “preserve” them in her age, but they were very beautiful in her youth. Juliana’s eyes function as a symbol of the passage of time, and the contrast between representation and reality. For example, they are obscured not by an attractive veil or other device but by what the narrator describes as a “horrible green shade” (64) that functions as a mask.
Juliana’s choice to mask her eyes is aligned with her character trait of privacy, symbolizing her impulse to protect her inner life and her memories from the hungry eyes of the public (as represented by the narrator). Her desire to hide the papers suggests that, like her eyes, there is something in the archive worth preserving and protecting from sight. Therefore, Juliana’s eyes also symbolize the Aspern papers themselves as something that is valuable and therefore worth seeing, but paradoxically not allowed to be seen.
Flowers
Because the narrator cultivates the garden in the Bordereaus’ home, flowers are a motif throughout the novel. The narrator decides that he “must work the garden” (58) in his initial conversation with Tita in order to convince her to accept him as a lodger, and his promise of ensuring that the garden is full of flowers within the next month is an important element of Tita’s decision to bring his request to her aunt. Flowers are also important to the plot of the novel because the narrator sends them to the Bordereaus’ rooms, then stops when he is frustrated with Tita avoiding him. The fact that the flowers have stopped is a catalyst for Juliana conversing with him in more detail. Flowers connote beauty but also ephemerality, symbolizing the fading of Juliana’s beauty. The narrator resists a stereotype of flowers connoting femininity, though, as he notes that “there is nothing unmanly in [being fond of flowers]: it has been the amusement of philosophers, of statesmen in retirement; even I think of great captains” (95).
Gondolas
Travel by gondola occurs frequently throughout The Aspern Papers due to its setting in Venice. Gondolas are described as both practical and whimsical modes of transportation throughout the novel. Practically, gondolas are important to many of the plot events of the novella; the narrator visits the Bordereaus’ house via gondola with Mrs. Prest, explores Venice at night via gondola alone, speaks to Tita in a gondola when he escorts her to the Piazza, and rides aimlessly in a gondola when he is thinking about whether or not to agree to marry Tita to obtain the Aspern papers. The inclusion of gondolas also increases the novel’s verisimilitude and functions as a continual reminder of its setting.
Gondolas are also described as a meditative space in which to think. The narrator notes that he had “floated home in my gondola, listening to the slow splash of the oar in the narrow dark canals” (83), and when he takes Tita out in his gondola, notes that “the sense of floating between marble palaces and reflected lights disposed the mind to sympathetic talk” (99). Gondolas therefore function as a liminal space between locations as well as between buildings, and therefore enable a different character of thought and conversation.
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By Henry James
