Photographic Seeing as Destruction of the Past: Fragmentation in The Aspern Papers
ULIT: Modernist Literature and Photography
November 8, 2019
Henry James’ The Aspern Papers is a testament to the challenges of what Susan Sontag calls “photographic seeing” (Sontag 89), in which cameras serve not only to produce an objective image of what is there, but also to indicate an individual’s unique vision and evaluation of reality. The narrator, an unnamed editor in pursuit of Jeffrey Aspern’s letters to his lover, Juliana Bordereau, treats Juliana as a mere ‘photograph’ who exists only as a referent to Aspern. The editor is driven to acquire the papers by a personal project of avoiding the fragmentation of his self: he claims that “the sacred relics [...] made [his] life continuous, in a fashion, with the illustrious life they had touched” (James 76). The editor sought the letters as a means to ‘merge’ and identify with Aspern, attempting to fill the voids in his own life with images of the idolized romance between Juliana and Aspern by “[becoming] part of the general romance and the general glory” (James 75). Yet, the editor seeks to merge not by coming to a genuine understanding of the narrative of Juliana and Aspern’s relationship but by searching for validation and confirmation of the images that he had preconceived of their romance. He views Juliana as a “relic” (James 65) whose only purpose is to provide evidence of Aspern’s presence—the letters—just as a photograph proves presence but is incapable of explaining its contents, always “[hiding] more than it discloses” (Sontag 23). Engaging in photographic seeing shifts the editor’s project from a search for the truth of Aspern’s reality to a struggle to assert his own ideas regarding Aspern. The editor’s lack of understanding makes the merge he desperately desires impossible, as viewing the world photographically leads him to destructively reject the past when he ‘rewrites’ it with his own fragmented images.
Photographic seeing celebrates the discovery the beauty in the ordinary, often “the kind of beauty that only the camera reveals” (Sontag 90). The editor shows his beautifying ‘photographic’ eye when claiming that “the garden was certainly shabby; but I perceived at a glance that it had great capabilities” (James 62), and he later fills the garden with flowers to attain the image that he had set up for himself. The editor sees the world photographically—as it could be in images—and then recreates those images in the real world. In acting as a photographer, the editor adopts a “fracturing, dislocating vision” of the “object isolated from its surroundings, rendering it abstract” (Sontag 91). In location, the Misses Bordereau are isolated: the editor says that “you could never have said whence they came [...] there was nothing in them that one recognized” (James 77) and living in Venice meant that they were easily separated from others by bodies of water. Juliana’s isolated existence enables her to remain seemingly untouched by the present. She says the Piazza “used to be very pretty” while Miss Tita confirms they only used to invite guests over (James 92)—leading the editor to frequently note that the Misses Bordereau are only aware of the past state of the world. In behaving as a living relic, providing no new narratives or relations for the editor to reconcile with his images of the romance, Juliana makes it possible for the editor to ‘reframe’ her present-day image. The editor is able to reassign her temporal place whenever he deems it appropriate, both with comments of surprise at Juliana’s present state, which place her firmly in a time after Aspern, as well as claims that “[her] individual note had been in Jeffrey Aspern’s ear” (James 65) which ‘restore’ her to Aspern’s time, as Aspern had only heard Juliana’s voice as a young woman. When the editor shifts Juliana’s temporal place to match Aspern’s, he is able to see “only the referent, the desired object” (Barthes 7) as evidenced from their first meeting, during which the editor described how “her presence seemed somehow to contain [Aspern’s]” (James 64), transforming Juliana into a mere means through which the editor could access and acquire Aspern. Indeed, the editor succeeds in the photographic project of “turning living beings into things, things into living beings” (Sontag 98) by conflating Juliana, who becomes a relic, with Aspern, who is resurrected through her. The editor demonstrates how photographic seeing produces a discontinuous view of reality: just as photographs can be captioned or arranged to suggest a particular meaning, what is seen can be redefined and even repositioned temporally to fit the desired narrative.
In the editor’s desired narrative, he is identified with and united with Aspern in a reciprocal relationship where “[the editor] had invoked [Aspern] and he had come” (James 75). Though acquiring the letters would bring him closer to Aspern’s most intimate and exclusive writing and constitute a union between the editor and his idol’s work, a more compelling explanation for the editor’s drive to possess the letters lies in his fracturing view of reality. Obtaining the papers is a seemingly-manageable activity that would break Aspern’s romance “into strange fragments that could [...] be taken for the whole” (Sontag 66), enabling him to merge with Aspern without ever having a “first-hand encounter but [instead accessing him] through documentary records” (Sontag 66, Edwards 126). The editor’s pursuit for merger with Aspern ironically leads him to create more fragmentation, starting with his own identity, as he must adopt a false name in order for Juliana to trust him. When the editor eventually confesses his true identity to Miss Tita, he felt “a certain pleasure” (James 115), reflecting the relief of ‘reclaiming’ one of his fragments, especially since his real name confirms that he is “a member of a long-established family line” (Veeder 446) thus returning him to continuity not only with himself but also with his ancestry.
Despite the editor’s personal pining for continuity with the past, he treats the past as something that can be disturbed. When Juliana asks “Do you think it’s right to rake up the past?” he responds, “how can we get at it unless we dig a little?” (James 101). Throughout the novella, the editor acts as an authority on the past and is delighted when his theories regarding Juliana’s romance with Aspern are validated. When Juliana reveals a portrait of Aspern painted by her father, the editor is satisfied by the thought “that [he] had been right in [his] theory of Miss Bordereau’s origin. Aspern had of course met the young lady when he went to his father’s studio as a sitter” (James 105) despite the fact that, however likely this story is, it is an overextension of the facts that Juliana did confirm. When one fragment of the editor’s ideal narrative is approved, the image he has created becomes “an infra-knowledge [which] supplies [him] with a collection of partial objects and can flatter a certain fetishism of [his]” (Barthes 30), leading him to conclude that the rest of his narrative is supported as well. Further, the editor is disappointed when his narrative is proven incorrect; he is repeatedly frustrated when Juliana discusses her monetary concerns because this behavior struck “a false note in [his] image of the woman” (James 100). The editor’s eagerness to confirm his own conception of the past suggests disinterest in arriving at any genuine understanding of Juliana or Aspern—thus creating fragmentation between the reality of their romance and his reality of their romance. Further, his claim that meeting Aspern was Juliana’s ‘origin’ reveals a blatant disregard for any past that he deems irrelevant, separating Juliana’s personal past from Juliana’s past with Aspern. The editor’s pursuit of the letters, informed by his tendency towards fragmentation, as well as his attitude towards the past, confirm that photographic seeing does not attempt to “understand the world and instead [attempts to] collect it” (Sontag 82).
The editor’s intrusions not only exaggerate what may have been true in the past, but ‘remake’ the past entirely. The editor describes his imaginations of Juliana’s father, claiming that “it was essential to [his] hypothesis that this amiable man should have lost his wife, should have been poor and unsuccessful and should have had a second daughter [...] It was also indispensable that he should have been accompanied to Europe by these young ladies” (James 78), a narrative unimportant to the reality of the love story but allocated importance because it is part of the editor’s image—his photographic vision makes him “charmed by the insignificant detail” (Sontag 99). In the same way that photographic seeing empowers the editor by enabling him to rearrange Juliana’s narrative and selectively confirm his own theories, it seemingly anoints him with authority as the ‘photographer’ who creates images of the past: he describes his imaginings of Juliana’s travels from America to Europe in 1820 as though he were her, claiming that she’d “dreamed of travellers’ tales, and was struck, on reaching the eternal city, with the elegance of Roman pearls and scarves” (James 79). Though nothing in his firsthand interactions with the reclusive, simple Juliana suggests that she might have had wanderlust or materialist values, he prescribes them to her anyways, distancing himself from the reality of Juliana and Aspern and instead constructing a history out of fragmented images he has created himself. Each of his hypotheses splinter reality, leading him further from obtaining both the letters and truths about Aspern and by extension, further from merger with Aspern.
While the editor’s indulgence in his imagination may seem to simply imply that photographic vision is incapable of bringing him the merger he desires, and that only his own understanding of Juliana and Aspern is hindered, the editor inadvertently causes destruction in the reality of the future. His relentless pursuit does, in some regards, bring him closer to the Juliana of Aspern’s poems: while at the start at the novella “[he] had not been able to look into a single pair of eyes into which [Aspern’s] had looked,” in his final search through her room he is finally able to “[behold] her extraordinary eyes” (James 56, 117). Yet, in coming closer to the image that he so craved, the editor destroys the real. The image of his betrayal caused the final shock before Juliana’s death. A similar exchange occurs when Miss Tita gives the editor the portrait—the image—of Aspern, before revealing that she has burned the letters—the real work touched and made by Aspern. The editor’s attempt to capture “a disappearing world [hastened] its disappearance” as he grappled with, and was ultimately left with “images partially true, and therefore totally false” (Sontag 76, Barthes 66). The editor comes away from his entanglement with the Misses Bordereau with a portrait of his beloved Aspern, but “when [he looks] at it [his] chagrin at the loss of the letters becomes almost intolerable” (James 131)—the image is unsatisfying because it is an abstract fragment, not grounded in location, time, or context, while the letters could have provided all three. Photographic seeing “[wrenches] things from their context (to see them in a fresh way)” (Sontag 96), not only failing to ascertain or provide reality but intentionally overwriting and distorting it. In viewing Juliana and his search for Aspern’s papers photographically, the editor sees the past as an antagonist: disturbed by the fact that both Juliana and Aspern can never be who they once were, and refusing to familiarize himself with the present- or future-Juliana because she does not conform to his ideal image, the editor clings to the fragments he constructs of the past-Juliana and past-Aspern. The editor-as-photographer’s arrogance in deciding which aspects of the narrative were important—worth translating into images—enabled him to reject the reality of the past as he prescribed his own interpretations instead. His destruction of the past culminates in a literal destruction of Juliana and the letters, pieces of the past which had acted as referents to Aspern: a final fragmentation that assured merger with Aspern would be impossible in the future. The Aspern Papers conveys the tragedy of photographic seeing: “looking at reality as an array of potential photographs—creates estrangement from, rather than union with, nature” (Sontag 97), as bestowing value upon and revisiting images of the past can only imply ever more future distance between ourselves and the fragmented beloved.
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. Translated by Richard Howard, Hill and Wang, 1981.
Edwards, Steve. Photography: A Very Short Introduction. 2006.
James, Henry. “The Aspern Papers.” Tales of Henry James. 2003. pp. 53-131.
Sontag, Susan. “In Plato’s Cave.” On Photography. St. Martin’s Press, 1977, pp. 3-24.
Sontag, Susan. “America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly” On Photography. St. Martin’s Press, 1977, pp. 27-48.
Sontag, Susan. “Melancholy Objects” On Photography. St. Martin’s Press, 1977, pp. 51-82.
Sontag, Susan. “The Heroism of Vision” On Photography. St. Martin’s Press, 1977, pp. 85-112.
Veeder, William. “The Aspern Papers.” Tales of Henry James. 2003. pp. 442-453.
