The Child in the Adult: Narrative and in Henry James and Freud.

At the intersection of literature and psychoanalysis, this essay draws on Freud's discovery of the infantile sexual unconscious to explore moments in the late novels of Henry James, in which an adult protagonist both recognizes and disavows the visible evidence of a sexual relationship. The essay considers Hans Holbein's 1533 painting, The Ambassadors, as a possible source for Henry James' choice of title for his 1903 novel: the painting's visual play with point of view touches on the narrative disavowal of what is there to be seen. The essay explores some narrative dimensions of Freud's writing to highlight the dynamic disclosure of the infantile within the adult.

Writing siblings: Alice James and her brothers.

This essay addresses the relationship of writing to embodiment, through representations of bodily sensation and fantasy in the journal of Alice James. It considers Alice James's writing in relation to her two writer brothers, William and Henry, and in light of their father's experiences of impairment and breakdown.