Henry James' The Romance of Certain Old Clothes: A Detailed Summary and a Literary Analysis
- M. Grant Kellermeyer
- Feb 21, 2019
- 6 min read
Updated: Sep 25
“Moonlight, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showcasing all its figures so distinctly, -- making every object so minute visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility, -- is a medium the most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests. There is the little domestic scenery of the well-known apartment; the chairs with each its separate individuality; the centre-table, sustaining a work-basket, a volume or two, and an extinguished lamp; the sofa; the picture on the wall,--all these details, so completely seen, are so spiritualized by the unusual light, that they seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of the intellect. Nothing is too small or too trifling to undergo this change, and acquire dignity thereby. A child's shoe; the doll, seated in her little wicker carriage; the hobby-horse,-- whatever, in a word, has been used or played with, during the day, is now invested with a quality of strangeness and remoteness, though still almost as vividly present as by daylight. Thus, therefore, the floor of our familiar room has become a neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the Actual and Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other. Ghosts might enter here, without affrighting us. It would be too much in keeping with the scene to excite surprise, were we to look about us and discover a form beloved, but gone hence, now sitting quietly in a streak of this magic moonshine, with an aspect that would make us doubt whether it had returned from afar, or had never once stirred from our fireside.”
…This is how Nathaniel Hawthorne defines the atmosphere of a “romance” – a word which, at the time, meant a fantasy or supernatural tale. Hawthorne imagines a realistic world which is relatable but acts as the portal of the realm of fairies, ghosts, and magic. Hawthorne’s definition is both applicable to the following “Romance” as well as Henry James’ supernatural fiction writ large. Nearly all of James’ spook tales are Hawthornean romances, and his “Romance of Certain Old Clothes” is perhaps the best example.
Unlike most of his fiction, it has a historical setting – colonial Massachusetts (one which Hawthorne himself famously favored). James’ first ghost story is also among his finest. It may disappoint devotees of the modern horror stories (indeed, if you are expecting ghoulish spectres or gruesome jump-scares all of these stories will fall short), for the supernatural element is tremendously subdued, only raising its ugly head at the very end, but by that point, a genuine chill will have run up your spine. This “Romance” pays deep homage to the early American masters, especially Irving (“The Adventure of the German Student”) Poe (“The Black Cat”), and Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter), whose fiction often concerned the consequences of forbidden curiosity, moral hypocrisy, shameless greed, social climbing, and the unspeakable power of the unconscious mind to pronounce itself.
All three masters at various points dealt with the trope of the Bluebeard’s chamber – a forbidden room, house, or intimacy which is violated at the peril of the curious – and James’ Bluebeard trunk is no less grim or intimidating because it is a trunk filled with a dead woman’s clothes. Bound fast by three ominous, iron padlocks and left brooding in the attic, it may seem harmless enough – if a touch grim and Gothic – but when it is finally despoiled, our suspense is assured.
SUMMARY
The story is set in colonial New England during the early 18th century and follows the loves and jealousies of two beautiful sisters: Rosalind and Perdita. They are close to one another, but motivated by a barely noticeable but unconsciously potent sibling rivalry. When a wealthy, young American man named Arthur Lloyd returns to Massachusetts after studying in Europe, he is introduced to the sisters by their brother, Bernard, a classmate of his from Oxford.
While the girls play coy in public, in private they are deeply competitive and aggressively seek to win Lloyd’s heart away from the other. While they don’t even mention their rivalry to each other, both are convinced that the other is plotting against them. When Perdita finally wins the day, Rosalind hides her disappointment when her sister tells her of their engagement, but Perdita is put back on her guard when she catches Rosalind admiring herself in the mirror while wearing her sister’s wedding dress. It is at this point that the sisters are forever divided by distrust – their sexual rivalry demands that Rosalind part ways from the newlyweds to maintain marital stability.
Lloyd and Perdita move to Boston and have a daughter, but she dies soon after, not before making her husband promise to leave her collection of clothes untouched until her daughter is old enough to wear them herself. He agrees, and after her death, the dresses and jewels are locked in a trunk and secreted away in the attic. Unsurprisingly, Rosalind inserts herself back into Lloyd’s life as a nursemaid for her young niece, but she ultimately succeeds in securing his heart and the two are married not long after.
Three years pass and although Rosalind has succeeded in taking over Perdita’s role as wife and mother, she is not satisfied: she must have her clothes, too. Lloyd is still loyal to his first wife, however, and refuses to break his promise, even if it means an unhappy marriage. Undeterred, Perdita finds the key to the lock and sneaks into the attic one day. Hours pass, and she doesn’t come down for dinner, causing Lloyd to have the house searched. There, in the dim light of the attic, she is found in front of the opened chest: she is dead, and her pale face is gruesomely scored across the face by nail-scratches – “ten hideous wounds from two vengeful, ghostly hands…”
ANALYSIS
“Romance” is one of the best ghost stories to emerge from the United States during the mid-nineteenth century. A historically British genre, Americans had little to do with the “classic ghost story” until the rise of James (and his compatriots Ambrose Bierce and F. Marion Crawford). Irving and Poe’s few overt ghost stories were typically compromised by unreliable narrators, but Henry James reveled in British traditions, and his first clear supernatural tale is done in a manner that checks all of the boxes necessary to be classified a “classic ghost story”: it has a vintage setting; it involves a storied family that has fallen on hard times; the focus of the plot is on a unfolding human drama with the supernatural only intruding at the end (unlike a fairy tale); and the horror is subtle and understated, but unsettling. Other significant traits used here are the manner in which the tension is planted early on, nourished liberally at places, and allowed to take center stage in the third act and how the setting is realistic rather than grossly Gothic (in a plain village rather than a Spanish castle filled with traps and dungeons).
Like his British counterparts – J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Amelia Edwards, Mrs. Oliphant, and the like – James is more concerned with illustrating a human problem (in this case, envy, jealousy, and rage) than alarming readers with ghastly details. I certainly have a voracious taste for the gruesome, but I also have deep respect for James’ restraint throughout the tale and his commitment at the end. It is his self-control and restraint throughout the story which has earned its reputation as one of America’s first great ghost stories.
The ending is brutal, unexpectedly fatal, and allows a peak at the astonishing volume of rage and depth of feeling which (as the story repeatedly testifies) this society represses. The savage scratch marks on Rosalind’s face testify to a distinctly feminine manner of assault – one which a well-bred woman would never be expected to experience. Having violated her sister’s legacy, Rosalind is viciously assaulted by her sibling’s ghost in a way that we sense the spirit would have relished in life.
To have been assaulted so brutally that the gory marks still gleam on her face hours after her death, Rosalind has clearly earned the deep hatred of her attacker, and it is with this powerful image that James warns us of the powers of repression: for a repressed person is a dangerous person, and one whose emotions are forbidden the opportunity to breathe in public will degenerate in the confines of a shut-away mind.
There is a hint of this, too, in Rosalind herself, whose little-discussed curse – the sarcastic wish that her sister would have a long life and plenty of children – may be considered prophetic and perhaps even supernatural. Perdita certainly appears to be on the mend from childbirth until her sister is mentioned, which casts death’s shadow over her. Even the image of Rosalind smugly admiring herself in her sister’s wedding finery with an expression that suggests “heaven knows what audacious visions” has a sense of supernatural import.
Ultimately, “The Romance of Certain Old Clothes” is a gloomy warning against repressing passions and the nurturing grudges. Beautifully written, masterfully controlled, and ingeniously manufactured in the classic style of the English ghost story, it is one of America’s finest examples of the literary supernatural tale.