Fitz-James O'Brien's The Bohemian: A Detailed Summary and Literary Analysis
- Michael Kellermeyer
- 19 minutes ago
- 9 min read
“Bohemian” was a title that O’Brien gladly accepted from his friends, and one approved by scholars (his first real biography was subtitled “A Literary Bohemian of the Eighteen-Fifties”). A member of New York City’s blue collar intellectual class, he spent his evenings drinking in the company of Walt Whitman and his cronies at Pfaff’s beer cellar, known for its artistic atmosphere, where the patrons donned the bohemian lifestyle with relish. The term first became popular with the publication of Henri Murger’s 1851 Scenes of Bohemian Life, which was adapted into Puccini’s La Bohème and later – much more loosely – into the musical RENT and Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!
II.
The term has regularly been updated in the vernacular: in the 1890s they were Decadents and Aesthetes, in the 1920s they were the Lost Generation or “Bright Young Things,” by the 1950s they were Beatniks, in the 60s hippies, during the 70s and 80s they were punks, in the 90s they were grunge or alternative, in the 2000s and 2010s the were indie, scene kids, or hipsters, and today being “alternative” is such a ubiquitous thing that we don’t really have a word for it: everyone (at least by their own reporting) is part of some niche scene off the beaten path. But the concept remains the same: these words all largely refer to irreverent iconoclasts who are cosmopolitan, and creative, they eschew convention and forbid to sell out their taste or talent for financial security – poverty (and as Mimi will inform us, death) is preferable to surrendering principles for comfort.
III.
So the antagonist of this story is truly an enigma, since it appears to be his sole ambition to use his eccentric gift of mesmerism to find buried treasure, and – along the way – convinces his victim to pimp out his fiancée’s prodigal clairvoyance in pursuit of wealth. We are forced to ask if the Bohemian is truly bohemian. The story is another of O’Brien’s Poe-esque parables wherein a desperately poor, connivingly ambitious man bets and loses the life of the woman he loves for the sake of pride and money. As with “The Pot of Tulips” and “The Diamond Lens,” we see O’Brien’s contempt for greed, his exaltation of integrity, and his fear of materialistic (and sexual) seduction.
SUMMARY
The story is narrated by Henry Cranstoun, a young New York lawyer who, at twenty-one, leaves college with health, ambition, and very little money. His father, formerly a Wall Street speculator, has lost his fortune and sacrificed to educate him. Determined not to burden his father, Henry becomes obsessed with becoming wealthy. After seeing gold coins being deposited at a bank, he develops a kind of mania in which he sees gold everywhere and fantasizes about sudden riches. Although he rents an office on Nassau Street and tries to begin a respectable legal career, he has no clients and supports himself by writing articles for magazines.
Alongside his fixation on wealth, Henry is in love with Annie Deane, the beautiful and delicate daughter of a poor author. She is extremely sensitive, especially to people’s presence and atmospheres; she often reacts with shivering or distress when near certain individuals. Henry dreams of marrying her, but both are too poor even to consider it.
One June day, while Henry is stuck in his office failing to progress on a story for Harper’s, he is surprised by a visitor— a shabby but commanding man who introduces himself as Philip Brann. Though poorly dressed, Brann exudes confidence and intellect. He claims to be a “Bohemian,” not in the ethnic sense but as an artistic wanderer who works sporadically, writes, paints, and charms women, yet despises steady labor. He asserts that Henry is just as consumed by the desire for wealth as he is, though Henry hopes to gain riches through work, which Brann declares will never succeed.
Brann insists that Henry will help him acquire wealth in an extraordinary way. He reveals that he is a powerful mesmerist, possessing abilities far exceeding those of ordinary practitioners. He demonstrates these uncanny powers by locking Henry’s gaze with his eyes until Henry sees visions and experiences a brief trance. Brann explains that he wants Henry to introduce him to Annie Deane, whom he observed at the Academy of Design. Her highly sensitive and impressionable nature, he claims, makes her a perfect clairvoyant instrument.
Henry is outraged at the suggestion that he introduce a strange, self-proclaimed vagabond to the woman he loves, but Brann assures him he will never interfere romantically and swears to respect Annie. He then outlines his ambitious plan. Hidden treasure, he asserts, lies buried around New York—the legacy of Dutch settlers, Revolutionary-era citizens, and pirates like Captain Kidd. Through the combined power of his mesmeric abilities and Annie’s clairvoyance, they will locate one of these caches instantly rather than laboring for years. Henry, torn between caution and desire for wealth, agrees.
That evening, Henry brings Brann to Annie’s home. As soon as they enter the darkened sitting room, Annie reacts strongly to Brann’s presence, feeling ill and shaken. Brann quickly restores her by taking her hands and speaking softly, confirming to Henry that she is extremely sensitive to magnetic influence. When Brann steps aside, Annie clings to Henry and confesses that she feels a strange terror around the visitor. Henry reassures her and explains Brann’s plan, urging her to cooperate for the sake of their future. Though frightened and plagued by foreboding, she yields and agrees to participate.
When the lights are lit, the experiment begins. Brann seats Annie opposite him, slightly in shadow, while Henry sits nearby with a notebook to record her visions. Brann engages Annie in casual conversation about art, culture, and eventually money, gradually guiding her thoughts toward the idea of hidden treasure. As he speaks, Annie’s appearance changes dramatically: her pallor flushes to color, her eyes widen, and she appears to enter a heightened, trance-like state.
Finally Brann says, “Miss Deane, do you see?” She answers, “I see,” and begins describing in a
monotone a bleak, barren island lashed by Atlantic winds, with sand ridges and sea grass. When Brann suggests Coney Island, she continues her description without reacting to the prompt. She states that beneath the sand on that island lies a hoard of gold and jewels. At the junction of three sandy ridges stands a locust-wood stake; when the sun reaches six o’clock and its shadow falls westward, the treasure lies exactly at the point where the shadow ends.
Brann then asks her to draw the scene. Though she has never drawn before, she produces a remarkably accurate sketch, complete with compass points. Afterward, Brann ends the trance by brushing his handkerchief across her face. Annie collapses to the floor in exhaustion. Henry, terrified, denounces Brann, but Brann insists such fainting is natural and temporary. He calmly predicts she will be perfectly recovered by the next evening, by which time he and Henry will have returned as millionaires.
Later, Henry and Brann meet at an all-night tavern and finalize their plan. At dawn they row to Coney Island with tools, a compass, and a valise for carrying gold. Brann unerringly locates the three ridges and the stake described by Annie. After waiting for the sun’s shadow to reach the indicated spot, they dig frantically until Henry’s spade strikes metal. They uncover an old iron pot filled with glittering gold coins, jewels, and ornaments so brilliant that Henry momentarily loses consciousness.
When Henry awakens, Brann has vanished. The treasure remains untouched, but Henry discovers a note pinned to his sleeve. Brann writes that he has taken only half, leaving Henry his share, but warns cryptically: “Return to the city, but return in doubt.” Filled with dread, Henry gathers his fortune, finds his boat gone, and boards a steamer back to New York.
On the journey he is tormented by anxiety, fearing catastrophe. Upon reaching Amity Place, he encounters the family physician, Dr. Lott, who looks grave. Henry begs for the truth. The doctor reveals that Annie died that morning from the overwhelming excitement produced by Brann’s experiment. Henry rushes upstairs and finds Annie laid out in death, her father weeping beside her.
The story ends with Henry realizing the terrible cost of his greed. The valise full of treasure lies downstairs; the true treasure of his life lies dead before him.
ANALYSIS
O’Brien’s recurring motif – one which travels broadly throughout his oeuvre – is the theme of lost, misplaced idealism. It has the same intense emotional energy of inexplicably losing a precious heirloom, leaving a wedding ring in a public restroom, or having a laptop stolen before an exam: an excruciating sense of stupidity and the needless forfeiture of a treasured possession. But O’Brien’s misery is not founded in material loss, but bound up in compromised identity. In “The Diamond Lens” a moment of carelessness results in the accidental death of an adored idol, an idol who represents his nobler nature, his mislaid innocence. In “The Lost Room” peace and the fragile sense of home is stolen in a surreal whirlwind of fate. In “The Wondersmith” innocence is held captive, in “The Pot of Tulips” a legacy (along with a sense of social legitimacy) is hidden away, robbed, and refused.
True to his own legacy as the “Celtic Poe,” O’Brien’s fascination with idealism is one which his American predecessor explored deeply, especially in the form of a beautiful, unique woman with pseudo-supernatural qualities. The eponymous Berenice swoons with epilepsy and has her magnetic teeth wrenched from their roots by the sleepwalking lover who is overly obsessed with their idealized beauty. The girl in the “Oval Portrait” quietly starves while her husband fanatically tries to preserve her essence in oil paint, and is left with a bifurcated woman: her body cold and dead, her sprit immortalized (yet inaccessible) in pulseless art. The deceased sorceress Morella appears to resurrect herself at the moment of her daughter’s death (who herself was born at the moment of her mother’s death), destroying the hope of a future disencumbered by her fatalistic influence. Similarly, the goddess-like Ligeia seems to slay her husband’s new wife, rising from the grave by using her body as a chrysalis. Lenore, Ulalume, and Annabel Lee are killed by sudden illnesses that rob their lovers of peace of mind.
II.
Poe summed up this motif in his Philosophy of Composition: “the death… of a beautiful woman … is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.” Why? Outside of Poe’s biographical loss of his mother, wife, and several other close females, beautiful women – so desirable but so vulnerable, especially in the 19th century – represented the precarious balance between the material, physical world – mortality – and the ideal, spiritual world – immortality. His male protagonists (best illustrated in “The Oval Portrait”) are caught in a vain denial, rejecting the premise that their lovers are human – flawed, sexual, mortal, complex – and lost in a hopeless fantasy that they are goddesses – perfect, virginal, immortal, emblematic. The result often goes down three separate paths:
1. The woman is starved of human recognition, and, treated like a monument instead of a mortal, she dies, becoming the lifeless, changeless memory that the man had fostered.
2. The woman ascends to the man’s fanatical expectations and revives as a monster – the past feeding on the future – like the homicidal Ligeia and the filicidal Morella.
3. The woman’s death has preceeded the action and the stage opens on a man whose inability to come to terms with his negligence leaves him a fixated (sometimes necrophilic) corpse worshipper.
In all three cases, the inability to appreciate the woman’s human fragility and complexity leads to her unexpected loss, and leaves the man crippled with guilt or delusion. This is the case in “The Bohemian.”
III.
And what are we to make of the Bohemian, a title owned and celebrated by O’Brien and his friends? He is not a robber, for he leaves the money owed to his victim, but he is a nefarious agent of destruction, whose vampiric effect on Miss Deane leaves the protagonist’s life a wreck or ruined hopes and lost ambition. If anything, the Bohemian is a sort of Hoffmannesque trickster character – a catalyst who enters the narrator’s life to teach him a lesson about material greed. And our main character is very greedy, indeed, a man for whom passion means little and security much.
The Bohemian, then, is an ironic figure since the hallmark of bohemianism is a lifestyle of meaningful poverty, and we may look at his intervention in the narrator’s life as a brutal lesson in contentment. Left with the buried treasure, yet robbed of his neglected and idealized lover (a plot, by the way, fashioned after Washington Irving’s “Golden Dreams” in which a ghost enlists the help of a miser in uncovering pirate gold in New York before robbing him and leaving him unconscious, and Poe’s “The Gold Bug” in which treasure is uncovered by a brilliant pauper), our protagonist surely has developed a respect for the authentically bohemian lifestyle – one which radically values relationships over respectability – and knows all too well the inevitability of death and the ultimate worthlessness of material gain.