The Ambassadors

The Ambassadors is a 1903 novel-length compilation of a serial written by American-British author Henry James. Initially published in installments for the now-inactive North American Review, the United States’ first literary journal, it is often considered the best work of James’s later life. A dark comedy, the story is told from the perspective of Lewis Lambert Strether as he searches for Chad Newsome, the son of his wealthy fiancée, the widowed Mrs. Newsome. Though he tries to integrate Chad into his life and business on behalf of his fiancée’s wishes, his attempt to recover her distorted vision of family goes quickly awry.

The novel begins as Strether travels to Paris from Woolett, Massachusetts. At first, his agenda is ostensibly to meet Waymarsh, a past rival of his. Waymarsh indicates his disillusionment with Europe, perceiving it as a world dominated by vices and shallow appearances. During a stop in England, he encounters an outgoing American migrant Maria Gostrey, and is enamored of her comprehension of European culture and secular, critical, contemporary life. Gostrey offers him a tour of the city, which he graciously accepts, excited to have the companionship of a woman other than his somewhat controlling fiancée.

Strether reveals that his real agenda is to find his fiancée’s son, Chad, and convince him to take over the business that made his mother wealthy. Mrs. Newsome suspects Chad has been gallivanting around Europe engaging in salacious underground culture. Though he is ambivalent about his soon-to-be wife, Strether is financially dependent on her and, therefore, compelled to do her bidding.

Strether eventually finds Chad in the bowels of Paris. He is quickly struck by the dissonance between the immoral Chad he had imagined and the real one, who seems much like Maria Gostrey in his gregariousness and taste for urban life and the arts. Chad clearly loves Paris, causing Strether to question his own life course. He resolves to delve deeper into his questioning, delaying his departure back to his home in Massachusetts.

While roaming the city, Strether meets Marie de Vionnet. Marie is one of Chad’s best friends despite being at least a decade older, causing Strether to wonder whether he is fond of older women. He hypothesizes, alternatively, that Chad is really courting Marie’s daughter, Jeanne. Eventually, however, the fog of assumptions about Paris and Chad’s lifestyle burns away, revealing a boy who is sincerely well-meaning and moral. He concludes that Chad is more interesting and animated than anyone he knows in the United States. At the same time, Strether’s attraction to Marie makes him question the authenticity of his love for Mrs. Newsome.

After some weeks, Mrs. Newsome, fed up with Strether’s lingering, sends Chad’s sister, Sarah Pocock and her husband and sister-in-law to Paris to take stock of the situation with her brother. Nervous, Strether hopes Sarah will see the truth about Chad and concur that there is no need to tear him away from a happy life. These hopes are quickly dashed: Sarah is extremely conservative and convinced that Card’s move to Paris is itself an immoral act because it constitutes a betrayal of the Newsome family. Further, she accuses Marie of being promiscuous and rejects Chad’s other friends. She delivers an ultimatum to Strether, requiring that he return at once along with Chad or consider his relationship with the family terminated. Strether decides to stay in Paris and calls off the wedding with Mrs. Newsome.

Believing that his troubles with the Newsome family are over, Strether kicks off a new life in Paris. However, one day while wandering through the country outside Paris, he spots Marie de Vionnet entering an inn with Chad. He realizes that Chad has feigned a Platonic relationship, and begins to speculate about all of the other falsehoods he could have believed. Instead, however, he begins to examine himself, realizing that the illusory nature of Paris had intrigued and inspired him to break off from his past.

At the novel’s end, Strether resolves to return to the United States, concluding that his nature is fixed and cannot be redesigned to fit into the French social and moral landscape. Now cut off from both Paris and the Newsomes, he looks forward to fashioning a more authentic life in the place he calls home. Just before he departs, he runs into Maria Gostrey, who professes her love for him. He declines her invitation to live with her and leaves Europe.

The Ambassadors expresses James’s ironic attitude towards the concept of a multinational subject, suggesting that the ideal “other” place is only ever an illusion. Yet, he suggests that immersion in new contexts can inspire a renewal of self, signified by Strether’s decision to return to America on new, more authentic terms, and break off with a dissatisfying and conservative past.