Othering Maisie: Pelos Olhos de Maisie e a estética jamesiana da alteridade

Abstract

Through an analysis of the novel What Maisie Knew, the author explores how Henry James’s choice of the tecnique of the point of view, along with the demands of the artistic economy, generate ethical and political difficulties for the novel’s representation of the Other, who often seems on the verge of dissolving into a version of the author. In other words, based on the idea in the Anglo-American tradition of the representation of alterity as the social value of art, the paper examines to what extent James’s aesthetic project might jeopardize his ethical project.