Right or Obligation? : Privacy in Henry James' "The Bostonians"

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Horn, Katrin:
Right or Obligation? : Privacy in Henry James' "The Bostonians".
In: Brittner, Irina ; Meyer, Sabine Nicole ; Schneck, Peter (ed.): We the People? : The United States and the Question of Rights. - Heidelberg : Winter , 2020 . - pp. 137-156 . - (American Studies ; 309 )
ISBN 978-3-8253-4762-8

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Due to "The Bostonians'" overt treatment of gossip magazines and the publicity machinery behind progressive movements, the novel has received widely discussed in terms of its representation of media and public effects. Implicit in these discussions, yet not fully explored, is another, related, equally pressing changing social condition which received intense public (and legal) scrutiny shortly after the novel's publication: the transformation of privacy through technological advances and social changes, and the concomitant interest in a right to privacy. This essays argues that privacy is at least as central to Henry James' novel plot and narratological idiosyncrasies as publicity is. This essay thus seeks to establish "The Bostonians" as a "very American tale" (James) not due to its interest in mass media or its reflection of the rise of feminism, but because it uses these developments to illuminate the social and cultural conditions which enable, limit, and contradict just-developing legal claims - with long-lasting effects on U.S. American notions of a right to privacy.