And yet the development of James's, or rather his third-person narrator's, relationship with Maisie is the method, the progress, of the novel. In the end it is not true that ' knowledge is pure, her freedom complete' (Mitchell 187). For Maisie's childhood does not equip her to be an artist, at least not yet, not at thirteen, as far as the novel takes us. This relationship is not one in which Maisie becomes James or he, herÂ-except perhaps in the sense that they flatter one another. Wix's, 'crooked' and apparently 'pornographic.' Although Maisie's initiation is indeed bound up with the method of the novel, one might better describe that method through the relationship of James, or rather his narratorÂ-who is, after all, present from the very beginning of the novel as Mrs. To arrive at the conclusion that her title promises, Mitchell pursues two perspectives through which James sees in the novel: Maisie's, 'straight' and seemingly 'innocent,' and Mrs. 'James's description of Maisie's initiation at the deepest level is profoundly bound up with his method for the whole novel, her progress so much its progress, her art his art' (177). The young girl Maisie becomes, through her learned vision, the man, the artist, Henry James. She writes, 'First as the child Maisie, then as the man, Henry James looks through a glass dimly in order that the reflection should be 'sharp' and 'quiet'' (189). Unsquaring the Squared Route of What Maisie Knew Barbara Eckstein, Tulane University In her essay 'What Maisie Knew: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl,' Juliet Mitchell provocatively implies a sort of cross-dressing on the part of Henry James. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Henry james novel what knew