Henry James in respect to Edith Wharton

In Henry James’ “The Art of Fiction”, he discusses the dangers of defining what good fiction should and should not be. In his essay, he uses the lecture of Mr. Walter Besant to disprove theories that fiction can be defined. Throughout his essay, Henry James compares fiction to art, in that the successes of both are dependent on the “quality of mind of the producer.” I started reading this essay, I found it difficult to find the important points that James was trying to make. However, more careful scrutiny revealed that the entire essay was a serious of points and reinforcements of his general idea that the only requirement that a work of fiction should be held to is that it should be sincere. He also discusses the notion that “the only existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.” Whose life it is representing, however, is completely at the discretion of the novelist. He backs up this argument when he discusses Besant’s restrictions on what an author should write about, such as that “‘a writer whose friends and personal experiences belong to the lower middle-class should carefully avoid introducing his characters into society.’” To this, James says that he can neither dissent nor assent because he feels that while life experiences and sticking to what you know, per say, will lead to better fiction, a writer is still at liberty to write about anything.
In the excerpt explaining Edith Wharton’s life, it is interesting to see that some events in her life have a direct correlation to the plot of her story, “Souls Belated.” This no doubt lends to the sincerity of her observations on character and society, which, according to Henry James, is the most important aspect of a “good” work of fiction. In this story, Lydia is a young woman who has left her husband to be with the man she loves, Ralph Gannett. However, she feels hesitant to marry him, even though her divorce is final, because she is afraid (after her past experience with marriage) that marriage can only aid in driving apart people that love each other. However at the end, after Lydia tries to leave Gannett but finds she cannot because she loves him, the reader is fairly confident that the two will be married. Edith Wharton did not have any personal experience in this field necessarily, because she never remarried after being separated from her husband, but her writing is very genuine and sincere in that while Lydia struggles to accept marriage, the reader is rooting for it the entire time, since they really love each other. Therefore, in respect to “The Art of Fiction,” we see Henry James’ point that restrictions of experience should not be based on an author, and that even in writing in an unfamiliar arena, a “good” work of fiction can be developed.