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Plato's cave and Henry James

 


I have written here before about Henry James' novel, THE SACRED FOUNT.  Today I'll discuss one detail in it.  

James offers up a protracted discussion between two characters, each speaking in oddly cryptic fashion, in which they seem to end up stumbling accidentally into a Platonic metaphor -- indeed THE Platonic metaphor, of wisdom as an escape from the darkness of a cave. 

The unnamed first-person narrator is talking here to Ford Obert.  They had first run into each other at the train station at the start of this weekend gathering. Obert is sometimes called "Obert RA," signifying in British usage that he is a member of the Royal Academy. 

Near the end of the book, Obert has caught up again with narrator to say that he has been thinking about the question they had discussed earlier (to wit, the way the life force can seemingly flow from one member of a couple to another, enervating one and energizing the other). He has found it illuminating.  Indeed, he refers to an analogy our narrator has drawn between two of the couples at this gathering.     

"The torch of your analogy" Obert says, has given him this illumination. 

Narrator replies, delighted by the expression. The meta-analogy of an analogy as a torch. They discuss the two couples for three pages, then Obert comes back to the meta-analogy.

"I've blown on my torch, in other words, till flaring and smoking, it has guided me, through a magnificent chiaroscuro of color and shadow, out into the light of day." 

Now it sounds like we are talking about escape from a cave, to better contemplate the Reality -- in this case the Reality of human relationships. Obert didn't quite say the word "cave," though.  

Narrator compliments the Royal Academician on this escape.  "Your image is splendid ... being out of the cave. But what is it exactly ... that you call the light of day?"

Ah, yes, THAT is always the question.  But what a Jamesian take [a Henry-Jamesian take] on that very old tale, a tale into which these characters have talked each other in stages.  Note that Obert is not seeing anything directly by virtue of this torch [what would he see? Images on the cave wall?] -- the torch helps him escape the cave and so indirectly helps him see what is to be seen outside of it. 

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