The Bostonians

4 Pages 1004 Words

The Bostonians by Henry James illustrates the Boston reformers throughout the women’s suffrage movement. James portrays the mercurial nature of the through his political satire. This is especially seen in Olive Chancellor, an obsessive women who has dedicated her life to the women’s suffrage movement and her sister Ms Luna, a pretty, yet shallow and manipulative woman. Their desire to control the unattainable is similar while the tactics the use to control are different. James shows the relationship between the sisters as one filled with distaste and jealousy. Although Ms Luna and Olive Chancellor differ on physical attributes and personalities, they both share a common emotion: jealousy, which is a reaction from their desire to control others.
Ms Luna and Olive Chancellor differ on many counts including physical appearance. Ms Luna, “was sufficiently pretty; her hair was in clusters of curls, like bunches of grapes; her tight bodice seemed to crack her with vivacity…little of she might partake in the nature of her sister. (3-4)” James describes Luna as notably pretty, yet in his mocking nature, makes her appear as if she tries to hard, because she has no real quality to capture a man. While Luna concerns herself with fashions, and physical appearance, her sister Olive Chancellor is quite different. One of the first times that Olive appears in the book, she is portrayed as a very plain women, whose looks differed from her sisters greatly. James describes Olive as, “habited in a plain dark dress, without any ornaments, and her smooth, colorless hair was confined as carefully as that of her sister was encouraged to stray.(7)” James uses the imagery of Olive and Luna’s looks to give the audience an idea of their char!
acter, and perhaps a foreshadow on their personalities later to come. Later on in the novel, James shows Luna as frivolous, and self-involved, she is much concerned with own benefits, not others happine...