75 pages • 2 hours read
Henry JamesThe Bostonians
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1886A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaBook First: Chapters 4-6 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book First: Chapter 4 Summary
Miss Birdseye is “a little old lady” (22) whose “long practice of philanthropy” (22) has resulted in her features being hard to read. She gives her money away to “negro[es]” and “refugees” (23) and almost would prefer that slaves be “back in bondage” (23) so she could save them. Basil finds her “ascetic” (17) home bland and wonders how Olive can like it. Olive also detests the house.
Miss Farrinder is a lecturer on “temperance and the rights of women” (25). As people gather to hear her speak, Basil has the impression that “they were mediums, communists, vegetarians” (26). Dr. and Mrs. Tarrant enter with their daughter Verena. Dr. Tarrant is “a mesmeric healer” (27), and his wife is the daughter of an abolitionist.
Book First: Chapter 5 Summary
Mrs. Farrinder would like Olive to bring wealthy women from her affluent neighborhood into the cause. However, Olive does not want to talk to other wealthy women; rather, she wishes to know “some very poor girl” (29). She did, once, attempt to befriend two “pale shop-maidens” (29), but they were “afraid” of Olive. Olive tells Mrs. Farrinder that she prefers to “enter into the lives of women who are lonely, who are piteous” (30). She also rejects Mrs. Farrinder’s request to speak to the group. When Mrs. Farrinder says Olive can contribute by donating money, Olive eagerly agrees. She believes she has “been born to lead a crusade” (30) and looks forward to a battle for women’s rights. To Olive, “danger” seems “as rosy as success” (31).
Book First: Chapter 6 Summary
Olive considers introducing Basil to Mrs. Farrinder but is worried that Mrs. Farrinder will not want to speak to someone who took “part in the Southern disloyalty” (32). Basil has enjoyed observing those present. He believes Dr. Prance, a tenant of Miss Birdseye, to be “a perfect example of the ‘Yankee female’” (33). Dr. Prance is not “an enthusiast” (33) of the feminist movement, a “relief” (33) to Basil.
When Basil asks Dr. Prance for her feelings about the movement, Dr. Prance tells him “[t]here is room for improvement in both sexes” (34). Basil takes a liking to Dr. Prance, who is only there because Miss Birdseye insisted she hear Mrs. Farrinder speak. Dr. Prance knows that Mrs. Farrinder is just going to say that women want to be equal, something Dr. Prance doesn’t need to be told.
Dr. Prance points out Matthias Parson, a prematurely white-haired young editor. She also notes the presence of a “tall, pale gentleman” (35) with a “black mustache” and “eye-glass” (35). Dr. Prance has no desire to speak with the man—readers deduce he is Selah Tarrant, the “mesmeric healer” (35) with “miraculous cures” (35)—because he wastes her clients’ time. A red-haired girl near him is Selah Tarrant’s daughter Verena.
Mrs. Farrinder will not speak because she “could only deliver her message to an audience which she felt to be partially hostile” (37), and the room is “too much in sympathy” (37) with her cause. Olive considers volunteering Basil Ransom to be hostile. Dr. and Mrs. Tarrant ask Miss Birdseye whether their daughter should speak.
Dr. Prance leaves, saying they are wasting her time and that she does not “want any one to tell me what a lady can do!” (39).
Book First: Chapters 4-6 Analysis
Olive is not the only feminist whose cause is visible in her appearance. Miss Birdseye’s features are blurry, as if her activism had “rubbed out […] their meanings” (22)—Miss Birdseye’s sacrificing herself for others has erased her individuality. Like Olive, Miss Birdseye is “formless,” having “no more outline than a bundle of hay” (24). Similarly, because Dr. Prance professionally occupies the role of a man, she seems to “look[s] like a boy” (33) to Basil. Women who step beyond traditionally designated roles lose their female identity, illustrating the threat overturning the gender hierarchy poses.
Feminism is cast as senseless at best, and selfishly motivated at worst. Even Miss Birdseye, who has given her life to help the oppressed, is so swept away by her cause that she has become counterproductive: Happiest when “helping some Southern slave to escape” (23), Miss Birdseye, “in her heart of hearts […] sometimes wish[es] the blacks back in bondage” (23). Olive’s “immense desire to know intimately some very poor girl” (29) appears similarly self-indulgent: She takes the “two or three pale shop-maidens” (29) she tried to bring into the movement “more tragically than they took themselves” (29). Mrs. Farrinder’s feminism is based on confrontation: She refuses to speak to those gathered, for “she could only deliver her message to an audience which she felt to be partially hostile” (37). She grandiosely compares herself to Napoleon Bonaparte “on the eve of one of his great victories” (37), appearing self-absorbed and ridiculous. The novel suggests that the truest feminist is Dr. Prance, who criticizes the feminist movement as a waste of time, living feminism in her everyday life by striving to work in a man’s field.
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