In some of the early novels of Henry James, he seems to be experimenting with removing essential elements of a quintessential Jane Austen novel like Pride and Prejudice and then seeing what happens.
Thackery called Vanity Fair “a novel without a hero”. But the same could be said of James’ Washington Square. It seems to ask what if the protagonist were a Kitty instead of an Elizabeth Bennet, or a Catherine Morland who rather than merely lacking in experience at 17 reaches 22 lacking in intelligence. How would such a girl deal with a less benevolent version of Mr Bennet? A father whose sarcasm results not from the challenges of an ill-chosen marriage to a foolish wife but the loss of a beautiful and talented wife for whose death in childbirth he secretly blames his plain and dull daughter. And what if there awaits her only a Mr Wickham and no Mr Darcy?
Meanwhile The Portrait of Lady could fairly be described as a novel with only a heroine. An Elizabeth Bennet and no Mr Darcy. (Notably the heroine’s name Isabel is the Spanish form of Elizabeth and her last name Archer is suggestive of the archness she shares with Jane Austen’s heroine). Different men embody different parts of Mr Darcy - Lord Warburton, his fabulous wealth; Caspar Goodwood, his passionate nature; the ailing Ralph, his essential kindness, honour and decency; but none completely embodies the qualities of a fictional hero.
The endings of both novels unsurprisingly diverge from the conventions of romantic comedy but neither are they traditionally tragic. Catherine Sloper of Washington Square never marries and attains at best a negative kind of freedom and independence. When the mercenary suitor of her youth, Morris Townsend, returns to try his luck once more, she quietly turns him away without much sense of either triumph or revenge. Instead of marrying an incomplete hero, the heroine of The Portrait of A Lady, Isabel Archer, ends up trapped in a marriage to Gilbert Osmond, as complete a villain as any found in a Jane Austen novel, her ultimate fate left “en air” as James put it.
But then, complete villainy rarely features in the novels of Jane Austen. Her villains are selfish, dishonest, immoral, unscrupulous rather than pure evil. Her heroes though are a different matter. “There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just enough to make one good sort of man” declares Elizabeth after reading Mr Darcy’s letter containing the truth about Mr Wickham. Except that it isn’t exactly true. Mr Darcy turns out to possess “a quantity of merit” quite as impressive as his riches. But in the novels of Henry James there truly isn’t enough good to go around. Their outcomes are characteristic of a world in which villainy is lower-bounded but there is also a corresponding limit on goodness.