The Pupil

Infobox short story |
name = The Pupil
author = Henry James
country = United Kingdom
language = English
genre = Short story
publication_type = Periodical
published_in = "Longman's Magazine"
publisher =
pub_date = March-April 1891
media_type = Print (Magazine)
pages = 40 pp

"The Pupil" is a short story by Henry James, first published in "Longman's Magazine" in 1891. It is the emotional story of a precocious young boy growing up in a mendacious and dishonorable family. He befriends his tutor, who is the only adult in his life that he can trust. James presents their relationship with sympathy and insight, and the story reaches what some would consider the status of classical tragedy.

Plot summary

Pemberton, a penniless graduate of Oxford, takes a job to tutor Morgan Moreen, aged eleven, a brilliant and somewhat cynical member of a wandering American family. His mother and father refuse to pay Pemberton as they jump their bills from one hotel to another in Europe. Pemberton grows to dislike all the Moreens except Morgan, including older brother Ulick and sisters Paula and Amy.

Morgan, who is afflicted with heart trouble, advises Pemberton to escape his family's baleful influence. But Pemberton stays on because he has come to love and admire his pupil and he hopes for at least some eventual payment. Pemberton finally has to take another tutoring job in London simply to make ends meet. He is summoned back to Paris, though, by a telegram from the Moreens that says Morgan has fallen ill.

It turns out that Morgan is healthy enough, though the fatal day arrives when his family is evicted from their hotel for nonpayment. Morgan's parents beg Pemberton to take their son away with him while they try to find some money. Morgan is ecstatic at the prospect of leaving with Pemberton, but the tutor hesitates. Morgan suddenly collapses with a heart attack and dies. In the story's ironic final note, James says that Morgan's father takes his son's death with the perfect manner of "a man of the world."

Major themes

To use the phrase of James's secretary Theodora Bosanquet, Morgan is one of the novelist's "children of light," people with insight and delicacy who are often ground down by harsh, unforgiving environments. In Morgan's case that environment is tragically provided by his own family. That's why the boy clings so ardently to Pemberton, a tutor who truly appreciates Morgan's ability and decency and offers a possible escape from the deceitful, mediocre Moreen troupe.

When the moment of opportunity comes, though, Pemberton hesitates. His reservations are understandable; he has no financial resources to take on the responsibility of raising a teen-aged boy. But that bit of hesitancy proves fatal. Once again, one of James's honorable and intelligent characters succumbs to inescapable reality.

There has been much talk about the exact nature of the relationship between Pemberton and Morgan, with some commentators intimating a homosexual/paedophile attachment. [cite web|url=http://www2.newpaltz.edu/~hathaway/ejournal2.html|title=Pushkin in 'The Aspern Papers'|author=Joseph S. O'Leary|publisher=The Henry James E-Journal|date=2000-03-01|accessdate=2007-08-07|quote=A full reading has to note that Morgan is trapped in two double binds: his parents adore him but want to get rid of him; the tutor encourages his dream of an adventurous escape together (in an atmosphere of pedophile complicity, though Furbank is partly right to reject Bayley's crude interpretation of this), yet does not want to be burdened with him when it comes to the crunch. See also the discussion of the story at [http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/07/jamesian_subtex.html Joseph S. O'Leary's homepage.] ] Although there is no overt hint of a sexual relationship in the story, tutor and pupil do establish a bond of love and respect, which shines in contrast to the mundane, unimaginative world of the other Moreens: "Pemberton held him fast, hands on his shoulders — he had never loved him so." The story is referenced in List of books portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors

Critical evaluation

Critic Robert Gale flatly called "The Pupil" "one of the finest short stories ever written," and few commentators have disagreed. The brilliant and wise prose, the unforgettable portraits of Morgan, Pemberton and the entire Moreen family, and the genuine, deeply affecting tragedy of the conclusion all make this one of the world's most impressive short narratives. Mortimer Adler rightly included the story in his "Gateway to the Great Books" series.

Besides the dispute about possible homosexual overtones in the relationship between Morgan and Pemberton, critics have also disagreed about how much responsibility the tutor bears for the boy's sudden collapse and death. There's no doubt that Morgan is disappointed when he sees Pemberton hesitate about taking him away from his worthless family. As mentioned before, that hesitation is understandable but Pemberton still falls short of heroic action in an admittedly difficult situation. And as Lionel Trilling observed about the story, sometimes a man is a hero or he is nothing at all.

Notes

References

* "The Tales of Henry James" by Edward Wagenknecht (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1984) ISBN 0-8044-2957-X
* "A Henry James Encyclopedia" by Robert L. Gale (New York: Greenwood Press 1989) ISBN 0-313-25846-5
* "The Cambridge Companion to Henry James" edited by Jonathan Freedman (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1998) ISBN 0-521-49924-0
* "Tales of Henry James: The Texts of the Tales, the Author on His Craft, Criticism" edited by Christof Wegelin and Henry Wonham (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003) ISBN 0-393-97710-2

External links

* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1032 "New York Edition" text of "The Pupil" (1908)]
* [http://www.henryjames.org.uk/prefaces/text11_inframe.htm Author's preface to the "New York Edition" text of "The Pupil" (1908)]
* [http://www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=131&section=notes Note on the texts of "The Pupil"] at the Library of America web site