The Child in the Adult: Narrative and Nachträglichkeit in Henry James and Freud

At the intersection of literature and psychoanalysis, this essay draws on Freud's discovery of the infantile sexual unconscious to explore moments in the late novels of Henry James, in which an adult protagonist both recognizes and disavows the visible evidence of a sexual relationship. The essay considers Hans Holbein's 1533 painting, The Ambassadors, as a possible source for Henry James' choice of title for his 1903 novel: the painting's visual play with point of view touches on the narrative disavowal of what is there to be seen. The essay explores some narrative dimensions of Freud's writing to highlight the dynamic disclosure of the infantile within the adult. The concept of Nachträglichkeit, recognizing the deferred or belated impact of disruptive recurrences in mental life, helps to understand such moments and gives insight, more broadly, into narrative experience. Drawing on Nachträglichkeit as a principle of mental life, the essay explores the resonances of infantile sexuality, fantasy, and trauma in narrative, and more generally, as a resource in creative expression.