Which one of us hasn't felt left behind? This means that Maisie will speak to the little child in all of us who never got quite enough love, no matter how good we were or how hard we tried to earn our parents', friends', or teachers' affection.
Luckily, though, the story is not all doom and gloom since Maisie's abandonment by adults means that, with Mrs. Wix's help, she finds resources within herself to face the world. The moral, then: abandonment is the beginning of the story, not the end.
Questions About Abandonment
- Why does James choose to have Maisie suffer not one abandonment but many?
- How does the theme of abandonment relate to the novel's genre, coming of age? Does abandonment prevent or enable the protagonist's development in What Maisie Knew?
- How does James's novel compare to other stories about orphans you're familiar with? Think of orphan Annie, for example, our friend Oliver Twist, or lots and lots of Disney characters.
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
It's ironic that although Maisie has "two fathers, two mothers, and two homes, six protections in all" (XII.1), she remains essentially alone.
Although James's heroine is "abandoned to her fate" (Preface.6), James's novel is far from fatalistic.