Paste

Henry James writes suspensive narrative sentences in a cumulative-periodic style. Though each individual sentence does not end with the punch of a periodic narration, the suspensive style of each sentence cumulates into a transition for the proceeding sentence: using sharp transitional punctuation, James forms narrative intervals between the long stretches of suspensive narration, allowing his reader to take a breath from the heavy narration. In these passages James' own voice, that of an eloquent observer, becomes most apparent.

"Our young woman found that she had done with the children, that morning, with a promptitude that was a new joy to them, and when she reappeared before Mrs. Guy this lady had already encircled a plumb white throat with the only ornament, surely, in all the late Mrs. Prime's -the effaced Miss Bradshaw's - collection, in the least qualified to raise a question."

Despite the heavy use of narration, James' own authorial voice rarely reveals itself. His telling, though intricate, is very plain: it is without much interpretation from the narrator himself.

Instead, James' voice is expressed through the reactions of characters to developing dynamics within each sequence. In his description of Charlotte's rushing the children's lessons he writes that she dismisses them with a ' promptitude that was a new joy to them.' Here Joyce observes and interprets for the reader a sequence he deemed worthy of note, but unworthy of further development. The use of an explicitly authorial 'telling' voice is to construct a transition, moving the action of the plot forward without further delay; so despite James' slow, suspensive style, his choice here shows a decisive discipline. His narration is a deliberate portrayal, constituted by a formulated composition of plot elements. Therefore despite the running together of ideas, as each sentence subject seems indefinably suffused to the next, James' style is periodic, and his plot emanates a series of well systemized stylistic choices.