The Golden Bowl

“He developed, making her laugh, his idea that the tea of the English race was somehow their morality, ‘made,’ with boiling water, in a little pot, so that the more of it one drank the more moral one would become.”

The American and Italian characters try to navigate the social expectations and moralities of English society. In stereotypical fashion, this society is reduced to the consumption of tea. Morality, like tea, is a consumable good, something to be ingested and tasted but not necessarily something that is held as an enduring value. Morality, like tea, is a part of English society as something to be consumed, shared, and appreciated, but not necessarily understood on any abstract, fundamental level.

“He had done nothing he oughtn’t—he had in fact done nothing at all.”

Amerigo agrees to meet with Charlotte and, in doing so, strives to assure himself that he is doing nothing wrong. His actions suggest that he may not necessarily believe his assurances that he has done “nothing at all” (37). Amerigo keeps his shopping trip with Charlotte a secret from his fiancée; he goes to a part of London where he is sure that he will not be recognized. His actions are not the actions of an innocent man, but one who is already forming his excuses and justifications for a potential affair with a former lover. This quote speaks to the theme of Marriage and Love.

“She can’t live by visits alone.”

Charlotte lacks the financial resources of other characters but, by her charming nature, she can sustain her lifestyle by visiting her many friends. These visits serve to remind her of the ephemeral nature of her life; however, as she passes from house to house, from friend to friend, without ever having anywhere to call home. She cannot survive in this constant state of visitation, which foreshadows her willingness to marry the older, wealthier Adam Verver while still in love with Adam’s son-in-law, Amerigo.

“It’s more than I can afford.”

Charlotte knows that she cannot afford the golden bowl, even if the price is already drastically reduced due to the near-invisible flaw. The use of the word “afford” has a more subtle meaning: Charlotte cannot afford the monetary price of the golden bowl, but she is also unwilling to pay the emotional price of purchasing the bowl. To purchase the bowl as a wedding present would be to give her symbolic approval to a union between her friend and her former lover. Since she is still in love with Amerigo, she cannot afford to give even her symbolic approval, as doing so would hurt her too much.

“He feared not only danger—he feared the idea of danger, or in other words feared, hauntedly, himself.”

The novel explores the inner consciousness of the character in meticulous detail. In doing so, the narration delves into ever-increasing layers of nuance and abstraction. Rather than fearing danger, for example, Adam Verver fears the concept of danger itself. He is haunted by what he imagines danger to be rather than any particular danger. In the comfortable, insulated life of a millionaire widower—someone who has experienced great tragedy and great comfort—this abstract speaks to the emptiness of his life, in which he must invent ever-increasingly baroque dangers to fear, to the point where he is fearing the idea of danger rather than any actual threat.

“They went out of a door in the wall, a door that had a slab with a date set above it, 1713, but in the old multiplied lettering.”

Amerigo is from Italy, a country with a long and storied past but which was only officially unified in 1871. Likewise, the American characters hail from a country that only declared its independence from Britain in 1776. Now, living in England, the characters find themselves in an almost-alien world, one filled with constant reminders of the relative youth of their respective countries. Adam Verver, a man whose life has been dedicated to antiques, now finds himself in the antiquated shell of a society, which is littered with reminders of how the society itself predates anything he knows from back home. This quote speaks to the theme of Outsiders.

“He might at times reflect with the frankest lucidity on the circumstance that the case was for a good while yet absolutely settled in regard to what he still had left, at home, of his very own; in regard to the main seat of his affection, the house in Rome, the big black palace, the Palazzo Nero, as he was fond of naming it, and also on the question of the villa in the Sabine hills.”

Amerigo has no homesickness for Italy. He remembers the many palaces and villas of his aristocratic youth, but he does not long for them. Instead, he is more amused and fascinated by people rather than possessions or properties. As an aristocrat, he never feels that his luxurious lifestyle is threatened. Unlike, for example, Charlotte, he does not need to covet the luxuries of his youth because he always assumes that they will be there, waiting for him still. He feels entitled to his privilege in a way that the other characters do not, to the point where even his nostalgia has the privilege of enduring beyond any present financial difficulty.

“She’s always with people, poor dear—she rather has to be; even when, as is sometimes the case, they’re people she doesn’t immensely like.”

In contrast to Amerigo’s aristocratic privilege, Charlotte must strive to maintain her current level of comfort. She is not wealthy, so she endures the company of people she dislikes so that she can take advantage of their generosity. She has turned her existence into a charming seduction, in which she struggles to overcome her poverty by endearing herself to others. The tragedy of this arrangement is that, when she truly loved Amerigo, she was forced to leave him because they were both too poor. She continues to subjugate herself to the company of people she dislikes rather than return to any form of poverty.

“I don’t want to be a horrible English old-maid.”

Charlotte makes her worst fears clear: She does not want to return to her lower social station. Being “a horrible English old-maid” is, to Charlotte, the worst possible future because it is one in which her charm has failed to secure her a social position. Whether married or simply kept by friends, she wants to ensure that her life matches her expectations of luxury. She does not want to work, nor to be seen as someone who works.

“Maggie thinks more, on the whole, of fathers than of husbands.”

The curious predicament in which Charlotte and Amerigo find themselves is explained by Charlotte to Fanny. Though Charlotte and Amerigo are the characters involved in a possible affair, Charlotte seeks to conflate her actions with Maggie’s own mistakes. Charlotte’s words are critical of Maggie, for thinking more about her father than her husband, subtly implying that Maggie herself is to blame for occupying her father so much that Charlotte and Amerigo are forced to spend time together. Charlotte’s criticism is not unfounded, as Maggie herself feels guilty, but Charlotte’s framing of the matter belies her guilty conscience. This quote speaks to the theme of Marriage and Love.

“It’s my little idea. It makes me feel as I used to—when I could do as I liked.”

Charlotte has materially benefited from her marriage. She has also emotionally benefited, as the marriage draws her closer to the man she truly loves. Yet she feels constrained by the practical realities of married life. She can no longer do as she pleases. She has more wealth and power than ever before but, as the wife of a wealthy man, she is very conspicuous. She preferred life as a poor woman, when she was free to court Amerigo, compared to life as a wealthy woman, when she must hide her love for Amerigo from public scrutiny.

“It’s as strange as you like, but we’re immensely alone.”

Charlotte and Amerigo are “immensely alone,” but the immensity of their aloneness creates a vacuum of affection in which they can conduct their affair. They are, in effect, alone together, brought together by the apparent disinterest of their respective spouses. This framing is important to Charlotte, as it allows her to deflect blame for the affair from herself. The strange loneliness has been imposed on her and Amerigo by the Verver father and daughter, practically forcing them into one another’s arms. This quote speaks to the themes of Outsiders and Marriage and Love.

“The treacherous cracked thing you wanted to palm off on me, and the little swindling Jew who understood Italian and who backed you up!”

Amerigo still does not comprehend the true symbolism of the bowl. While Charlotte remembers the significance of the golden bowl, which symbolizes the flawed marriages in which they now find themselves, Amerigo is still swept up in petty grievances and antisemitic slurs against the storekeeper. To Amerigo, the man’s understanding of Italian was practically an insult, as the man forced him to reckon with the unsuitability of his actions. Amerigo, a man used to privilege, has not forgiven this storekeeper for making him feel—at least temporarily—guilty.

“One was no doubt a meddlesome fool; one always is, to think one sees people’s lives for them better than they see them for themselves.”

Fanny plays the role of an outside observer of the relationships at the heart of the novel. She recognizes the precarity of her position, however, as she tries to discern the truth about the relationships even though she is not directly involved. Trying to second guess a person’s emotional state, she confesses to her husband, is a fool’s errand. Fanny may describe her actions as both foolish and meddlesome, yet she continues nevertheless. Fanny embodies the theme of Outsiders.

“‘I grant,’ she added for Charlotte, ‘that fathers are not much better than husbands.’”

Maggie’s suspicions toward Charlotte are hinted at through the subtle ways in which she begins to mimic Charlotte’s actions. Maggie, too, begins to blur the distinctions between fathers and husbands. While Charlotte does so to excuse or justify her affair, Maggie does so to performatively draw herself closer to Charlotte. She agrees with Charlotte as a way of prompting Charlotte to reckon with her actions, hinting to Charlotte that she is aware of the secret (or at least suspicious) without seeming to blame anyone but herself. Through careful hints like this, Maggie is able to defeat Charlotte in the game of society and etiquette.

“We can do as we like.”

Maggie suspects that her husband is involved in an inappropriate relationship with Charlotte; she subtly tries to manipulate him into revealing himself and, with this context in mind, her words take on a new meaning. When seemingly speaking about her plans for their future, she tells Amerigo that “we can do as we like” (344). The use of “we” implies “you,” in which she knows that Amerigo has been doing as he likes behind her back. Her use of the pronoun is almost sarcastic, as she feels caged by her husband’s apparent infidelity while criticizing his abuse of freedom. Amerigo, she suggests, does as he likes while she is ignored at home.

“She had made anxiety her stupid little idol.”

Maggie feels as though her anxieties have taken over her life. Her suspicions about her husband are all-consuming, to the point where she forgets about her duties to her father or son. She must have an answer from her husband, so she dedicates herself to the pursuit of this answer with a religious fervor. She makes an idol out of her anxieties and then prays to it for answers. Maggie’s emotions and sudden realization speak to the theme of Etiquette and Alienation, as Maggie has exiled herself from society and the realities of her marriage.

“I live in the midst of miracles of arrangement, half of which, I admit, are my own.”

Maggie finds herself caught in a trap of her own accidental making. Her marriage caused her to feel guilty about abandoning her father, which then gave her husband an opening to abandon her. This outlandish circumstance, which Maggie frames as a miracle, has come about through her own mistakes. Maggie blames herself, as Fanny suggested she would, for creating a situation in which her husband can betray her.

“Oh, I’m far from wanting it back—I feel so that I’m getting its worth.”

The golden bowl was sold to Maggie at an inflated price. She did not notice the crack, which was shown to Charlotte and was seemingly apparent to Amerigo. The high price of the bowl was a trick, one which Charlotte and Amerigo avoided, but which Maggie fell for. She is happy to pay this price, however, as the true value of the golden bowl is what it has revealed about her life. The golden bowl’s worth, Maggie asserts, is how it elucidates reality.

“She might have taken his undisturbed manner, the perfection of his appearance of having recovered himself, for one of those intentions of high impertinence by the aid of which great people, les grands seigneurs, persons of her husband’s class and type, always know how to reestablish a violated order.”

Maggie is conscious of the class differences between herself and her husband. While she may be married to Amerigo and her father may be far wealthier than Amerigo (or Amerigo’s relatives), they are operating in a British class system, which is separate from material wealth. Class as a near-immutable structure is an enduring aspect of the British social order and Amerigo, even as an outsider, demonstrates how his aristocratic privileges help him to deflect and ignore any criticisms which threaten to undermine his status. To Maggie, this is a horrific violation. To Amerigo, it is the preservation of the natural order.

“They had been alone that evening—alone as a party of six.”

The definition of alone is stretched over the course of the novel. Charlotte and Amerigo used their sense of feeling alone to justify their affair. They felt abandoned by their respective spouses and decided to be alone together. As the fallout of this affair threatens the stability of the characters’ marriages, the nature of “alone” is further widened. The six characters are alone together. They may be physically close, but they are emotionally distant. Even in a small group, they cannot help but feel alone, together.

“The point, however, was that they had changed places.”

Maggie leaves the room, and Charlotte moves to join her. This momentary physical disruption is an expression of the shifting power dynamics in the characters’ lives. Maggie’s suspicions have not been revealed to her father or her mother-in-law, yet her sense of betrayal, and her desire to save her marriage, affect how the characters interact. Charlotte senses this on a subconscious level and leaves the room to seek reassurance from Maggie. They have changed places, with Charlotte now uncertain of Maggie’s understanding, whereas she was previously delighted by the secret she kept from her stepdaughter.

“You don’t know what it is to have been loved and broken with. You haven’t been broken with, because in your relation what can there have been, worth speaking of, to break?”

Maggie’s obsession over her husband’s infidelities festers to such an extent that she tries to predict Charlotte’s response. In doing so, she reveals an empathy that few other characters possess. She accommodates the suffering and tragedy of Charlotte’s life as a justification for an affair that has profoundly hurt Maggie, showing that she does not see Charlotte as being beyond redemption. At the same time, she also reveals her own deepest fear— that Charlotte’s past experiences have given her a better understanding of love and loss than Maggie’s own potentially superficial experiences. In trying to predict Charlotte’s response, Maggie reveals her fears and her capacity for empathy at the same time.