Henry James's short novel Washington Square presents the story of Catherine, a young woman who lives with her father, a doctor, and who is dependent on him for her livelihood. Her story represents the plight of women in the nineteenth century, dependent on men and able to escape from one situation only if they find another man to take care of them. The woman has less choice in this matter in the nineteenth century than we are accustomed to seeing today. Her choices are limited first by social standing and economic realities, and second by decisions made by the paternal figure watching over her before she is betrothed. In the novel, the man who courts Catherine is an opportunist. She may suspect this, but she also may be willing to overlook it if marriage to him gets her out of her father's house, which itself suggests how limited her choices really are, for otherwise she would choose more carefully. However, her father rejects the man as a fortune hunter. After her father dies, the man tries again, but now she rejects him, this time out of her own sense of self-respect. Thereafter, she remains in the house in Washington Square alone. Catherine becomes stronger in the course of the novel, and though she remains alone, she has made a moral choice that is entirely her own.
Catherine is another of James's female characters with a circumscribed experience. Catherine is a very placid character, and we learn little about what she thinks of the events taking place around her. Catherine is the pawn of two men, her lover and her father, and the father is as manipulative in his way as is the lover:
His way of playing with the unfortunate girl is even more cruel than Townsend's and certainly more destructive of her ultimate happiness. The two snakes in Catherine's garden are really one: her lover's and her father's contempt. Under the gentle bloom of that subdued society the soil is arid. Catherine learns in time to live wi...