Proxy narrative in the ambassadors: Reconfiguring James's Ending

This article discusses what I call the proxy narrative, a type of narrative in which a key scene or plot sequence can be read most meaningfully as a substitute for a counterfactual alternative that cannot otherwise be narrated. Building on existing critical applications of possible world semantics and counterfactual reasoning to narrative theory, I offer several case studies culminating in an extended discussion of The Ambassadors-and, particularly, of its critically contested final scene-to illustrate the extent to which recognition of the proxy narratives embedded in traditional plots can enrich our readings of even the most familiar texts. Unable plausibly or ethically to depict a renunciation scene between Strether and Madame de Vionnet, James uses the final encounter between Strether and Maria Gostrey, I argue, to enact a discursively necessary outcome that the logic of story otherwise precludes.