Henry James' tale “The Jolly Corner” is singularly evocative and interesting for the insight it offers into the American artistic personality. Looking back, James shows the consequences of a fundamental and early divergence in American aesthetic sensibility. “The Jolly Corner” reflects, in its most general sense, awareness. It is essentially a work of art about art itself and, more specifically, about the teasing and ambivalent relationship between art and life. Just as the notions of life and death are existential polarities, the dichotomy between life and art is central in the history of aesthetic reflection. Art may be a representation of life, but it is absolutely not life itself. The divergence is a question of form. However, art can be seen as an intensified and more refined form of life in that the beauty of its forms transcends time and thus gives life its own immortality. By freezing the living moment in the formal timelessness of art, the artist disrupts the very goals of life by leaving its processes exasperated. In this sense, art can be considered a way of death in life. “The Jolly Corner” embodies this paradox. The structure of the story perfectly conveys its theme of the dual action of art and life. Rarely have form and content been merged in such an inseparable way. Furthermore, just as parables convince us with the recognizable authenticity of the situations they describe, it would not be contradictory to interpret James's account as a parable, not only of the artist as a man of letters international, but also as a parable of humanity. artist as an indisputable American. James extends the duality further in Spencer Brydon's two characters. Beyond the question of legitimacy, both Europeans and Americans...... middle of paper ......e means by which faulty vision is corrected. Spencer Brydon sports a “charming monocle,” but the alter ego needs double glasses, a “large convex pince-nez” (101). The European aesthetic perception of life, James suggests, may be finer and sharper, but in the relatively narrow scope of its vision it is as surely damaged as the American perspective which took life more seriously. The advancement, but also the hurt, from each point of view and also the irrevocable divorce between them ultimately emerges from Alice's last words to Spencer Brydon: "And he is not – no, he is not – you ! (101). Spencer actualizes an awareness of visual beauty and of himself, as a whole person, via his dueling identities as an American and a European. The alter ego may not really be Spencer Brydon, but he was raised by Brydon in the house on the merry corner..