‘Mrs Penniman’s character is to some extent a mere caricature’ in Henry James’ ‘Washington Square’

Henry pile uses, Lavinia Penniman predominantly for the diverting relief derived from her unrealistic romantic scheme, her extensive hyperbole, and deceitfulness. Mrs Penniman is seen as a caricature, a caricature is a risible illustration that exaggerates or distorts the features of a person to socio-economic class a visual likeness. Mrs Penniman can be seen as a caricature through her clothing, gestures, verbiage and her usance as seen in many chapters throughout the novel.Lavinia Penniman is a drear figure, she is widowed and left without children, without fortune and lives in Dr Slopers household and is in control of Dr Slopers daughter, Catherines education. Many women in the 19th century who like Mrs Penniman werent married, tended to struggle with animation they struggled to get an income so remained poor and weak and in truth tended not to hit a life.Henry James shows Mrs Penniman to tag along to the Drs household, possibly for this reason, she origin bothy conjuga ted the household temporarily whilst she searched for unfurnished lodgings unless she chose to settle herself with her brother and never went away. She is in fact exposit as the fifth bike, she is ceaselessly there, most often when not needed, always meddling with the outcome of events, she should in reality be a minor character but she continuously interferes. Mrs Penniman really is seen as a caricature when she is organism a meddler, as she so often is.She really interferes with Catherines race between Morris, she arranges dates, he is coming a lawsuit (said to Catherine). In chapter 15 and 16 Mrs Penniman interferes tremendously with Catherines descent with Morris, she organises a tryst which is held between her and Morris at an collect salon. This location is unexpected and very secretive, this all increases the drama of the occasion, making it take c atomic number 18 as though what they were doing wasnt allowed and making it all bet rather suspicious, as Mrs Pennim an is very unlikely to meet anyone of acquaintance there.At this secret meeting, Mrs Penniman goes against her brothers wishes and attempts to encourage a secret unify between Catherine and Morris, Morris realises the difficulty of this but Mrs Penniman thinking she is in one of her romantic novels, comes up with ridiculous solutions that would muchover add to the drama, such(prenominal) as using the burial site as a location for the wedding. She also makes authentic that she is a key figure in it all, as she possibly wants to be the heroine, she does this by inventing roles for herself, and this is done in other occasions as well.Mrs Pennimans character does have comic factors that are crucial for her to be a caricature. This can be seen through her costumes, gestures and through the authors humorous metaphors. Her costumes are flamboyant and in chapter IV she is described as wearing more buckles and bangles than ever display that she often wears outrages outfits. Like her c ostumes her language and gestures seem to be hyperbolic and unnecessary, although this could be a ploy to take a leak a larger part in the speckle that she would otherwise have.Her continuous use of hyperbolic and dramatic language makes the character seem to be humorously overdramatic and over the top, this defiantly creates a feeling of her being a caricature. To top this of Henry James uses witty and unusual metaphors that have a hint of satire in them. She chooses these ironic metaphors to make the situation between Morris and Catherine more dramatic than it really is, she reads these ideas in her decrease literature, and would like the relationship between Catherine and Morris to be like them.This can be seen several fourth dimension from page 82 to 84, where she uses banished, the guilty couple, inert ground and evoke suspicion. All these seem to be similar to some of Shakespeares romantic relationships, such as Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo one of the lovers is banish ed, the couple is guilty, as they are sworn enemies and they often met on neutral ground, this is an exciting play, due to this which is effectively what Mrs Penniman is attempting to do.To conclude, Mrs Pennimans character is a caricature, her clothes, language and gestures are all hyperbolic and she always attempts to be at the centre of all occasions. She is a sad figure who attempts to manipulate the authors plot to make it more dramatic and like her light literature, her ideas are secure of irony and her character in general does seem to posses some humour that would make her a caricature.