Irony and the Question of Presentation in The American Scene

Several scenarios of The American Scene are studied to emphasize the irreconcilable nature of performative and constative functions of language as a medium of aesthetic presentation, rendering impossible any attempt to reduce the text to a historico-political document, and underwriting on the contrary the ironic character of its discourse. This discursive irony is read as a counter-force to the aesthetic ideology that James sees installing itself in the United States as what he calls the “hotel-world,” a nihilist and spectacular mode of the American spirit.