Talk:The Ambassadors

Plot Summary

I had thought that an important element of the plot was that Strether was a poor man, dependent on Mrs Newsome for his livelihood. By urging Chad as he does he will bring about his own dismissal and destitution. It is therefore an act of self-sacifice. This seemed obvious from the narrative, but nobody else that I know of has pointed it out. Am I wrong? And is this OR? Seadowns (talk) 23:26, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

A lot must have changed on this page in the past three years. There is now no 'Plot Summary', and the 'Major Themes' section mentions the names Marie and Chad as meaningless words that have not been referenced in the text. I think there should be a Plot Summary, followed by a Major Themes section. Valetude (talk) 19:42, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I would be happy to work on this. Here's one thing I'm not sure about: I could do the plot summary just from having read it. But, since this is a well-known novel, there are many cliff's-notes kind of things online about it that I could reference to establish the validity of whatever I am saying the plot is. But WP has plenty of articles about novels where there are no sources like that online, and yet the WP articles include plot summaries and that seems to be fine. I'd rather just do it that way rather than read through a lot of dreck like this. But not sure of proper procedure here. Novellasyes (talk) 23:24, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I don’t think we need to worry about cites for the Plot Summary. It’s not a very controversial area. My own quibble is that they tend to be over-detailed. The object is to provide an overview, not a condensed version of the story - especially when there’s a risk of spoilers. Valetude (talk) 13:09, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Here is my proposed plot summary. If this works, I'll add it to the article. Novellasyes (talk) 15:31, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

"Lambert Strether, a middle-aged American of insignificant means, is sent to Paris by Mrs. Newsome, his wealthy fiancée. The mission he has been given is to talk her son, Chad, into returning to the family business in Woollett, Massachusetts. The Newsome family believes that Chad might be overstaying his European tour because of an inappropriate romantic liaison, perhaps with a vulgar adventuress. The reader is given to understand, in indirect ways, that if Strether fails, his engagement to Mrs. Newsome is at risk.

Once Strether locates Chad, he is surprised to discover that Chad has improved from when he last knew him in America. Chad exhibits restrained urbanity, elegance and manners. This is not what Strether expected of someone in the grip of an inappropriate romantic entanglement. Strether wonders what has caused the transformation he sees in Chad. When Chad offers to introduce him to some of his close friends -- Madame de Vionnet and her grown daughter -- Strether eagerly accepts. When the introduction occurs, Strether finds the mother and the daughter to be refined, virtuous and thoroughly admirable. He wonders if the lovely daughter is what has brought about the improvements in Chad. He learns that Madame de Vionnet is married but has been separated from her husband for years.

Strether himself is introduced to Paris in a way that starts to open his own mind and heart to a larger vision of the world's possibilities. He feels alive and renewed. His own interest in returning to America wanes. It is also clear that he is not exerting himself to talk Chad into returning. He develops some feelings for Madame de Vionnet. To his surprise, Chad assists in arranging a very eligible marriage for Madame de Vionnet's daughter. This leaves Strether to wonder what might be going on between Chad and the mother.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Newsome grows tired of Strether's failure to act. She sends over a set of new ambassadors to accomplish the mission -- including her daughter and son-in-law. The group clearly doesn't see Paris, life's possibilities, Chad or Madame de Vionnet in the same way that Strether does. Sarah (Newsome) Pocock demands that Strether get himself in line and insist to Chad that Chad return. While the Pocock party is away on a short trip, Strether ventures out of Paris for a day of random wandering and accidentally happens upon Chad and Madame de Vionnet in a setting where it is evident that they are romantically and sexually entangled. He feels deceived but still acknowledges the improvements in Chad's character.

Chad makes the decision to return to Woollett, which will mean the sundering of his relationship with Madame de Vionnet. Strether has very mixed feelings about this. He, too, will return to Woollett, even if this means a less-alive existence. It is unclear whether Mrs. Newsome will receive him back into her graces."

I think that's a great summary. One thing I would change is to describe Mlle de Vionnet's daughter's marriage as "advantageous" rather than "eligible." Valkotukka (talk) 18:40, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! I made that change and added the section. Novellasyes (talk) 14:11, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Introduction of this article versus Amazon

The introduction of this article says, "This dark comedy, seen as one of the masterpieces of James's final period, follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of Chad Newsome, his widowed fiancée's supposedly wayward son; he is to bring the young man back to the family business, but he encounters unexpected complications. The third-person narrative is told exclusively from Strether's point of view."

If you go over to the Amazon purchase page for this book, it describes the book as follows: "This dark comedy, seen as one of the masterpieces of James's final period, follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of Chad Newsome, his widowed fiancée's supposedly wayward son; he is to bring the young man back to the family business, but he encounters unexpected complications. The third-person narrative is told exclusively from Strether's point of view."

So there's an almost 100% overlap. Could be that Amazon somehow copied from Wikipedia, or could be the other way around. Novellasyes (talk) 21:03, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

I am trying to figure out how to escalate this. I read Wikipedia:Copyright violations. In the section on "Dealing with copyright problems", it says to use the text below, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to put that here or on the article. So, I'm putting it here. Novellasyes (talk) 17:54, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I think I was supposed to put this notice on the article itself, not here, so I'm going to go ahead and do that. Novellasyes (talk) 23:04, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

The text appeared on here in this edit in 2005 [1] - if you spool forward and back, you can see the text being revised, so I think it's actually a case of them copying this text rather than the other way around, as is often the case these days. I'm going to remove the copyvio notice, but will also remove the 'masterpiece' bit, as it's a bit peacocky. Bob talk 11:46, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much for figuring this out! It would never have occurred to me to look into those early edits like that. Awesome. Novellasyes (talk) 17:00, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Copyvio issues

Following from the discussion above and Novellasyes's March 10 entry in Copyright Problems.

I went over the overlapping text again, and was mainly concerned about the plot summary. See this diff where the plot summary was added in one edit by an IP editor, without inline citations. This is the bulk of the material flagged by Earwig and matching the Amazon description of the novel. Because of this I've removed the entire plot summary, and slightly rewritten the introduction and the first paragraph of major themes. I believe this takes care of most of the copyvio issues, but I'll have a second look and please let me know what you think. --Alan Islas (talk) 15:59, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I'm proposing that Lambert Strether be merged into this article. That article is 15 years old and a tiny stub. It has had the "needs more citations" template on it, to no avail, for 12 years (since 2009). The article about Lambert gets an average of 4 page views a day. Novellasyes (talk) 19:40, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. He's not exactly Hamlet. Anyway, not even Isabel Archer gets her own page.Valkotukka (talk) 20:14, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

I've been feeling sorry for Lambert so I looked up scholarly work on him and after poking around for awhile (this is typical) altho I still feel sorry for him, I just don't think there's much that can be made here. Novellasyes (talk) 20:22, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 10:53, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Plot Summary

Chad doesn't decide to go back to America and it's clear that Mrs. Newsome doesn't want to be with Strether and even clearer that Strether no longer wants to be with her. 174.99.30.163 (talk) 22:06, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Plot summary update

Miss Gostrey has no involvement with Strether's day in the country & subsequent discovery of Chad & Mme de V. The plot is open-ended; the reader is not given to know, or is left to imagine, the future. MissKimSwim (talk) 18:07, 28 November 2024 (UTC)