Henry James' The Ambassadors: The Primal Scene Revisited

Though Lambert Strether may have a horribly sharp eye for making things right, his perceptions elicit only the painfully complex truth of his personal fantasies. Ironically, Henry James' ambassador is unconsciously lured to witness a traumatic primal scene 1—projected onto the two lovers floating toward him on the river—that isolates his dread of castration. Sexuality for Strether is displaced from genital primacy to an oral scoptophilic impulse to introject, and to possess, the erotic scene in precise detail. But this traumatic sight, charged with latent intimidating sexual gestures, only reactivates Strether's castration anxiety.

Strether has the impression that he has seen all this before in a small Lambinet painting, now become a “sweet” memory which he seeks to repress. But discreetly missing from his memory of the Lambinet which he had wished to purchase as a young man are the lovers drifting toward him on the river. Otherwise, that early canvas is identical to the actual scene on the river, down to the color, shape and texture of the landscape. Strether would have us believe that he regrets not having purchased