There are few if any empathetic characters in The Golden Bowl—what is the main point that Henry James is trying to convey?

Over the course of his fiction-writing career, Henry James came to occupy a position as the most insightful social critic of his era, matched only by Edith Wharton. Both through his characters and his careful plotting, James offered novels in which each individual’s behavior is entirely plausible but rarely predictable. He also incorporates deliberately obvious symbols—as in the flawed golden bowl in this work—that provide a mechanism for resolving the plot’s complications. Occasionally, James creates an unrealistically pure or idealistic character as a yardstick against whom the others’ less-than-honorable actions and motivations are unfavorably measured. In this, James’s final novel, the characters primarily act out of self-interest. Although Maggie sometimes seems to put her father’s interests first, she also enjoys the benefits of their life together and is not eager to rock this privileged boat. Not until the end does the reader begin to believe that either she or Amerigo is capable of putting someone else first, and that there might be hope for them continuing in the type of mature adult relationship that would constitute a true marriage.