Once Strether reaches Europe, dissatisfaction seems to follow him around like a grumpy dog. "Wait," you might tell us. "That's not dissatisfaction; it's just his buddy Waymarsh." And yes, that's as true as personification gets.
But Strether is also possessed by the idea that he has left his entire life pass him by. Running into Chad and seeing how awesome his life is doesn't help matters, either. It just makes Strether even more aware that his anxieties have kept him from experiencing life to its fullest. But as Henry James tries to show us, it's never too late to start having an exciting life. It just takes courage to break out of your regular patterns of thinking.
Questions About Dissatisfaction
- What specifically lights the spark to create Strether's early signs of dissatisfaction in this book? Why? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.
- What do you think Strether needs to do to help overcome his dissatisfaction? Can he? Why or why not?
- What does Strether mean when he tells Bilham not to make the same mistakes he did? Find quotations in the text to support your answer.
- Do you think any other characters share Strether's sense of dissatisfaction? Why or why not?
Chew on This
In The Ambassadors, Henry James shows us that the grass will always seem greener on the other side of a hill. In other words, people always want what others have and are disappointed with what they do have.
When we read The Ambassadors, we are supposed to learn from Strether's mistake and to avoid his dissatisfaction by living every day of our lives to the fullest. So what does that tell you? To keep reading, of course!