The Gilded Age novel that explains our fascination with Luigi Mangione

A handsome young man with a mysterious past carries a loaded gun, able to kill, through the streets of the financial capital of the world.

This scene describes not only Luigi Mangione's alleged murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in downtown New York—and the resulting flood of media attention—but additionally the plot of one in every of Henry James's lesser-read novels: “The Princess Casamassima.”

The sensational murder and James' novel explain the general public's fascination with political violence and much more the psychological guessing game that accompanies these extreme acts.

Like Mangione, the novel leaves readers wanting to know more – each Mangione's and James' stories provide clues, but not a whole picture, of why an individual would commit such violence.

A novel about political violence

Born within the USA before moving to Europe, James is taken into account one of the vital talented authors of contemporary fiction. However, “The Princess Casamassima” is usually overshadowed by classics like “A portrait of a lady” And “The turn of the screw.”

Published in The Atlantic from 1885 to 1886, the novel tells the story of employees and aristocratic leftists caught in various love triangles.

It also focuses on the psychological experience of being a political radical in a time of rampant economic inequality and anarchist unrest. The late nineteenth century was a hotbed of political violence the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, the Phoenix Park murders in 1882 And the Greenwich Observatory bombing in 1894amongst many other incidents, inspired novelists on either side of the Atlantic.

The novel's foremost character, Hyacinth Robinson, grows up as an illegitimate orphan in working-class London. As a poor young craftsman, he rages against economic inequality. But when the wealthy and cultured Princess Casamassima befriends him, Hyacinth falls in love together with her lifestyle.

Meanwhile, the princess herself begins to shed the trimmings of wealth when she joins Hyacinth's revolutionary organization. Hyacinth struggles with a “strange mix of conflicting impulses” and is reluctant to present up the finer things in life: good food, French novels, and high art. He oscillates between having fun with these recent, beautiful experiences and completely surrendering to an ideology that will destroy all the pieces.

Prominent liberals were inspired by “Princess Casamassima,” as were famous black leftists, despite their satire of radicalism.

Ralph Ellison commented extensively on his copy of the novel's preface. James Baldwin listed the novel as one in every of 10 books that influenced him. And when asked what book he advisable to Black Power fighters, he replied: Baldwin mentioned “Princess Casamassima.”

I never know the entire story

James' plot appears to be based on the political novel by Russian author Ivan Turgenev.Pristine ground“, which is also Joseph Conrad's “The undercover agent.”

These Gilded Age novels, each about political violence, wrestle with the issue of penetrating the mind of a revolutionary.

Turgenev, Conrad and James found something fascinating in political revolutionaries who were also well-educated, cultured and sensitive. Her novels are about whether someone who finds such meaning in life and art would sacrifice themselves for a revolution. Could the protagonists perform actions that will destroy themselves and the things they love?

But all three novelists also refuse to recount key moments of violence from the mind of a vacillating protagonist. In “Virgin Soil” you hear in regards to the revolutionary motion first hand. In The Secret Agent, the reader never sees the bomb aimed toward Greenwich Observatory explode, only the scattered, gruesome stays of the bomber.

“The Princess Casamassima” follows the identical pattern. James recounts the “touching surprises” of Hyacinth’s moods and his “sudden changes of temper.” But he refrains from describing the scene—and what goes through Hyacinth's mind—as Hyacinth sacrifices his life for the revolution. The reader only learns in regards to the scene later through Hyacinth's conversations and memories.

Finally, after Hyacinth is summoned to kill – and I don't want to present away the ending – James describes the results of that event, but not the act itself.

Likewise, James resists a full explanation of the psychological states of minor characters. The princess never says exactly why she becomes a category traitor. She also attends revolutionary meetings which are beyond the reach of Hyacinth and the narrator. Strangely, the narrator even describes the princess's actions as an “immense anomaly” and “more than can be explained.”

I say “strange” because James, because the creator of a fictional world, could easily attempt an evidence. In James's novels, characters' actions are sometimes justified by the notoriously detailed descriptions of their thought processes. And yet his characters defy explanation by behaving in unexpected ways.

The Secrets of Mangione

I feel that very same sense of mystery can explain the general public fascination with the Mangione case. People want to grasp his motivation. While the books were featured on Mangione's Goodreads page and the posts on it Social media accounts Clues can provide clues, they don’t provide clear answers.

His relatively short manifesto discusses the “abuse” and “corruption and greed” of the medical health insurance industry. Clearly, Mangione was upset with the health care system.

But did he or someone near him experience a denied claim? Was there a triggering psychological break?

If prosecutors' contention is correct, why would this well-educated, successful 26-year-old, with a lot life ahead of him, select murder over other ways to bring about change? What was going through his mind as he waited for Thompson on a downtown street? If Mangione never gave in to his hatred of medical health insurance, did he hesitate to resort to lethal force?

Some of those assumptions are based on a niche in our knowledge; Mangione went off the grid within the months before the alleged murder.

Even within the rare cases where the general public has all of the facts, it’s difficult to get inside the top of somebody committing political violence. And this difficulty makes it all of the more fascinating.

The limits of realism

It isn’t any coincidence that those that wrote about political violence struggled with the restrictions of the so-called genre Literary realism.

Novelists resembling Charles Dickens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and George Eliot sought to capture the complex, interconnected systems of contemporary life. These literary realists used their fiction to look at the results of circumstances on psychology. They wanted to point out how an individual's upbringing and experiences influenced their decisions.

Henry James' profession began at the peak of the realistic novel. But as scientists like Amanda Claybaugh argueDepicting revolutionary violence meant “going beyond realism.” Hyacinth, the Princess and other characters simply can’t be fully explained in the best way that realism strives for. Or, because the scientist Michaela Bronstein writes“Violence is the subject of literary forms that refuse realism.”

For the conservative James, the revolutionaries in search of to tear down society were reaching the bounds of literary form. Psychological realism requires a certain level of sympathy for a central character. James addresses the issue by making a revolutionary who resembles himself: not only a single-minded ideologue, but a master craftsman, an art lover, and a sensitive friend. Hyacinth seems to consider within the reason behind equality. But as someone who also loves the world because it is, he’s afraid to commit violence.

The mystery of human alternative, even when the circumstances are known, has preoccupied writers like James, who seems to wonder if he himself might actually be committing political murder. He doesn't know. And so there may be a glaring gap – a mental block – in relation to exploring the psyche of its protagonist. His realistic fiction could never lead to finish understanding.

There are many explanation why Mangione's alleged murder of Thompson has garnered a lot attention: the best way it highlights problems with the medical health insurance industry, the lurid details of the shooting and Mangione's subsequent escape, and, after all, Mangione's beauty.

Despite knowing so many details, his mental state continues to be a mystery.