The Portrait of a Lady
Like all great works of literature, The Portrait of a Lady demands careful reading in order to get the full taste of its delights. However, unlike other works, it’s not a novel of exciting action, nor does it have thrilling adventure. Many times, I just wanted to scan it and then knew the result, but it’s not a work that can be hastily read and appreciated, but a work rich in detail, meaning, significance and creation . After finishing the book, I sat there for minutes, I was wondering and hesitating where to go and which point to write. The book can be read very simply — it’s just a description of a girl, Isabel and four men. It can also be read very deeply — the Jamesian novel and his theme. Then I had an impulse to cry, which I didn’t know exactly the reason ,for her tragic ending or for Ral’death? Based on the information from the Internet and my own understanding, here is my report.
People regard Henry James’s fiction as a work of art. To him, the novel is a form complete itself. In the Preface to the New York Edition of the Novels and Tales, James provided some insights into the book. He asserted that his subject was a single character, Isabel Archer, and it was a matter of a “certain young woman affronting her destiny ”. He then pictures a house with a million windows, out of which are eyes looking out. What these eyes see, James sys is life, the human scene and the choice of subject. Actually, there are many metaphors there,and the most common one is the use of a house. In the beginning, Isabel falls in love with Garden court, for the house fulfills her ideal of a European romantic house. Later, the Palazzo Roccanera is the opposite, which is the end of her illusion. The house reflect the people. Another theme is that the youthful, passinate free American confront European society. America has no conventions, while Americans are free of conventions. Isabel disrupts them, while Osmond lives by them, but she finds out it to late. This is ythe author’s theme:the American in Europe.
Isabel, just as the title says, is a lady. She is beautiful, brilliant, knowledgable and idealistic. She has romantics notions. She loves freedom and the experience of life,
she turns Lord Warburton down, for she thinks marrying will restraint her life fully and he is too good for her. Then she chooses Qsmond, an “original without being an eccentric man”. He is narrow, selfish and he takes himself so seriously. Everyone tells her, but her own choice is idealized in her mind. She has changed Osmond’s views and failings into virtues and is too proud to realize it. However, it turns out she is wrong in the end. But she is still a great woman. She never changes her character and she is able to make her husband to realize he cannot change her, even at last, she knows heis a shadow hypocrite, she still decides to go back to Rome, which is out of expectation and shocks me.
cry.
He is the my favourite character in the book. He also loves Isabel and always at Ralph Touchette: No one is worth your tears, and the one who is won’t make you her back, but in a silent and supportive way. He is the one who persuades his father to give her half of his fortunes so that she can travel the world. He is the one who gives her ideas and analyzes them frankly, but she accepts. He is the one who sacrifices his health to stay in Rome, just wanting to know whether she is happy. He is the very first one to recognise Isabel’s characteristic. Actually, he is the most perspective character in the novel. Maybe his sichness detaches him, but it gabber ives him the opportunity to observe more fully: he sees through the superficial level of Osmond,and he is suspicious of Madame Merle…it seems that he speaks with the voice of the author, but he dies for his disease.
Lord Warburton: The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them, knowing you can’t have them.
The first time we first meet him is in the first chapte. He is born with life. As a lord, he is noble, handsome, wealthy, intelligent and like women with “ideas”, but Isabel rejects him, for the reason that she wants to explore life. However, he never changes his love to her, even when others think that he is courting with Pansy Osmond, he is still in love with her. When he finally is to marry, he feels uncomfortable and embarrassed to meet her. I have always been thinking what would happen if Isabel marries him.
Caspar Goodwood: Love is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
To Goodwood, he loves Isabel. From America to Europe, even though she becomes other people’s wife, he never gives her up. He is strong, persistent, a leader of men. Whenever Isabel wants to see him, he can arrive immediately, and each of the meeting between them can cause her to feel a deep emotion reaction. He affects her strongly that she fully realizes that she probably would have married him if it were not for her has changed circumstance. When Isabel writes to him announcing her marriage. He comes immediately. He says:”I came because I wanted to see you once more — even just as you are.” “Five minutes after he had gone out she burst into tears.” Caspar is not the one to accept defeat easily, but his kiss at last convinces Isabel of her final resolve to return to Rome.
The story ends with Isabel’s returning, leaving us to think. Many people feel that the author didn’t finish the novel, but he said “the whole of anything is never told”. We can’t help wondering why she goes back to Rome after experiencing so many thing, for the promise to Pansy? Her special characteristic? We never know but imagine…
第二篇：External causes of Isabel’s tragedy marriage in The Portrait of a Lady
External causes of Isabel’s tragedy marriage in
The Portrait of a Lady
As we all know, Isabel Archer’s tragedy marriage was caused by many reasons. Generally speaking, people believe it was mostly because of her narcissistic personality which was formed from her maternal absence. Yes, it could be a reason. In addition, her pursuit for liberty, independence and acknowledgement determined her refusal of Lord Warburton and Gaspar Goodwood, and determined her acceptance of Gilbert Osmond. Because Gilbert Osmond could give her maternal care, she rationally put herself in the marriage.
However when we have a look at the historical background and the environment she had lived in, we will know that it was not herself led her disaster marriage. From what I know, Isabel was lived in 19th century which was a turning time for America and the people around her also affected her a lot. This paper analyses the external causes of Isabel’s marriage: the historical background and three major persons (Gilbert Osmond, Mrs. Touchett and Madame Merle) influenced her. External causes: the historical background
In the 1870’s, the story happened. At that time women had few rights and opportunities. And it was believed men and women played different social and families roles. Men were thought to be active, dominant and materialistic. While women were supposed to be passive, submissive and
domestic. The virtues such as piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity were regarded as favorable qualities of women during 19th century. And these qualities were seen in Isabel:
As Osmond's wife she could never again be his friend. If in this character she should enjoy the felicity she expected, she would have nothing but contempt for the man who had attempted, in advance, to undermine a blessing so dear; and if on the other hand his warning should be justified the vow she had taken that he should never know it would lay upon her spirit such a burden as to make her hate him. So dismal had been, during the year that followed.(chapter 39)
From this we can see her believes about freedom and independence had been killed by her marriage. “she would have nothing but contempt for the man” shows that she gradually became a traditional and submissiveness woman. We can see how the outer environment changed her. And what amazed readers most was Isabel’s returned back after she knew the secret between her husband and Madame Merle, because divorce was not allowed in her age. She sustained the pains but obeyed it strictly.
External causes: three people influenced Isabel
Then, we come to discuss the first person affected her: Mrs. Touchett who influenced her originally. She was a cold, indifferent, unsympathetic woman. She had not taken her duty to Isabel very well. She lived apart
from her husband and her son for no apparent reasons. Her strange rules led Isabel’s defiant and unruly attitude and her looking for freedom. This can be seen from her disapproval when Isabel stays with Lord Warburton and Ralph until ten o’clock at night. And her disagreeable about Isabel’s travel plans to London with Henrietta. Moreover, after Isabel told Mrs. Touchett that her engagement with Gilbert Osmond, she showed up her indifferent personality. We can see this in chapter 33：
"The same way that I know when the window's open—by feeling a draught. You're going to marry that man." (Mrs. Touchett)
"What man do you mean?" Isabel enquired with great dignity. "Madame Merle's friend—Mr. Osmond."
"I don't know why you call him Madame Merle's friend. Is that the principal thing he's known by?"
"If he's not her friend he ought to be—after what she has done for him!" cried Mrs. Touchett. "I shouldn't have expected it of her; I'm disappointed."
"If you mean that Madame Merle has had anything to do with my engagement you're greatly mistaken," Isabel declared with a sort of ardent coldness.
And in chapter 39:
Mrs. Touchett had not the imagination that communes with the unseen, and she now pretended to no intimacy with herniece, whom she rarely
encountered. This young woman appeared to be living in a sufficiently honourable way, but Mrs. Touchett still remained of the opinion that her marriage had been a shabby affair. It had given her no pleasure to think of Isabel's establishment, which she was sure was a very lame business. From time to time, in Florence, she rubbed
From what Mrs. Touchett had said “what she has done for him”, we can learn that she knew the secret relationship between Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond. But she did not say it clearly to Isabel. If she had told Isabel what she knew, and enlightened her kindly, she should have been stopped falling down into marriage.
The second person is her cousin Ralph Toouchett. He wanted Isabel to do what she had imagined, so he begged his father to make Isabel rich. His conversation with Mr. Touchett in chapter 18:
"I should like to put a little wind in her sails."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I should like to put it into her power to do some of the things she wants. She wants to see the world for instance. I should like to put money in her purse."
We can see that Ralph’s love here, but this made her rich which caught Madame Merle’s attention, who finally lined up Isabel Archer and Gilbert Osmond. His love became a factor to her disaster.
Lastly, Madame Merle stirred up the tragedy. She played a more crucial
part in Isabel’s life. It was her that pushed Isabel to Gilbert Osmond’s hug for her own purpose which was to let her own daughter gets what she has failed to do. We can see her ambition from her conversation with Gilbert Osmond in chapter 22:
Madame Merle was silent a little. "I want you of course to marry her." "The beginning of the end? Well, I'll see for myself. Have you told her that?"
"For what do you take me? She's not so coarse a piece of ma-chinery— nor am I."
"Really," said Osmond after some meditation, "I don't understand your ambitions."
"I think you'll understand this one after you've seen Miss Archer. Suspend your judgement."
Conclusion
As the historical background and the person mentioned above, we can easily conclude that the age Isabel lived in and the person around her especially her aunt Mrs. Touchett caused her tragedy. Her tragedy presented the strong social senses at that time. That is to say, women were defined submissiveness, domestic and have less power. On the other hand, the three people did things for their own purposes which means selfish. Their “plans” made the tragedy step by step.