Femininity and Female Interiority: The Representation of Gender in Henry James's "The Portrait of a Lady"

Table of Contents

1.  Introduction  3

2.  A literary classification of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady  5

3.  Point of view in The Portrait of a Lady  10

4.  “A young woman affronting her destiny: James’s choice of female protagonist  13

5.  Isabel Archer  15

6.  Types of female characters in Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady  22

7.  Isabel Archer in relation to her “satellites  27

7.1.  The great opportunity: Isabel Archer and Mrs Touchett  28

7.2.  From confidante to manipulator: Isabel Archer and Madame Merle  32

7.3.  Sisterly Bonds: Isabel Archer and Pansy Osmond  42

7.4.  The bestowal of a fate: Isabel Archer and Ralph Touchett  46

7.5.  “I am too fond of my liberty: Isabel Archer and her rejected suitors  52

7.6.  A certain illusion: Isabel Archer and Gilbert Osmond  59

8.  Why does Isabel Archer marry Gilbert Osmond  68

9.  “There was a very straight path: Isabel Archer’s final choice  74

10.  Conclusion  85

11.  Bibliography  87

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1. Introduction

The Portrait of a Lady was first published in serialization in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan’s Magazine in 1880 and came out in book form one year later. Due to its parallel publication on the American and the English market, this novel of Henry James’s early period ¹ had enormous success, although the critical reception was not the same on both sides of the Atlantic. ² However, The Portrait of a Lady is still considered to be his greatest

achievement until this day. In the course of publishing his works in collected volumes, Henry James also extensively revised The Portrait of a Lady for the 1908 New York edition, supplementing a preface to it and placing greater significance on the heroine’s perceptive progress.

The story that Henry James tells in The Portrait of a Lady is a conventional one about courtship and marriage, but only at first sight. Beyond following traditional patterns of literary conventions of his time, James also included a range of novelistic features into his work or reworked some of the traditional material to an extent that a clear break can be registered. The first part of my study will therefore be a literary classification of The Portrait of a Lady by examining and analyzing which conventional features James makes use of or breaks with and which novelties he introduces. In terms of these literary novelties, special attention will be given to the treatment of narrative perspective, since Henry James transferred this mode of presentation in the course of the story from the narrator to a “center of consciousness” ³ within the story. The Portrait of a Lady cannot yet be considered as a

masterpiece of the stream of consciousness technique; however, the novel already exhibits features which indicate that Henry James will devote himself to this narratological technique in his succeeding works.

The second part of my study of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady will be a close reading of the novel in which the reader comes across “a young girl affronting her destiny.” 4

James’s choice of a female protagonist will be a crucial aspect of examination before giving a detailed characterization of the American Girl Isabel Archer, the young woman whom James

¹ Henry James’s literary productions are subdivided into three creative periods, namely the early, the middle, and the later phase. For more information see Kenneth Graham, Henry James: A Literary Life (London: Macmillan, 1995) and Tony Tanner, Henry James: The Writer and His Work (Amherst: The U of Massachusetts P, 1989).

² While James’s American readership was delighted with this novel, English readers were especially critical of the novel’s unconventional resolution. For a detailed account see Adeline Tintner, The Book World of Henry James: Appropriating the Classics (Ann Arbor: U.M.I. Research Press, 1987).

³ Selina S. Jamil introduces this term at the very start of her work. Selina S. Jamil, Jamesian Centers of Consciousness as Readers and Tellers of Stories (Lanham: UP of America, 2001) 1.

⁴ Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (London: Penguin Books, 1997) iv.

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considered worth making “the subject in the novel.” ⁵ By identifying her most characteristic

traits, it will become clear why they are of great importance to the advancement of The Portrait of a Lady and to what extent these characteristics influence the relations that this young heroine entertains or develops. James further put a number of other female characters by Isabel Archer’s side. They each serve as representatives of different types of femininity, and also a matter of examination in this thesis will be why he employed such a multi-faceted range of female characters against the backdrop of the heroine’s own character. Further, I will present the protagonist in relation to several of these female characters and also to the male ones in the novel. It is most of all through these relations that Isabel Archer unfolds her nature to her readership, and, in addition, especially the presentation of this heroine through her male acquaintances is likewise decisive as it is largely determined by gender. As a last aspect, I will focus on the central question which runs through the entire novel. The question of “What will Isabel Archer do with herself?” engages all parties involved: the narrator, the other characters in the novel, and, similarly, the reader. In the course of the novel, this quintessential question changes slightly into “Why does Isabel Archer marry Gilbert Osmond?” and “Why does she return to an unhappy marriage?” Since the latter question has drawn particular attention to generations of scholars and literary critics, a number of varying positions will be displayed and compared in the analysis of Isabel Archer’s motivations, and therewith, also cultural and historical contexts have to be taken into account.

⁵ James iii.

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2. A literary classification of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady

Henry James’s novel The Portrait of a Lady is a work of literature which unifies a range of traditional as well as popular literary elements. Consequently, I argue that it can neither be exclusively classified as a realist nor as a sentimental novel or even a Bildungsroman. ⁶ In this

first part of my study, I will identify and examine which literary elements James included in his work and through which devices he attempts then to break with especially the popular literary features.

Both the title and the plot foreshadow a classification of this Jamesian novel as a Bildungsroman. With regard to the title, which reflects the attempt to convey a portrait of the heroine, an immediate expectation is aroused that this story will present a process of development. The Bildungsroman, exhibiting elements of a biography, traditionally deals with the development of a hero or heroine. The developmental process is mostly understood in educational terms, thus often starting in the hero’s or heroine’s youth and covering a time span of several years. It further depicts this development in relation to the determining surroundings that the hero or heroine confronts. According to literary scholar Sigi Jöttkandt, the elementary structure of the Bildungsroman is that “[i]t involves a developmental narrative during which the heroine undergoes a series of (usually painful) experiences that teach her about herself and the world, resulting in an ethically charged change in consciousness at the end.” 7

In the fashion of the Bildungsroman, the novel’s heroine Isabel Archer is still a young woman when she begins her career and she will be accompanied during the probably most important years of her life. Already at the beginning of her story, a guidance figure in the person of her expatriate aunt Mrs. Touchett appears on the scene. Wanting to liberate Isabel from “the confining circumstances of her provincial middle class existence” ⁸ in America,

Mrs. Touchett wants to educate the young girl according to her understanding and takes her to Europe. What James includes here in the traditional makeup of the Bildungsroman is the specifically American feature of the initiation story of a young and innocent American Girl into European society which was a prominent device in James’s fiction. ⁹ In Europe, however,

⁶ Since the German technical term is widely used in secondary literature instead of its English translation novel of education, I will also use the German word.

⁷ Sigi Jöttkandt, “Portrait of an Act: Aesthetics and Ethics in The Portrait of a Lady,” The Henry James Review

25.1 (2004): 67.

⁸ Judith Woolf, Henry James: The Major Novels (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,1991) 37.

⁹ Henry James is well known for his treatment of the so-called “International theme” in both his early as well as later works. This novel, however, is an exception insofar that it does not deal primarily with the topic of the conflict between Europe and America since all the major characters are Americans or expatriate Americans,

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Mrs. Touchett proves to be a weak guardian figure since her educational experiment with Isabel fails in the sense that the young heroine proves to be too much of an independent and self-reliant character. ¹⁰ Above this, Mrs. Touchett is not exceedingly committed to Isabel’s

education once they arrive in Europe for reasons that I will come back to in my presentation of their relationship in Chapter 7.1. Isabel learns instead through the new acquaintances she makes, who do not all show an intention to become a mentor for the young heroine. She thus makes a range of “painful experiences about herself and the world” ¹¹ before emerging from her misery with “an ethically charged change in consciousness.” ¹² In terms of the

Bildungsroman’s resolution, Jöttkandt argues that on the question of Isabel’s return to her husband and to an unhappy marriage, it is impossible to clearly make out the reasons for her final step and “what it is that Isabel learns according to the narrative goals of the Bildungsroman.” ¹³ As Adrian Poole suggests, however, the education of a character does not

necessarily have to mean “the attainment of the command of a specific truth or body of knowledge, but the ability to identify and interpret the signs of a world around oneself.” ¹⁴ I

agree on this point that Isabel concludes her story with her having learned or acquired this ability and, furthermore, that she will take up her place in the world. Jöttkandt was on the right path by first detecting this narrative goal of the Bildungsroman in general terms – the undergoing of specific experiences and emerging from it with a heightened consciousness about oneself and the world – but then he fails to see that all this actually does happen to Isabel Archer in the end. Nevertheless, the story of this Jamesian heroine is not brought to a finish. It ends, as a matter of fact, in an open-ended situation which hardly promises to be reconciliatory. In this sense, James breaks with the conventional resolution of the Bildungsroman and thereby, as Judith Woolf claims, formulates a critique of this type of literature.

Henry James additionally leaves out events in The Portrait of a Lady that play a significant role in the development of Isabel Archer. What would have been crucial moments in other novels, such dramatic turning points in the life of this heroine appear only as retrospective summaries given by other characters. Neither Isabel’s departure from America, nor her wedding or even the birth and death of her only child are dramatized or directly

and it is on this basis that a cultural confrontation occurs. I will therefore not consider this theme as a principal one in my study of this novel.

¹⁰ Jöttkandt remarks in his study of The Portrait of a Lady that in a Bildungsroman inherent traits of character also undergo further development and only unfold completely against this particular background. See Jöttkandt 81.

¹¹ Jöttkandt 67.

¹² Jöttkandt 67.

¹³ Jöttkandt 68.

¹⁴ Adrian Poole, Henry James: New Readings (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991) 23.

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presented to the reader. Additionally Isabel’s final departure for Rome, the climax and the denouement of the story, are only conveyed through another character’s remark. These points make Henry James move even further away from the narrative elements and goals of the Bildungsroman.

Beyond the development of the heroine according to the Bildungsroman, The Portrait of a Lady features the prominent theme of courtship and marriage so common in sentimental literature. Additionally, this motive is not restricted to the main plot but also expanded onto “minor figures,” ¹⁵ namely Isabel’s stepdaughter Pansy Osmond and also her long-time friend

Henrietta Stackpole. Traditionally, a romantic heroine’s imagination would be concerned with love and marriage; Isabel Archer’s ideals, in contrast, revolve around her own personal independence. Furthermore, The Portrait of a Lady is at a great distance to these motives of courtship and marriage since the outcome is anything but romantic. James depicts marriage as rather entrapping and destructive as in many of his other novels. It is therefore worth noticing that actually none of the marriages that are part of The Portrait of a Lady are happy ones and could at best function as a model especially for Isabel Archer’s own marriage. Thus, I argue, it is impossible that Isabel should succeed in her own marriage because there has been no ideal marriage exemplified in her own life – not even by her sisters, as the reader is informed early on.

Traditionally, marriages would conclude a sentimental novel. If Isabel would have married one of her first suitors, the story would have already been at its conclusion, and this would also have been the case with Isabel’s marriage to Osmond. Literary scholar Sally Ledger remarks in this respect that by “[inserting] marriage into an earlier part of the novel, […] a dissection rather than a celebration of this institution [is allowed for].” ¹⁶ The heroine is

depicted in her marriage only throughout a short period of time, and the wedding and even the first years of her life with Osmond fall into a time lack. Consequently, Henry James presents the circumstances of marriage in a negative way that would not have been found in sentimental fiction. And it is also for this reason that literary scholar Dana Luciano sees in The Portrait of a Lady and Isabel Archer’s marriage an “exposition and critique of women’s ‘destiny’ in the […] 19 ^th century.” 17

In addition, the publication of The Portrait of a Lady falls into the literary epoch of American Realism. Henry James counts as a representative of this trend in literature in the last

¹⁵ Woolf 55.

¹⁶ Sally Ledger, The New Woman: Fiction and Feminism at the Fin de Siècle (Manchester: Manchester UP,

1997) 26.

¹⁷ Dana Luciano, “Invalid Relations: Queer Kinship in Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady,” The Henry James Review 23.2 (2002): 196.

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third of the nineteenth century along with authors such as W. D. Howells and Mark Twain. According to literary scholar Winfried Fluck, the criteria featured in realist novels is as follows:

Der realistische Roman kann in seiner klassischen Phase geradezu als Genre […] exemplarischer Lernprozesse angesehen werden. Immer wieder erzählt er die Geschichte einer Identitätsfindung, in der Charaktere, deren Realitätswahrnehmung durch kulturelle Konventionen und nicht zuletzt durch die Lektüre von Romanen verstellt ist, mit den schmerzlichen Konsequenzen ihres eigenen mangelnden Wirklichkeitsverständnisses konfrontiert werden. In dieser Situation ist es die eigene Erfahrung, die verhindert, dass die Charaktere in falscher Wahrnehmung verharren. Die Einbildungskraft wird nicht grundsätzlich als Quelle der Erkenntnis abgelehnt, sie muss sich jedoch ständig von der Realität korrigieren lassen. Die Gefahr für das Individuum besteht darin, in der kritiklosen Rezeption kulturellen Materials die Wahrnehmungsmuster anderer zu übernehmen. Demgegenüber lernen die repräsentativen Charaktere des klassischen amerikanischen Realismus, ihrer eigenen Erfahrung als der einzig verlässlichen Quelle von Erkenntnis zu vertrauen. 18

All the listed features also apply to James’s The Portrait of a Lady. What is further noticeable in this respect is that the realist novel still features the same or at least similar themes which have been used in sentimental fiction and the Bildungsroman. The courtship and marriage motive is still an important part in Realism, and it is further on concerned with the developmental processes of the protagonists just like in a Bildungsroman. What has changed, nevertheless, is the treatment of these specific topics and motives in the way I have outlined before in this chapter. James’s further intention is that he avoids the conventional though unauthentic conclusions – the happy ending – so common in popular literature. In addition to these reworkings of traditional features, Henry James includes some specifically realist characteristics in The Portrait of a Lady. Still in connection to the narrative goals of the Bildungsroman, the developmental process of the protagonist is largely expanded onto the protagonist’s consciousness, and the implementation of this is achieved through the introduction of new narratological techniques. In this respect, the stream of consciousness technique is outstanding and can be employed within the novel in various forms. Along with this goes a further change in the narrative perspective which I will introduce in the following chapter.

Another important characteristic, which perfectly applies to The Portrait of a Lady, is a shift in the importance and weight of action within the story. Even though this Jamesian novel

¹⁸ Winfried Fluck, Das kulturelle Imaginäre: Eine Funktionsgeschichte des amerikanischen Romans 1790-1900 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 259-260.

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is of considerable length, the storyline is comparably poor in terms of action. Furthermore, important events are even omitted. What Henry James concentrated on instead in this work is the characterization of the protagonist as well as other personages in the novel and, most importantly, their relations among each other. Therefore, I will focus especially on this aspect in my examination and discussion of The Portrait of a Lady.

Finally, by flouting literary conventions, Henry James pursues a certain intention towards his readership. The reader is first led into a specific direction by the assumptions that are conveyed through the text. Expectations are generally not met, however, since especially Isabel continuously goes into the exact opposite direction. The idea behind this is that James wants to render his readers sensitive so that they should not take for granted all the given circumstances and from this draw the most convenient conclusion as it is laid before them. The Portrait of a Lady is an adequate example in order to show that literary classifications cannot be given with absolute certainty. Just like literary epochs are fuzzy in their conception, the same applies for literary works and can therefore never be exclusively classified as being part of one genre. Furthermore, it is always a question from which time a work of literature is viewed, because conceptions of literary classification also undergo a constant reviewing and new approaches can be detected.

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3. Point of view in The Portrait of a Lady

An important criteria of literary Realism is the “minimal embellishment or interpretation of subjects as they appear in every-day life.” ¹⁹ In The Portrait of a Lady, a consistent

repelling of the narrator goes along with a gain of importance a character’s consciousness within the novel. The traditional function of an omniscient or third-person narrator is the description as well as the commentary of narrated events or circumstances from the outside. However, there are only few scenes in The Portrait of a Lady in which the narrator still occupies this position. Since the beginning of this story, the narrator only occupies a position of “limited perspective,” ²⁰ and as the novel progresses, this perspective is consistently drawn

into the background and substituted by one of the fictional characters, or, more precisely, their consciousness. This shift in narrative perspective, however, does not mean that this also involves an alteration of the narrative situation in terms of using other personal pronouns. What happens instead is that the depiction of events and circumstances occurs from the inner perspective of a character. Thus, the person is characterized or presented exclusively through his or her train of thoughts devoid of a narrator’s commentary, but “skillfully disguised by the voice of the narrator.” ²¹ This technique which Henry James makes use of – though not as

extensively as in his succeeding works – is called stream of consciousness technique. The traditional third-person narrator is still present at the outset of the story. The narrator’s most prominent performance is the extensive characterization of the heroine Isabel Archer in Chapter VI ²² of The Portrait of a Lady. This episode of the narrator’s analysis is

aimed to give a more complete picture of the young woman against the backdrop of what has been said about her so far, on the one hand, and to prepare the reader how this will effect the heroine’s future. Until Chapter VI, Isabel Archer is largely presented to the reader through the eyes of her cousin Ralph Touchett, who gives an extremely sympathetic account of her. The narrator, on the other hand, fully embraces the function of the commentator since he not only points to Isabel’s amenities but also her inherent flaws. What the narrator does here is not an attempt to reduce her likeability on the side of the reader. Moreover, an awareness is supposed to be evoked, and as will be seen in the course of the novel, the reasons for Isabel’s

¹⁹ Richard Freadman, Eliot, James and the Fictional Self: A Study in Character and Narration (London: Macmillan, 1986) 4.

²⁰ Donatella Izzo, “The Portrait of a Lady and Modern Narrative,” New Essays on The Portrait of a Lady, ed. Joel Porte (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990) 33.

²¹ Izzo 42.

²² Chapters which refer to The Portrait of a Lady will be given in Roman numerals, others which refer to my thesis will be given in Arabic numerals.

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later misery in marriage and life have its basis in what the narrator pointed to earlier in his analysis of her. After this extensive analysis, the narrator’s role consistently decreases. As mentioned above, Ralph Touchett occupies an important role as well. Accordingly, there are two complementary perspectives, concerning in particular the perspective from which the heroine is seen. While the narrator serves moreover as a kind of biographer of Isabel, Ralph Touchett holds the position of “central observer” ²³ and gives the reader an

account of her current situation. And also other characters, exclusively but interestingly the male ones, provide additional perspectives on the young heroine. However, the narrator and the “central observer” share a similar fate. The growth of Isabel Archer’s consciousness is accompanied by the diminishing role of both of them. The heroine consequently becomes the “center of consciousness.” ²⁴ In the second part of The Portrait of a Lady, – from Chapter

XXXVI to the end – Isabel’s consciousness has widely substituted the narrator’s voice. The culmination of her growth in consciousness occurs in Chapter XLII – a scene in which Isabel finds herself in “a state of heightened perception” ²⁵ – when she discovers the truth of her

relationship with her husband and comes to an understanding of her own share in this misery. Thus, the gain of truth or the acquisition of knowledge involves a growth in consciousness at the same time. In this respect, Donatella Izzo makes clear that

[t]he truly dramatic turning points have to do with awareness [or consciousness], as in Isabel’s long contemplative midnight vigil which takes up all of Chapter 42 and which – James writes in his Preface – “throws the action further forward than twenty ‘incidents’ might have done” and is “a supreme illustration of the general plan.” But ‘action’ has little to do with facts; rather, it concerns shifting and alternating points of view. 26

What is made visible in this argument is that narrative perspective – or point of view – is not only restricted to the level of narratology. Izzo further claims in her argumentation on point of view in The Portrait of a Lady that

theme and technique are one: The Portrait of a Lady is a novel of and about point of view, focused as it is on Isabel’s consciousness and, only when their points of view held to locate and illustrate the protagonist, on those of her “satellites.” Both subject and object of observation, Isabel reveals her self as she reveals the world. 27

²³ Dorothea Krook, The Ordeal of Consciousness in Henry James (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1962) 27.

²⁴ Jamil 3.

²⁵ Jöttkandt 79.

²⁶ Izzo 41.

²⁷ Izzo 42.

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David Kirby presents a similar position, stating that “point of view is not merely of technical importance in The Portrait of a Lady, it becomes the subject of the novel as well.” ²⁸ Point of

view thus also becomes a matter within the story, that is the holding of different points of view which eventually collide. This is also expressed in the words of Mrs. Touchett, stating to her young niece that “there are as many points of view in the world as there are people of sense to take them.” ²⁹ At the end of The Portrait of a Lady, this holding of different points of

view becomes the central problem in the relationship between Isabel and Gilbert Osmond. Yet another crucial point of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady, as Judith Woolf observes, is the gender-determined perspective through which the young heroine is presented to the reader. It is “a matter of the gender of the eye that observes her [Isabel].” ³⁰ Throughout

the novel, the male characters of The Portrait of a Lady function as observers of Isabel’s character as well as her demeanor. She becomes the object of their interest for various reasons, may it be for their entertainment as in the case of her cousin Ralph Touchett or because this interest is sexually motivated.

²⁸ David Kirby, The Portrait of a Lady and The Turn of the Screw: Henry James and Melodrama (London: Macmillan, 1991) 38.

²⁹ James 56.

³⁰ Izzo 43.

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4. “A young woman affronting her destiny:” James’s choice of female

protagonist

Henry James saw himself deeply influenced by the current trends in literary tradition so that his choice of protagonist necessarily had to fall on a woman. He was familiar with the novels of his time, and it is for this similarity that The Portrait of a Lady is often compared and analyzed in secondary literature along with works such as George Eliot’s Middlemarch or Daniel Deronda and the novels of Jane Austen and Edith Wharton. ³¹ However, James gives central importance to “a young woman affronting her destiny” ³² instead of minimizing a woman’s story as “only one aspect of a study of a small-scale but paradigmatic society.” 33

Consequently, Isabel Archer is not one character among many others, but it is her story that the novel is based on. What becomes obvious then is that James further advances his reworking of the traditional material, as Woolf further points out, “reveals not merely the fascination of finding a different set of solutions to the problems posed by [other contemporary or preceding] novels, but a fundamentally different vision of life.” ³⁴ Woolf

continues her argumentation that “[James] frees Isabel from the constraints, both of character and circumstances, that narrowed [other female characters’] range of choices. Isabel is given the riches that [other female characters] longed for […] [and] she is given a choice of eligible suitors.” ³⁵ Additionally, according to Philip Sicker, female characters had traditionally functioned mainly to “illuminate the personalities of the male [characters],” ³⁶ and this can

also be said for earlier novels of Henry James. However, as Sicker further states, “[i]n The Portrait of a Lady […] James placed female figures in the center and, more importantly, endowed them with a keen awareness of what they represent in the intellectual dialectic of the novel.” 37

In relation to this, many scholars see James’s choice as a reaction on the changing social atmosphere of his time and its integration and negotiation into his works. Literary scholar Lyall H. Powers points out that

³¹ Among a number of scholars, Judith Woolf and Stefanie Hofmann designed their works as a comparison of this Jamesian novel with those of authors named above.

³² James iv.

³³ Woolf 44.

³⁴ Woolf 45.

³⁵ Woolf 44.

³⁶ Philip Sicker, Love and the Quest for Identity in the Fiction of Henry James (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980)

55.

³⁷ Sicker 55.

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[t]hese literary heroines are strong-willed young women, admirably or regrettably confronting the challenge typically presented by social custom to members of the ‘weaker sex’ who legitimately aspire to a broader range of options than the roles of mother and housewife or brittle spinster. As such, they anticipated the contemporary concern with the ‘new woman’ who was beginning to assert herself as a personage to be reckoned with during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and the women’s movement to reform.” 38

Some critics argue that James’s depiction of a woman’s story only aimed at exhibiting

the consequences if women were intending to break away from their traditionally ascribed

roles. Feminist criticism, however, points to James’s interest towards the women’s cause as

well as his “special empathy with the condition of women” ³⁹ which he exhibited in works

such as The Portrait of a Lady. As Peggy McCormack states in her study of the novel, “James

[reveals] feminist sympathies because he shows a young woman struggling so tenaciously to

avoid entrapment by a marriage market economy.” ⁴⁰ And she further argues that “James […]

is both feminist and feminine in his writing. His feminism derives from the extraordinary

sympathy he demonstrates in dealing with women’s position in a sexual exchange economy

while his femininity may be found at the level of style.” ⁴¹ She claims that James’s fiction, and

The Portrait of a Lady in particular, does not miss any element common in feminine

literature, hence not revealing any “gender-related misperceptions.” ⁴² What McCormack

intends to say is that James could have told the story from a male point of view, thus choosing

a male protagonist. She sees in the presentation of Isabel’s situation not the same traditional

male novelist’s treatment of women since Isabel is neither consigned to a “happy-ever-after

marriage” or condemned to death or other.

³⁸ Lyall H. Powers, The Portrait of a Lady: Maiden, Woman, and Heroine (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991) 8.

³⁹ Millicent Bell, “Isabel Archer and the Affronting of Plot,” The Portrait of a Lady: An Authoritative Text; Henry James and the Novel; Reviews and Criticism, ed. Robert D. Bamberg (New York: Norton, 1995) 752.

⁴⁰ Peggy McCormack, The Rule of Money: Gender, Class, and Exchange Economics in the Fiction of Henry James (Ann Arbor: U.M.I. Research Press, 1990) 31.

⁴¹ McCormack 32.

⁴² McCormack 32.

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5. Isabel Archer

James’s young heroine Isabel Archer is introduced to the novel’s setting towards the end of Chapter I of The Portrait of a Lady. Announced in a telegram from her aunt, Mrs. Touchett, Isabel’s reputation precedes her actual arrival on the scene and makes her immediately the center of interest and speculation as well. The novel opens with three men gathered for afternoon tea on the lawn of an old English mansion, Gardencourt, and the content of the telegram instantly becomes their main topic of conversation. “Taken sister’s girl, died last year, go to Europe, two sisters, quite independent.” ^{43 44} This pre-definition of

Isabel’s most unique and original trait of character makes the three men wonder in what sense the term “independence” is used. The novel’s opening thus perfectly prepares the reader for the development of the novel’s major theme, namely the conflict between individualism and social custom, or, in other words, Isabel Archer’s independence in relation to the restricting constraints of the world around her.

In reference to the telegram, Ralph Touchett, the son of Isabel’s aunt and of the mansion’s landowner, contemplates whether

the expression [applies] more particularly to the young lady [his] mother has adopted or does it characterize her sisters equally? – and is it in a moral or in a financial sense? Does it mean that they have been left well off [after their father’s death], or that they wish to be under no obligations? Or does it simply mean that they are fond of their own way? 45

Shortly after her arrival, Isabel Archer proves herself to be the independent American Girl, and the other characters discover her independence to be of a moral nature. Already in the initial conversation with her cousin Ralph, Isabel fondly declares her liberty after the circumstances of Mrs. Touchett’s bringing Isabel over to Europe are clarified:

“Adopted me? […] Oh no; she has not adopted me. I’m not a candidate for adoption.”

“I beg a thousand pardons,” Ralph murmured. “I meant – I meant –” He hardly knew what he meant.

⁴³ James 13

⁴⁴ There is actually an incongruity in James’s text here: What is actually meant by “died last year” is the death of Isabel’s father. It is mentioned later on in the novel that Mrs. Archer, Isabel’s mother, had already died a long time ago, without giving the exact point in time or the circumstances.

⁴⁵ James 13.

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“You meant she has taken me up. Yes; she likes to take people up. She has been very kind to me; but,” she added with a certain visible eagerness of desire to be explicit, “I’m very fond of my liberty.” 46

In the following course of the novel, the young heroine is shown repeatedly to assert her “love of liberty” and independent-mindedness in a number of designative scenes. The reader thereby receives a first impression of her, conveyed mostly through the eyes of her cousin Ralph Touchett on whom she makes a great impact. It is only after this exceedingly sympathetic view of Isabel by her cousin Ralph has been firmly established that the narrator steps in and gives a more detailed and also critical account of Isabel’s being as well as of her youth. Until that point, the reader does not learn a great deal about Isabel Archer, that is, virtually nothing of her past and very little about her personality beyond what is presented through the eyes of the other characters, except for her being an independent woman. The role of the narrator has already been examined in Chapter 3 of my study, and I will amplify in the following the narrator’s most extensive analysis of the young heroine in terms of her life story and the effects that result therefrom. The chapters leading up to Isabel’s biographical account as presented by the narrator in Chapter VI depict the approach of Mrs. Touchett to her niece Isabel in the Archers’ home in Albany, New York. Chapter III reports the first meeting between these two women, the elder one finding Isabel reading in the library of the house. ⁴⁷ Until the decisive chapter of Isabel’s complete presentation, the reader is

shown the arrangements that are made between Mrs. Touchett, Isabel Archer, and also her two older sisters to take the youngest of the Archer sisters over to Europe. The idea of going abroad captivates the mind of all three sisters since it is seen as a great opportunity for Isabel. Her eldest sister, Mrs. Lilian Ludlow, expresses the delight she feels to her husband:

“Well, she ought to go abroad,’ said Mrs. Ludlow. “She’s just the person to go abroad.”

“And you want the old lady to take her, is that it?”

“She has offered to take her—she’s dying to have Isabel go. But what I want her to do when she gets her there is to give her all the advantages. I’m sure all we’ve got to do,” said Mrs. Ludlow, ‘is to give her a chance.”

“A chance for what?”

“A chance to develop.” 48

⁴⁶ James 20.

⁴⁷ When Mrs. Touchett finds Isabel, she is reading a “history of German thought,”(24) a philosophy which builds the cornerstone of American Transcendentalism. This Jamesian protagonist has often been qualified as an Emersonian character since she unites in herself the ideals of Transcendentalism, namely self-reliance and independent-mindedness, as they have been promoted by their most prominent advocate, Ralph Waldo Emerson. For a detailed characterization of Isabel as an Emersonian character, see Lyall H. Powers.

⁴⁸ James 29.

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The opportunity of going abroad to Europe with her aunt is offered as a temptation to Isabel. Although Isabel Archer actually intends to manifest her idea of independence towards her aunt, she nevertheless concedes that she would defer her cherished love of liberty to the chance that is granted to her.

“I should like very much to go to Florence.”

“Well, if you’ll be very good, and do everything I tell you I’ll take you there,” Mrs. Touchett declared.

Our young woman’s emotion deepened; she flushed a little and smiled at her aunt in silence. “Do everything you tell me? I don’t think I can promise that.” “No, you don’t look like a person of that sort. You’re fond of your own way; but it’s not for me to blame you.”

“And yet, to go to Florence,’ the girl exclaimed in a moment, “I’d promise almost anything!” 49

The course of the novel will show, however, that the young heroine proves to be unable to meet her aunt’s demand, not even on a general level. The principal reason why Isabel Archer will continually be in conflict with the world around her lies in her conception of freedom, especially in her belief of being able to choose freely regardless of social circumstances. This conflict is one of the major topics in The Portrait of a Lady. The foundations for this belief lies in Isabel’s upbringing and also in her national heritance. From the outset of the novel, she clearly embodies the idea of liberty, but it is nevertheless a problematic philosophy which she has invented for herself und desperately clings to. Isabel’s understanding of freedom is conceived of as boundless possibilities. But since “freedom means inhibiting the state of possibility,” ⁵⁰ as literary scholar Elizabeth Allen remarks – that means that “freedom [has to

be] understood as an absence of limitation,” ⁵¹ – it becomes clear that Isabel’s concept of freedom is of a negative rather than positive nature. Isabel believes that she is free as long as there is nothing impinging on her continuing ability to choose. It will be perceived in the course of the novel, however, that Isabel’s concept of freedom is mainly theoretic and that instead she has a certain reluctance to confront life, which likewise implies to choose. And since any choice does close off future choices, Isabel’s ideal of freedom seems essentially to be that she wishes not to have to choose at all. That this is impossible is needless to say. The reader will therefore see the heroine in numerous scenes in which she is facing a range of choices in life, and that in the end, she must discover that she chose exactly the wrong way. But before this decisive realization, Isabel Archer passes through a life in which she believes

⁴⁹ James 27

⁵⁰ Elizabeth Allen, A Woman’s Place in the Novels of Henry James (London: Macmillan 1984) 60.

⁵¹ Allen 60.

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always to do the right thing, and this from her early childhood on because “[she] had never been corrected by the judgment of people who seemed to her to speak with authority.” ⁵² . The

foundation of her idea of freedom, as mentioned above, therefore lies in this formative period, and I will examine in the following this stage of her life in detail which is conveyed to the reader through the narrator.

Chapter VI of The Portrait of a Lady, offering a “descriptive, analytic, and psychological exposition of the heroine,” ⁵³ provides the reader with a more comprehensive

view of Isabel Archer than has been accomplished in the preceding chapters. The tone of the narrator here is less sympathetic and enthusiastic towards the heroine since the narrator not only comments on her amenities but also points at her flaws. By telling the story of her childhood and youth, the narrator presents the background for Isabel Archer’s personality as it is experienced at the time that the novel describes. It is pointed out that the foundation of Isabel’s love of liberty very much lies in her childhood and youth and the way she has been brought up and educated. During her youth, the environment in which Isabel grows up lacked a distinctly maternal influence, her mother having “died years before” ⁵⁴ the novel begins. The

point in time and the circumstance of her death are never specified in the novel. After all, this passing mention of Isabel’s deceased mother is the only direct one in the entire novel, and even afterwards, Isabel only describes herself as having “neither father nor mother.” ⁵⁵ The

leading position of her father in this statement already indicates that the mother does not play a role in Isabel’s life. As a result of the missing mother, Isabel and her two elder sisters Edith and Lilian fall into the care of their father, who is a determining factor in the shaping of the novel’s heroine and her unique character. Isabel further idolizes her father, responding to him with unquestioning admiration and love, describing him as “her handsome, much-loved father” ⁵⁶ who had always been keen to ward off everything unpleasant in life from his

daughters. In Isabel’s opinion, her father could not have achieved a higher status, and “it was a great fortune to have been his daughter.” ⁵⁷ In return for her affection, Isabel had always

been his favorite daughter, presumably because of her independent-mindedness that her father had supported all along. ⁵⁸ However, counter to her personal perception of her father runs a

⁵² James 47.

⁵³ Dorothy van Ghent, “On The Portrait of a Lady,” The Portrait of a Lady: An Authoritative Text; Henry James and the Novel; Reviews and Criticism, ed. Robert D. Bamberg (New York: Norton, 1995) 681.

⁵⁴ James 19.

⁵⁵ James 150.

⁵⁶ James 31.

⁵⁷ James 31.

⁵⁸ Isabel, the youngest of the three Archer sisters, is considered to be the “‘intellectual’ one” whereas her sister Edith was “the beauty” and Lilian “the practical one.” James 28.

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