Henry James - The Portrait of a Lady
The Portrait of a Lady was published in 1881, and is a realist novel. Literary realism is a movement that took place from the mid 19th century to the early 20th century. Contrasting with idealism, realism aims to present things realistically.
Form and Structure:
'The Portrait of a Lady' has a third person omniscient narrator, giving insight into the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Although the narrator mainly does not overtly pass judgement on the characters, it seems to admire the character of Isabel, repeatedly referring to her as a ‘heroine’, perhaps portraying a biased view of her character (unreliable narrator?). It is an episodic novel as it follows the life of Isabel Archer and her transformation from a naïve, optimistic young woman into an unhappily married woman, discontented with her life. The portrait of a lady is a bildungsroman (coming-of-age) novel, yet the progression seems inverted as Isabel's life becomes more and more unsatisfying and she becomes less individualistic and freethinking.
Marriage
‘Make up to a good one and marry her, and your life will become much more interesting'
‘Make up to a good one and marry her, and your life will become much more interesting'
Married couple ‘she hasn’t seen him in a year’ ‘she appeared to perceive nothing irregular about the situation’
‘Usually came once a year to spend a month with her husband, a period in which she apparently took pains to convince him that she had adopted the right system’
‘Lillian had occasionally been spoken of as a woman who might be thankful to marry at all – she was so much plainer than her sisters’
‘I wanted to see her safely married – that’s what I wanted to see’ safety in marriage – societal pressures.
‘Do you mean that you’re going to be married?’ ‘Not till I’ve seen Europe’ – Implication that a certain youthful, free stage of life ends after getting married.
‘She couldn’t marry Lord Warburton; the idea failed to support any enlightened prejudice in favour of the free exploration of life that she had hitherto entertained or was now capable of entertaining’
‘She liked him too much to marry him’
‘You really like me?’ ‘Ah, you must never doubt that’ said Isabel. ‘Well then I don’t see what more you ask!’ – Lord Warburton’s idea of the criteria to accept a marriage proposal (no practicality)
Warburton almost bribes Isabel for her hand in marriage; ‘You afraid – afraid of the climate? We can easily live elsewhere, you know. You can pick out your climate, the whole world over’ and then almost tries to guilt her into accepting the proposal in the statement ‘remember how absolutely my happiness is in your hands’. James refers to this, stating ‘looking so straight at Lord Warburton’s big bribe and yet turning away from it’.
This juxtaposes Osmond’s proclamation: ‘I’ve too little to offer you’
‘It’s not my fate to give up – I know it can’t be’ ‘Do you call marrying me giving up?’ ‘Not in the usual sense. It’s getting – getting – getting a great deal. But it’s giving up other chances’
‘He has immense possessions, and his wife would be thought a superior being. He unites the intrinsic and the extrinsic advantages’ – Practicality of marriage, marrying for money and status.
‘I refused him because he’s too perfect then. I’m not perfect myself, and he’s too good for me. Besides, his perfection would irritate me’.
‘I don’t want to begin life by marrying. There are other things a woman can do’
‘People usually marry as they go into partnership – to set up a house’ ‘But in your partnership you’ll bring up everything’
‘Marriage is a grave risk’
‘I believed you’d marry a man of more importance’ ‘Of more importance to whom? It seems to me enough that one’s husband should be of importance to one’s self’.
‘There’s nothing higher for a girl to marry a – a person she likes’
‘She married to please herself’
Marriage ruins friendships – a ‘barrier’ between Isabel and Miss. Stackpole, ‘Ralph had seen nothing of her for the greater part of two years’, ‘she rarely encountered’ Mrs Touchett, Isabel had not seen much of Madame Merle since her marriage’
‘They were strangely married, at all events, and it was a horrible life’
‘When one’s married one has so much more occupation’
All marriages explored are void of love – Touchetts, Osmonds, Osmond’s sister.
Love
‘He’s trying hard to fall in love’
‘I don’t recommend you fall in love with him’ – Mr. Touchett (Everyone gets a say in who Isabel ends up with) ‘I shall never fall in love but on your recommendation’
Caspar Goodwood represents romanticised love; ‘I came to England simply because you are here; I couldn’t stay at home after you had gone: I hated the country because you were not in it’. ‘If I like this country at present it is only because it holds you’
‘Miss Archer had neither a fortune nor the sort of beauty that justifies a man to the multitude, and he had calculated that he had spent twenty-six hours in her company’
Cliché view of love – ‘Of course I’ve seen you very little, but my impression dates from the very first hour we met. I lost no time, I fell in love with you. It was at very first sight, as the novels say; I know now that it’s not a fancy-phrase, and I shall think better of novels evermore’
A non-superficial meaning to love, no superficiality on looks. Isabel is not pretty yet wealthy and intelligent men fall in love with her.
Forbidden love for Warburton? Mr. Touchett forbid him from marrying his niece.
‘What kept Ralph alive was simply the fact that he had not yet seen enough of the person in the world whom he was most interested: he was not yet satisfied’
Gender
‘You ought to take hold of a pretty woman’ – Ralph Touchett
‘The ladies will save us’ Mr. Touchett
Isabel ‘held that a woman ought to be able to live by herself in the absence of exceptional flimsiness, and it was perfectly possible to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded person of another sex’
‘Few of the men she saw seemed worth a ruinous expenditure, and it made her smile to think that one of them should present himself as an incentive to hope and reward to patience.’
‘Most women did with themselves nothing at all; they waited, in attitudes more or less gracefully passive for a man to come that way and furnish them with a destiny. Isabel’s originality was that she gave one the impression of having intentions of her own’
‘You can’t stay alone with the gentlemen. You’re not – you’re not at your blest Albany my dear’
‘Young girls here – in decent houses – don’t sit alone with gentlemen late at night’
‘In America the gentlemen obey they ladies’
‘It’s a very good thing for a girl to have refused a few good offers – so long of course they are not the best she is likely to have’
‘I’m confident that we shall someday have the pleasure of looking for a husband for [pansy] together’ – Husband is chosen for young girls, and they actively ‘look’ for him.
Mr. Osmond – ‘I think young girls should be kept out of the world’, ‘she’s not too disagreeable’, ‘she has only one fault’ ‘too many ideas’.
‘Is she in need of help?’ ‘Most women always are’ said Henrietta
Enduring love – Goodwood, Ralph and Warburton love Isabel after the years apart
‘Love remains’
Relationships
‘Lord Warburton, who appeared constantly desirous of a nearer view of Miss Archer.
‘Is she very fond of him?’ ‘If she isn’t she ought to be. He’s simply wrapped up in her’ - obligation to reciprocate feelings.
Madame Merle: ‘What have I got? Neither husband, nor child, nor fortune, nor position, nor the traces of a beauty I never had’ – the things that are considered important. And the syntax shows ‘husband’ to be the most important.
Osmond and Isabel’s relationship: ‘Does she take the opposite line from him’ ‘In everything. They think quite differently’
‘I’m not yet interested in myself, and I’m deeply interested in Mrs. Osmond’
‘It was astonishing what happiness [Isabel] could still find in the idea of procuring a pleasure for her husband’
Osmond would have liked her to have ‘nothing of her own but her pretty appearance’
Isabel ‘knew that she had thrown her life away’
Osmond ‘wished her to have no freedom of mind’
Isabel won’t leave him because ‘I can’t publish my mistake. I don’t think that’s decent. I’d much rather die’, ‘One must accept ones deeds’
‘She found herself confronted with the conviction that [Osmond] married her for money’
‘I have an ideal of what my wife should do and should not do’
Osmond would not marry Merle as ‘she had no money'
0 comments:
Post a Comment