Portrait of a Lady by Henry James is a 19th century novel featuring a scheming heroine, Isabel Archer. The book raises the issue of identity, and its construction and style inevitably affect how these identities are realized. The following analysis takes a closer look at this theme, assessing the text in relation to genre, focusing specifically on the presence of certain Gothic conventions within the narrative.
The theme of confinement is prominent in Portrait of a Lady, as Isabel Archer is apparently imprisoned by Gilbert Osmond. The novel effectively reworks traditional Gothic conventions, such as those inaugurated in the fiction of Ann Radcliffe and others, in its depiction of Elizabeth’s confinement and jailer.
In evaluating the issue of female identity, it is beneficial to consider the author’s own intentions for their work. James was already such a highly respected critic before he turned to novel writing that he had high intentions for the novel as an art form. Such intentions are manifested in Portrait of a Lady through what he called the ‘international light’, where characters of a given nationality interact with those of other nations, an advantage given to James by his own expatriate status as an American that she lives in England. and something that allowed him to explore issues of cultural and individual identity.
The Portrait of a Lady establishes the characterization as the central axis. James is much more interested in creating a subtle atmosphere of involvement that leads his readers to contemplate the complexity of a woman’s circumstances. His brother, the philosopher William James, once commented that Henry always defied the convention of telling a story. The Portrait of a Lady is written in the third person, a narrative choice that inevitably affects the question of identity.
It is arguable that The Portrait of a Lady has a “center of consciousness” narrative, with other characters and larger themes organized around the heroine. As the novel progresses, much of the drama and action in it actually takes place in Isabel’s mind, as opposed to the incidents that are played out externally. There is also a notable absence of overt narrative commentary, such as that which Eliot employs to accompany the depiction of his characters’ thoughts in Middlemarch, a novel whose heroine, Dorothea Brooke, James cites as influencing his training as Isabel Archer. Techniques such as internal monologue, free indirect speech, and targeting are frequently employed to achieve a variety of narrative effects. One of them is to portray the events from the point of view of the characters themselves and create the impression that the author’s views have been erased in order to draw the reader’s attention to the inner worlds of his characters. James was not overly interested in depicting extreme or sensational events, as these distracted him from the study of his individual consciousness, and he strove instead for “economics” in fiction. Such authorial intentions inevitably influence the nature of her heroine’s identity, and consequently Isabel is insightful, introspective, and has a recognizable capacity for receiving impressions.
Our understanding of female identity in this narrative is also enhanced through an assessment of gender. The Portrait of a Lady belongs to James’s very particular brand of realistic fiction. In James’s novel, as in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, traditional gothic trappings are reworked into the realm of the psychological.
Much of the tension in Portrait of a Lady is evident in Isabel’s own reactions to seemingly ordinary events. James’s prose style is suggestive rather than direct, and his sentences are often riddled with interruptions and postponements. One particular point in the novel where the author himself identifies as uniquely important, in that his heroine’s consciousness becomes the main locus of drama and action, is the scene where Elizabeth first meets time with Madame Merle. An ominous atmosphere is not invoked using obvious sensation strategies, but through subtle details such as Madame Merle sitting in her “wide and well-dressed” (XVIII, p.193) with her back to Elizabeth at the piano “the farthest thing from the door” (XVIII, p.192) in the Gardencourt room – “an apartment of great distances” (XVIII, p.192). The reader is informed that Madame Merle plays the instrument “remarkably well”, with “skill”, “feeling” and “discretion proper to her” (XVIII, p.193); her considerable musical prowess suggests her special powers in other areas, as she is later revealed to be sneaky and manipulative. After her introduction, Madame Merle continues to play while Isabel sits and listens, while James adds to the ominous atmosphere with the following: “the shadows deepened in the room” (XVIII, p.194), describing “autumn twilight” as if meeting in , her heroine noticing the rain, “which had now begun in earnest” (XVIII, p.194).
Isabel’s identity is defined in part by other characters in the novel, particularly Gilbert Osmond. To some extent, the character of Osmond is a more complex and refined 18th-century Gothic villain. He represents a great threat not only to the heroine’s freedom, but also to her identity. Isabel is ‘commodified’ as a beautiful work of art over which Osmond, as he has already achieved with his daughter Pansy, hopes to exercise total control, depriving Isabel of her own identity by making her mind an extension of her. Osmond’s grand palazzo effectively functions as a place of confinement for Isabel.
Choosing to finally return to Osmond, however, Isabel assumes the stature of a tragic heroine, but asserts her own autonomy, not in innocence but in full knowledge of the world, as the novel’s main interest has become moral in romantic place.
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