Structure of The Portrait of a Lady

Symbolism and Imagery

International Situation

Character Sketch of Isabel Archer

Henry James (1843-1916), a prolific writer came from a wealthy and cultured American family. Novels, short stories, travel sketches, literary criticism and autobiography flowed from his pen with regularity. His major works are Roderick Hudson, The American, The European, The Portrait of a Lady, The Golden Bowl etc. The Portrait of a Lady- one of his most important major work stands out for the complexity of its chief character, the compelling nature of its story, the density of its range of cultural reference and the artfulness of its conception and execution.

This was the first novel by an American that made, within the limits of its subject full use of the novel form. He believed that the novel must be a coherent whole. Sir Philip Sydney had propounded such a view of art which was later manifested by Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. For James, ‘life may be chaotic, a splendid waste’ but art must give it beauty and meaning through form and expression.

James gave a meticulous attention to the structure of The Portrait of a Lady. He lays the ‘corner stone’ of the novel with care i.e. the idea of Isabel Archer’s grappling with her destiny. And on this corner stone he builds up ‘a square and spacious house’. This house comprises Isabel’s life, actions and experiences. The novel has a unity and compactness. Speaking on the structure of the novel James remarks,

The point is however that this single small corner stone, the conception of a certain young woman, affronting her destiny had begun with being my entire outfit for the large building of The Portrait of a Lady. It came to be a square and spacious house…

Very neatly and carefully proportioned, The Portrait of a Lady structurally has three equal parts followed by an epilogue. The first part comprises first nineteen chapters. The plot, the interaction between Isabel and the Garden- Court group, the Lord Warburton affair and the three climatic scenes make up the first section. This section also relates Lord Warburton’s proposal which Isabel rejects and the death of Daniel Touchett.

The second part of the novel consists of next sixteen chapters. We find complications in this section because of Isabel’s inheritance and the machinations of Madam Merle. The climax comes in a mulled manner when Osmond declares his love. Next, there is a turning point in the plot when Isabel rejects Caspar Goodwood and accepts Osmond.

The last seventeen chapters work out the adverse consequences of Isabel’s choice of her husband. It builds up the major climax of the novel. This climax comes when Osmond delivers his ultimatum to Isabel, who proposes to go on a trip to meet her dying cousin Ralph. The last three chapters wind up Isabel’s relationship with Ralph, Henrietta and Goodwood. In the last section Goodwood passionately appeals to Isabel to leave her husband and accept his love. Thus, the central focus of all episodes is Isabel Archer. The plot revolves round her just as all the other characters. R.H.Hutton writing in The Spectator remarks Isabel as,

The reader never sees her or realises what she is from the beginning of the book to the close. She is the lady of whom no portrait is given…the central figure remains shrouded in mist.

There is a lapse of 3.5 years in Isabel’s life and the readers are not acquainted with her early happiness in marriage, her emotions on becoming a mother and losing a child. James deliberately circumvented these limitations to create a dramatic effect. We become aware of Osmond’s actual and potential malignity not until the very climax. Isabel through her experiences has become more complex, subtle and less direct. James has been successful in juxtaposing two similar and yet vastly different portraits of the lady.

An important role in the novel is played by Pansy, Osmond’s daughter with Madam Merle. James creates her as a mixture of shyness and frankness. A Convent bred socially inexperienced young girl is more mature on her choice of husband. We also find a contrastive study of American and European cultures in the novel through various characters. The international theme is very well projected. The novel has an open ending where no finality of events has reached. Critics agree that such open-endings are both psychologically and aesthetically sound. We find Isabel refused the proposal of Goodwood and returns to Rome to her loveless and lifeless marriage. She is happy that now she is a source of delight to Pansy. Isabel now feels maternally committed.

The Portrait of a Lady has been and continues to be a major source of nourishment for readers of James’s fiction. As Joel Porte remarks,

What distinguishes Portrait is that the broad strokes of melodrama and conventional characterisation- the hallmark of James’s apprenticeship- have been stabilized and subordinated for the sake of one thing: the portrait of an extraordinary young American woman affronting her destiny.