Freedom vs. Duty

Were Isabel Archer real and not fictitious, I should very much like to make her acquaintance.  I highly doubt the two of us would become “bosom friends,” but I believe we should get along well but only for a small time, as I also believe I should tire of her.  Her insistent independence fascinates me, and I have found that very same thirst for knowledge and thirst for opportunity in choice within myself.  I appreciate her desire to choose, even if she should choose wrongly. 

But Isabel Archer ignites fear in me for her future, but not in the way her dreadful acquaintance Henrietta Stackpole.  Henrietta believes in holding Isabel in what was instead of letting Isabel find was is within herself.  My fear for Isabel is that she should be both unhappy and unsatisfied in what is and then what eventually will be.  But these qualities in her: these are the things I love and yet fear in Isabel.  Her sense of freedom and liberty to go and do and be are beautiful, but perhaps a sense of duty would do her good.  The will to choose and potentially choose poorly sound noble on paper but in practice are much more difficult.

Then Ralph, sweet Ralph…by choosing to divide his money for her sake, I think he enables her too much.  Perhaps he thought Isabel would turn out better than his mother.  Not that I think he holds ill-feelings toward his mother, but because she has a fortune Isabel would be free of the need to marry and leave that someone isolation.  But needing to depend on someone or something is not a bad thing.  I think that makes us real, and it gives us a sense of duty.  Life void of obligation to anyone or anything seems a lie, in my opinion.  Whether or not one acknowledges those obligations, as long as one encounters people, those people will have their own needs and desires for presence and companionship. 

Altogether, Isabel evokes pity and the sense of impending tragedy.

Etiquette and Friendship

     I don’t quite understand what James means by “good manners.” Especially in regards to what he says on page 163, “As Mrs. Touchett had foretold, Isabel and Madame Merle were thrown much together during the illness of their host, so that if they had not become intimate it would have been almost a breach of good manners. Their manners were of the best, but in addition to this they happened to please each other.” Why would it be “a breach of good manners” if they hadn’t become close in some way? When did the act of becoming friends suddenly turn into etiquette? I understand that James is writing in a different era and that the culture he is describing is incredibly different from that we’re living in today. However, friendship and manners are very rarely described as the same thing.

     So how is Madame Merle and Isabel becoming friends the same thing as good manners? Is it really the same thing as good manners? This question is especially pertinent since Isabel isn’t really sure exactly how friendship works.

It is perhaps too much to say that they swore an eternal friendship, but tacitly at least they called the future to witness. Isabel did so with a perfectly good conscience, though she would have hesitated to admit she was intimate with her new friend in the high sense she privately attached to this term. She often wondered indeed if she had ever been, or ever could be, intimate with any on. She had an ideal of friendship as well as of several sentiments, which it failed to seem to her in this case-it had not seemed to her in other cases-that the actual completely expressed. (163)

First he makes mention of an intimate friendship that they supposedly share that doesn’t breach good manners or etiquette in any way, and then he points out that Isabel doesn’t know what friendship or intimacy really is. This frustrates me completely. I don’t understand it at all. James really doesn’t make any sense with what he says.

"Mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."

Ed. Note – the above quote is from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and is in no way a quote from The Portrait of a Lady. That being said, I find it appropriate concerning the subject matter below, so it fits the bill.

It is likely that the primary point of discussion in today’s blogs is going to concern Isabel Archer, the protagonist and ideal heroine of our novel, but I argue that her character would be so much less without the involvement of Ralph Touchett, whom I would like to call the “peripheral protagonist”. In the triad of men that we meet at the beginning of the novel, Ralph enters as a gangly, emaciated creature that leans over rather than standing upright, slouching by necessity. He is clearly not well and we quickly learn that he is suffering from a serious lung disease, but there is still something disturbing and unwell about all matters of his appearance and personality. If this were any other novel Henry James could easily made him the antagonist or a reprehensible cretin like Dostoevsky’s Smerdyakov or Tolkien’s Grima Wormtongue (HAPPY HOBBIT DAY!)

                Fortunately, James has Ralph serve a much a greater purpose as Isabel’s other half and her contrast. Yes, I mean to say “other half” because that’s exactly what Ralph wanted to be when he first met Isabel (how could he not, considering her brilliant and unabashedly feminine entrance), but realized that he could not and did not want to try and marry her, one reason because they are first cousins and the second simply because he inherently realizes that it would never work out. He makes this decision because is constantly and painfully aware of his illnesses and considers that his demise is not too far away, so to burden Isabel, who has so much life and youth left ahead of her, is a dreadful path for him to take. However he quickly becomes Issbel’s best friend and confidant, and throughout the reading Isabel trusts her heart in his hands, much like Gatsby and Carraway in a certain other American novel. In this way Isabel is a sort of contradiction, for despite her free spirited individualism she is nevertheless tethered to Ralph simply by tapping into his wisdom and friendship, which Ralph uses a means to live vicariously and happily in the only way that he can physically manage. Ralph, too, is a sort of contradiction, for despite his welcoming heart and unending admiration for Isabel, he is cynical and ill tempered on an almost constant basis, driven primarily by the effects of his illness and the way that it has ruined his prospects of a happy life.

They are in love, that is for certain, but Lewis would agree that this is a quality practice of phileo rather than eros taking place, which is ironic in that Isabel tries so desperately to remain free and uncontrolled by the guiles of romance but finds her truest love in the comfort of her own cousin. How far this friendship will go and to what ends it will achieve are yet to be seen, for there is a scent of tragedy about both of these characters that may test their love to its breaking point.

The Portrait of a Lady 1

So far, I love Isabel and Mrs. Touchett. They have a lot of qualities I love to see in female characters. Mrs. Touchett is very independent, and I love her attitude. At one point, Isabel says she likes Mrs. Touchett because she doesn't care what other people think about her. That's exactly what I like about her as well. I'm sure she is the subject of a lot of gossip because she spends so much time away from her husband, but she just lives her life the way she wants to and doesn't care about everyone else. One of the things I love about Isabel is her independence also. I also admire how she always expresses herself. She says she is a get-what-you-see kind of girl, and she is not afraid to ask questions or tell her opinion. Another one of the Isabel's characteristics that catches my attention is the fact that she thinks so highly of herself. I hate how many modern books portray the main female character to have low self-esteem. I think it is more encouraging to have a heroine instead of a damsel in distress, and, in my opinion, it makes for a much better story.

Isabel's Self Portrait

Isabel Archer “held that a woman ought to be able to make up her life in singleness, and that it was perfectly possible to be happy without the society of a more or less coarse-minded person of the opposite sex.”

Not to say that she was opposed to being married, but that she believed that she needed to know herself before she could know someone else. This is why she must leave New York and travel Europe before considering marriage. In this sense, she is not Elizabeth Bennett. She is the ideal woman (according to Ralph and the rest of her lovers) but the same characteristics that make her ideal are what drive her away from marriage.

James raises this question through Isabel: Does a deep knowledge of oneself prepare them for emotional intimacy with another, or does emotional intimacy with another soul lead a person to knowing themselves? Can you even know yourself apart from your spouse once married? I believe that it’s possible, but it seems like this is exactly what Isabel is afraid of. She’s scared to lose that identity, which is pretty understandable since she’s been orphaned and left her country of origin. 

The Hinge

            Henry James stays true to his characters more so than many other writers of his day. And this goes in tandem with others call Jamesian realism. How his characters act is set within the realm of what those characters are capable of doing. Basically, the characters only do what they have the possibility of doing; they act true to their own nature. This is how James stays true to his characters.

            The epitome of this character connection is seen through the character of Isabel Archer. She is a free and independent American woman who cherishes her freedom above anything else. This is the major reason why she declines a marriage proposal from Lord Warburton, because she knows that he would restrict her freedom. She is staying true to herself by protecting her freedom, at the same time, this limits the type of relationships that she can develop with other characters in the novel. She is a very fate-driven character, and this prevents her from accepting Lord Warburton's proposal, which no one in her family can understand why she would do such a thing.  If she gets married, then that limits the way she can live her life. This is seen when she decline Caspar Godwood's marriage proposal, even though he claims that he wants to make her more independent than she already is. She tells him to ask her again in two years and informs him that she "shall not be an easy victim."

            Isabel is the hinge for the entire novel, because all of the characters revolve around her and her decisions. Her development as a character is what interests the other characters the most. Henrietta continually frets about Isabel losing her values and becoming too European, while Ralph leads her to inherit half of his father's fortune, so that she may, "spread her wings [and] rise above the ground." This makes her a type of hinge for the novel. Her decisions, and the way she interacts with the other characters, is what drives the story as she represents James' typical American. 

Isabel's Portrait is Painted in the Negative Space of Others' Desires

I suppose we can do a journal entry type response here. That is fitting considering my own opinions regarding Isabel.

In the first half of Portrait of a Lady, Isabel’s personality dominates the other characters. She obsesses over independence. Her obsession grows to the point that it is prompting other characters to do exactly what she herself fears to do: operate under someone else’s command. The men each desire her, but she desires for them to leave her alone—to cease their affection. Yet why should the men themselves not be independent and choose to love her?

Isabel’s belief grows into a problem only because of the principle behind it. She wants to remain independent. Initially, it is an acceptable belief. She wants to see the world and learn new things for herself. That independence can be admired and, to her credit, she attempts to retain that goal throughout, refusing Lord Warburton for greater knowledge that comes from independence. Unfortunately, the principle comes to control Isabel herself and she cannot escape her own rules. As Isabel frets over Mr. Touchett’s death, she cannot clearly decide whether she should accept the inherited money. Even earlier than his death, she explains that she wants to live untied to anyone and have a candid if not adventurous life (133-134).

In the same scene, Isabel reveals that she does not logically know her actions. The end becomes to remain free of the influence of others and not to best achieve the dream she has of seeing the world. I fear that her character will become childlike, refusing only because others desire, and placing her in a situation in which others control her by reverse psychology despite all her beliefs that she is independent. The rest of the novel should reveal her outcome, but at the moment, I believe she remains independent only to the extent that she operates opposite of others’ wishes—but never strictly on her own.