论文总字数：30975字

摘 要

亨利·詹姆斯被誉为美国最多产和最伟大的作家之一。《贵妇画像》被誉为他早期写作生涯的巨作，在《贵妇画像》中詹姆斯创造了新女性形象。本论文基于文本细读理论来对《贵妇画像》中的女性主义进行探究。小说中的女性主义通过女主角伊莎贝尔因不同时期思想意识的变化而引起的女性自我意识的发展过程得以呈现。这一发展过程分为三个阶段：伊莎贝尔婚姻意识的沉睡、伊莎贝尔女性自我意识的萌芽以及伊莎贝尔女性意识的发展。通过对对《贵妇画像》中女性主义的研究，本论文旨在为读者理解《贵妇画像》和女性主义提供新的视角。

关键词：亨利·詹姆斯；《贵妇画像》；文本细读；女性主义；女性自我意识

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 The Author and His Works 1

1.2. Theoretical Basis and Study Significance 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Feminism Reflected by the Changes of Isabel’s Female Self-consciousness 3

3.1 Sleeping of Isabel in the Marriage 3

3.2 The Budding of Isabel’s Female Self-consciousness 7

3.3 Development of Isabel’s Self-consciousness 9

4. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

1.1 The Author and His Works

Henry James is regarded as the largest literary figure that came out in America during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. He, as the master of psychological writer, pays attention to the innovation of the technique of novel. He is one of the distinctive writers in the American literary history. His writing style of fiction mainly reflects the international cultural theme, psychological realism and structuralism. His representative works include An American, Daisy Miler, and Turn of the Screw, The Golden Bowl and so on. The Portrait of a Lady mainly tells a young and beautiful American girl’s life pursuit and love experience.

Isabel Archer is a beautiful, spirited American girl who is brought to her daydream place the old Europe by her wealthy aunt Mrs. Touchett after her parents die. She lives in the Gardencourt which is in the suburb of London. It is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel resolves to determine her own fate. She has rejected to marry the English Lord Warburton and the American inventor Caspar Goodwood. Isabel’s seriously ill cousin Ralph, who is secretly and hopeless in love with her, gives up his rather paternal inheritance to her advantage. Isabel gets acquainted with Madame Merle and adores her very much. She goes to Italy when her uncle is dead. When she is intoxicated at the historical sites of Florence and Rome, she gradually walks into Madame Merle"s trap.

1.2. Theoretical Basis and Study Significance

Close reading is a technique which is used for full reading literature text. It is the critical method that is concluded by the younger critics in America. In literature criticism, close reading refers to the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. It places great emphasis on the individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read. It is now a fundamental method of modern criticism.

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aiming at defining, establishing, and defending equal, political, economic, cultural, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. It originates from French and American Revolution in the late eighteenth century. The development of feminism is divided into three parts.

The first wave of feminism took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The goal of this wave was to pursue social rights for women with a focus on suffrage. The wave formally began at the cause of equality for women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the Seneca Falls Declaration which marked the success of the movement.

The second stage began in the 1960s.This wave unfolded in the context of anti-war and civil rights movements and the growing self-consciousness of a variety of minority groups around the world. In this stage, sexuality and reproductive rights were dominant issues, and much of the movement’s energy was focused on passing the Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution guaranteeing social equality regardless of sex.

The third stage of feminism began in the mid of twentieth century. In this phase, it defied conventional and established male notions about women and about how they feel. It makes readers sensitive to the question of gender as an important factor in interpretation through the political critique of representations of women in the text of male authors.

The thesis analyses the feminism in the novel from the theory of Simon de Beauvoir. In her opinion “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” (Beauvoir, 1953: 376) According to Simon de Beauvoir, a woman must break the bonds of patriarchal society and define herself if she wishes to become a significant human being in her own right and to defy male classification as the Other.

2. Literature Review

The Portrait of a Lady is one of the most famous novels of Henry James. Scholars at home or abroad have never stopped the study of The Portrait of a Lady since the creation of Henry James. The academic achievements have been made in profusion and the way and perspective of study are also changing. They mostly focused on the heroine Isabel’s characters and tragic marriage. It is precisely these problematic qualities of aestheticism that cause Isabel to fall under the control of Osmond, who for the same reason regards her as a work of art. This novel is also studied from the perspective of feminism. In The Rule of Money, Peggy McCormack, presents James as a feminist and being 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 feminity may be found at the level of style.”(McCormack, 1990: 32)

Domestic scholars also study The Portrait of a Lady from different perspectives with different literature theory and the perspective of research mainly focuses on the analysis of the female characters of the novel, the tragic marriage of the heroine, cultural conflict and the internationalism. Li hua analyses the reason of Isabel’s tragic marriage from the perspective of Isabel’s character and the social roots in her thesis “On Isabel’s tragic marriage in The Portrait of a Lady”. Chen Yinyin explores the international theme in the novel in her thesis “The international theme in The Portrait of a Lady”. She states the international theme from the background of the place and description of the role.

So far, there are few people studying the feminism in The Portrait of a Lady. This thesis uses the theory of close reading to study the feminism reflected by the changes of the protagonist’s self-consciousness in The Portrait of a Lady. It aims at giving readers a new perspective to learn more about the novel and feminism.

3. Feminism Reflected by the Changes of Isabel’s Female Self-consciousness

3.1 Sleeping of Isabel in the Marriage

3.1.1 Freedom under the patriarchal manipulation

Beauvior makes clear in The Second Sex that “woman has been construed as man’s Other, denied the right to her own subjectivity and responsibility for her own actions. Or, in more existentialist terms: patriarchal ideology presents woman as immanence, man as transcendence.”（Beauvior, 1953: 612）The male ideology exists everywhere in The Portrait of a Lady. It is the portrait of female’s consciousness under the patriarchy. The female in the novel do have independent spirit, but it is controlled by the male.

Isabel has many suitors. She refuses the proposal of Lord Warburton and Casper Goodwood, but accepts Gilbert Osmond. The reason is that Lord Warburton cannot give Isabel the freedom she desires for. Lord Warburton is the symbol of the aristocratic stratum and government. If she becomes his wife, the entire thing Warburton owns such as his political status will impose on Isabel and represent her.

He appeared to demand of her something that no one else, as it were, had presumed to do. What she felt was that a territorial, a political, a social magnate had conceived the design of drawing her into the system in which he rather invidiously lived and moved. A certain instinct, not imperious, but persuasive, told her to resist -----murmured to her that virtually she had a system and an orbit of her own. (James, 1986: 87)

As to Casper Goodwood, he can not give Isabel the freedom she desires for. Isabel chooses Osmond; she believes that she chooses the freedom. In her opinion, Osmond is the freest people even though he doesn’t have any fortune, status, even career. He is introduced by Mrs. Merle “his name is Gilbert Osmond, he lived in Italy.” (Henry James 1986：211) This is all the thing people can say and know about him. No profession, no fame, no status, no money. She calls him an old friend of hers and places him near the top of her lists. On the one hand she intentionally describes him as a sort of nonentity: “no career, no name, no position, no fortune, no past, no future, no anything.” (James, 1986: 211)

The opposition of all people to her marriage strengthens Isabel’s determination. This makes her feel that she makes the decision by herself independently and freely. She doesn’t cater to anybody. Isabel thinks that it is the best expression of him that he can’t get the social identity. Osmond has nothing except himself. His identity is defined without any external social factors, but only himself. Therefore, he is a free man. Their marriage is against common sense, which also represents her individuality and freedom.

Isabel’s choice indicates that freedom gives her a sense of security. Freedom surpasses anything else. Isabel’s ideal of freedom is that a person can fully express themselves creatively. She dominates her own “systems and tracks”. These have shown her simple point of freedom. Her view of freedom and individualism is under the traditional ideology which is dominated by males. She doesn’t have female self-consciousness at that time.

3.1.2 Repression of herself after marriage

Traditional customs fetter Isabel to a great extends. She doesn’t want to do anything against the Osmond. “If I was afraid of my husband, but that is my responsibility. That we want in a woman.” (James, 1986: 299) She says to Ralph. It is difficult to make people believe it comes from the mouth of the female who pursue freedom. Isabel is often lost in confusion in her unhappy marriage. For example, the book says, “it seems now that she was fully measure the severity of the matter of marriage, that take the current situation that marriage means a woman must have a choice, the choice of the husband"s side of the course.” (James, 1986: 299) Isabel emphasizes this in her mind, but she is afraid. The inner conflicts, anguish, fear are from Isabel’s repression and anti-repression. Later, when Ralph and Warburton visit Isabel, the first impression of Ralph to Isabel is that the free, keen girl has become quite another person. “What he saw was the fine lady who was supposed to represent something. What did Isabel represent？Ralph asked himself; and he could only answer by saying that she represented Gilbert Osmond.” (James, 1986: 346) Isabel is unconsciously influenced by Osmond’s character which makes her restrained from the traditional marriage.

Isabel desires for freedom, but she does not really oppose to the traditional marital obligations and her husband"s dominance in marriage. Her dream is the perfect combination of tradition and freedom. That is why she is still able to get fun from pleasing Osmond when there are many divergences between them. Family has a hallowed and high place in her heart. For Isabel, this kind of “return” is a bit difficult to accept. She realizes that she could not control her marriage, so she gradually accepts herself as the existence of man’s accessories and tools of the most male-dominated tragic roles. Isabel, on behalf of her husband, which is in line with the role delineation in that times.

It is Isabel’s attempt to improve and transform herself voluntarily that makes her become the beautiful portrait that doesn’t have the female’s self-consciousness. Therefore, the pursuit of lady is a reflection of her self-discipline, which shows her sleeping female"s self-consciousness.

3.1.3 Marriage under the patriarchy

Isabel is born in the United States, a country which advocates individual liberation and freedom of the spirit, compared with the European women who are bound by red tape in that time, she has more freedom. But she is not a rebellious person who completely departs from the traditional view. Staying in the ancient European culture, Isabel has virtually accepted traditional values in Europe. Pansy and sisters of Warburton are all the traditional ladies, their gentle and demure temperament make a deep and wonderful impression on Isabel which makes Isabel think that they have a distinctive temperament. The temperament as Ralph says “there were fifty thousand young women in England who exactly resembled them.” (James, 1986: 63) This temperament is actually the charm of European aristocratic women. In order to win the goodwill and appreciation of Osmond, Isabel follows the standard of the lady deliberately to change herself, dresses herself up as a Victorian lady. Later, just as she rethinks profoundly at the night “she had effaced herself when he first knew her; she had made herself small, pretending there was less of her than there really was.” (James, 1986: 504) Her pursuit of lady is not only the admiration to the good things but also the surrender to the secular concepts. When Mrs. Touchett tells Isabel the news that Lord Warburton is going to marry, her response is amazing. “Ah, my dear, you are beyond me. She cried suddenly.” (James, 1986: 504) Meanwhile Isabel’s heart beats faster when she considers her husband’s disappointment when he hears the news.

The disguise and abnormality of Isabel are just for avoiding having conflict with her husband. This can be seen as a compromise to patriarchy. She tries to make her return to the circle of traditional marriage relationships but her original independent quality always attacks her heart.

In conclusion, a part of women in the nineteenth century have already realized which is that they have to struggle to change their environment. They desire for independence but for the whole of them have no status in the society and family. They are in the condition that rely on and yield to male so their pursuits for independence are greatly reduced.

3.2 The Budding of Isabel’s Female Self-consciousness

3.2.1 Concrete responsibility

Isabel knows about Osmond and his daughter from Madame Meyer. Pansy is a quiet, fragile and submissive girl. She grows up in a convent and lacked of maternal love; she is obedient to her father"s arrangements. Although she loves Rosier very much, she can not decide her own feelings; she wants to become a passive daughter and accepts the fate arranged by her father even if it is not her wish. Because it is immoral to go against her father’s wishes to express her true feelings. It is not consistent with the norms of the lady, so she buries her true feeling deep down. Most girls in the nineteenth century have the same view to Pansy. So it can be said that Pansy is the typical victim in that social background.

It is Isabel’s first time to have the sense of responsibility that she did never have to others. “Pansy was dear to her, and there was nothing else in her life that had the rightness of the young creature’s attachment or the sweetness of her own clearness about it.” (James, 1986: 356) “And then not to neglect Pansy, not under any provocation to neglect her----this she had made an article of religion.” (James, 1986: 356) At the beginning of the novel, Isabel’s exaggerated description of freedom, her naive and arrogance disappear gradually. They are replaced by her concrete responsibility for Pansy. Since Isabel gets along with pansy, her abstract concept of freedom turns into concrete responsibilities. The concrete responsibility of Isabel proves the budding of her female self-consciousness.

3.2.2 Dissatisfaction to the compromise to marriage

Osmond thinks that it is strange that the friendship between Isabel and Henrietta. “Osmond had thought their alliance a kind of monstrosity. He couldn’t imagine what they had in common.” (James, 1986: 343) “Against this latter clause of the verdict Isabel had appealed with an ardor that had made him wonder afresh at the oddity of some of his wife’s tastes.” (James, 1986: 343) Isabel is dissatisfied to the fact that Osmond can’t tolerate her friend. At first, she resists with the sarcastic and gentle way. Later, with the increasingly serious situation, she explains herself in a hurry. Just like Osmond says: “she doesn’t have traditional view.” (James, 1986: 343) Isabel already has the budding of the female self-consciousness after she experiences marriage. She resists Osmond’s behavior not only in spirit but also in action. She tries as much as possible to take her husband’s view about Pansy’s marriage. And she is also willing to do something to make sure it can be done successfully. Although she knows that she should go out of the room and leave Warburton and Pansy alone. She also obeys to her husband’s wish unwillingly, but she doesn’t do that. “Something held her and made this impossible. It was not exactly that it would be base or insidious; there was a vague doubt that interposed---a sense that she was not quite sure.” (James, 1986: 367) So she remains in the drawing-room.

But strangely enough, now that she was face to face with him and although an hour before she had almost invented a scheme for pleasing him, Isabel was not accommodating, would not glide. And yet she knew exactly the effect on his mind of her question: it would operate as a humiliation. (James, 1986: 369)

She doesn’t want to give up this opportunity to humiliate her husband. Isabel perhaps takes a small opportunity because she will not have availed herself of a great one. If Isabel previously considers all human relations in society, including marriage as restrictions to freedom and oppression, and then the responsibility to Pansy makes her pay attention to the real life.

She already has the budding of the female’s self-consciousness. She knows how to resists to Osmond; she also knows that she can’t cater to Osmond blindly. What Osmond represents is the male authority. She is an independent woman. She wants to resist the male authority.

3.2.3 Innocent view of life

Isabel knows that the human nature is dirty and ugly. She understands “evil” from Madame Merle. She deceives Isabel and impels the marriage of Isabel and Osmond. She is Osmond’s lover and mother of Pansy. She criticizes Isabel for rejection of Pansy to marry to nobleman. Isabel only sees the word of “evil” in Bible and other literature works. Isabel gets the experience about human nature; she knows that there are different kinds of people in the world. This indicates that people’s spirit is empty and lonely when they pursuit the material wealth. Osmond also makes Isabel know the dark side of the world. She realizes that the man she thought was the most pure people in the world is only a stodgy speculator. “He married me for the money.” (James, 1986: 508) She sees the dirty and messy life, stupid, innocent and depraved people. But she cherishes her virtue.

Isabel enriches her thoughts and emotional life. People with abundant ideas and emotions will have a meaningful life. Isabel enriches and perfects the female’s self-consciousness. She gains experience from her misfortune marriage which makes her know the importance of caring about others and the outside world; meanwhile, she realizes that only the limited personalities are real and concrete.

In a word, Isabel’s female self-consciousness about individualism, marriage and values are awaking. Ideology and emotion are the footstone of self-realization. Isabel has awakened from her experience because her ideology and emotion are mature.

3.3 Development of Isabel’s Self-consciousness

3.3.1 Awakening of Isabel’s female self-consciousness of freedom

The consciousness of females will naturally turn into the stage of spirit when they have experienced the stage of material such as their cognitions to ideology and emotion. If freedom must be expressed in the social formation, the emotion and happiness owned by individual must be achieved in the social formation too.

When Ralph is seriously ill, his mother also returns to England. Isabel sees Mrs.Toucheet who she hasn’t seen for a long time. The “freedom” that Mrs.Toucheet has owned for a long time makes her feel empty inside. At that moment, Isabel has already known that this kind of freedom with nothing to worry about eventually caused the isolated and empty condition which she can’t choose to solve the problem.

Although Osmond betrays Isabel’s ideals, the freedom she chooses can not give her free life. Her dream of freedom is disillusioned, but she still chooses to return to Rome. It is not contradictory to her pursuits of freedom that she refuses the proposal of Goodwood and comes back to Osmond. It is the manifestation of her loyalty to dream and stickiness to pursuit. She shatters the dream of freedom, but Isabel chooses to return to Rome. She refuses Girdwood and comes back to Osmond. This does not conflict with the freedom that she pursues for. It is a reflection of her loyalty to the ideal.

The arrangement of plots of James indicates the duality of marriage: on the one hand, Isabel’s miserable marriage is due to her childish but lofty motivation; but on the other hand, marriage as the form of social ethics life provides the necessary condition for Isabel to walk out from the abstract and empty freedom she believes in. It also makes Isabel feel the personal freedom that is inherent in society. Does it mean that Isabel gives up the self-consciousness when she returns to Rome? This question is crucial to understand the novel. In the novel, it is found that the plots of Pansy and Isabel’s marriage are closely combined. The basis between them is not Isabel’s pure altruism but her stickiness to self-consciousness and freedom. It is not the abandon of self-consciousness that Isabel chooses to return to Rome. On contrary, it is Isabel’s active expression to freedom and self-consciousness.

It is argued in this thesis that sign of Isabel’s maturity is that she adds responsibility and moral consciousness to her previously simple individualism. And then she realizes the perfection of personality and awakening of female’s self-consciousness. Therefore, she accepts the test of life bravely and takes her responsibility at the end of the novel. It is not the compromise to life but going beyond herself and instinctive desire. It is a rational and wise choice. “The distinctive features that Isabel owns are the self-consciousness and responsibility.” (Dai Xianmei, 2006: 123) Therefore, the female consciousness of Isabel has already completely awakened.

3.3.2 Awakening of Isabel’s female self-consciousness on marriage

For James, people’s real experience is ethical in essence. From this perspective to analyze the end of the novel, it is not difficult to explain Isabel’s unreasonable decision. It is indeed a contentious question in the history of criticism of James’s novels. When Isabel breaks with Osmond drastically, she comes back to England to look after Ralph. She stays in England for a short time when her cousin is dead. Pansy is sent to the convent by her father because she doesn’t satisfy her father’s wish on marriage. At that time, Casper Goodwood comes to England too. He encourages Isabel to leave Osmond and goes back to America together with him. But it is surprising that Isabel doesn’t give up her futureless marriage; she doesn’t go back to America and live in England but returns to Rome. The Portrait of a Lady questions Isabel’s innocent view about marriage and criticizes that the modern society considers marriage as a “deal”. But the novel emphasizes the ethic value of this social form of marriage. When Isabel is married, she believes that she can bring strength to the family. But after marriage, she finds that her husband wants her to yield to his wishes. She can’t do this. She understands that it is herself that walks into the trap set by Madame Merle and Osmond. But after marriage, she realizes that her husband wants her to yield to his wishes. She is lost in the dilemma of marriage. It is also the sign that she is more mature. Then Isabel realizes that she is not only the member of the social organization but also independent individuals. She must obey the manners and customs of the society. She must face the painful experience.

Another evidence of Isabel’s female self-consciousness is fully awakened is when she visits to the Gardencourt for the second time, she tells her aunt and cousin the fact that her marriage is tragic. It enriches her experience about the pain and makes her more mature. And she gets the female consciousness so Isabel tells her aunt that she is discord to Osmond. She does not like Madame Merle because she makes a convenience of her. When she visits Ralph, she discloses the secret that Ralph makes her become wealthy, but Ralph says that it is the money that ruins Isabel. Then she tells the truth that Osmond marries her for her money. She tells Ralph her unhappy marriage. But Ralph makes a metaphorical evaluate: “you wanted to look at life for yourself--- but you were not allowed; you were punished for your wish. You were ground in the very mill of the conventional.” (James, 1986: 369) At the end of the story, Isabel gains insight that it is unrealistic to escape from marriage. Taking responsibility means that a person should have to experience pain and the pain can be considered as the profound understanding of life. Just like Ralph says “you must have suffered first, have suffered greatly, have gained some miserable knowledge. In that way your eyes are opened to it.” (James, 1986: 39) Isabel believes that she has joined the “feast of life” and seen the “ghost”. Deeper understanding of pain and comprehension of life make Isabel regain the freedom of ideology. Isabel’s consciousness on spirit reflects the development of her rational understanding to the outer world and strengthens her female self-consciousness. The series of the plots show that Isabel has defeated “old self” and realized “ego”.

4. Conclusion

The Portrait of a Lady is regarded as Henry James’s masterpiece in his early literary career. It mainly tells a young and beautiful American girl’s love experience and life pursuits.

The thesis probes into the feminism reflected by the changes of the protagonist’s self-consciousness in The Portrait of a Lady based on the theory of close reading. It explores the development of Isabel’s female self-consciousness by studying the change of Isabel’s ideology at different times.

The thesis studies the feminism in The Portrait of a Lady from three aspects: the sleeping, budding and awakening of female self-consciousness. The first aspect is the sleeping of Isabel in marriage. By the analysis of Isabel’s marriage under the patriarchy, it is found that most women in the nineteenth century rely on and yield to males. They almost have no female self-consciousness. The second aspect is Isabel’s female self-consciousness which can be found budding with the growth of her concrete responsibility and dissatisfaction to the compromise to marriage. The last one exists in the wakening of Isabel’s self-consciousness which can be shown by Isabel’s attitudes toward freedom and marriage. As an individual, Isabel knows the reason why she is alive; as a mature woman she knows how to live.

Based on the above analyses, it can be concluded that in The Portrait of a Lady, the protagonist Isabel’s feminism develops with the growth of her self-consciousness during three different times. By analyzing the feminism in The Portrait of a Lady, the thesis aims at giving readers a new perspective to know more about The Portrait of a Lady as well as feminism.

Works Cited

[1]Beauvoir, Simone de.. The Second Sex. New York: Knopf, 1953.

[2]James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

[3]McCormack, Peggy. The Rule of Money. London: UMI Research Press, 1990.

[4]陈莹莹. 《 论lt;贵妇画像gt;中的国际主题》. 安徽文学，2007 (21): 20-24.

[5]代显梅. 《传统与现代之间：亨利·詹姆斯的小说理论》. 北京：社会科学文献出版社，2006.

[6]亨利·詹姆斯. 《贵妇画像》.洪增流 译. 合肥:安徽文艺出版，1996.

[7]西蒙·德·波伏娃. 《第二性》.陶铁柱译. 北京：中国古籍出版社，1998.

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：30975字