Seminar 1: The Portrait of a Lady (1881)Focus of Study:Author: Henry James- Life Experience - Literary Career Literary Technique:- Psychological Realism (The Art of Fiction)- The scenic method- The functional character/reflector- Feminist issuesThe Portrait of a Lady:- Plot overview- Characterization- The atmosphere of a mind: Isabel Archer as functional character- The International theme- Chapter analysis

The 1st US edition (photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Portrait_of_a_Lady)

Life Experience:1843- born in N.Y. in a wealthy and cultivated family with five children;Father- preoccupied with theology; conservative view upon marriage and the difference between the sexes (effect on Alice sister- depression); In youth, shuttled back and forth between Europe and America, thus received unsystematic but broadly based education; 1862-63, studied in Harvard Law School; abandoned it to concentrate on writing;

Young Henry James(photo source: http://ellenandjim.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/henry-james)

- After 1866, lived in Europe much of the time;1875, moved permanently to England;1915, became a British subject, a year before his death;1916, received the Order of Merit on his deathbed;never married.

Literary Career: Novelist, story writer, essayist, literary critic. Three periods in novel writing:- First stage:1875-1886, three novels in the naturalistic mode; the International theme. Works : The American (1877) ; Daisy Miller (1878) and The Portrait of a Lady (1881).Second stage: 1890-1899, experimented with various subjects and forms: turned to threedominant subjects: troubled writers and artists,ghosts and apparitions, doomed or threatened children and adolescents, feminist issues; The Turn of the Screw (1898).

Third stage: returned to his International themeand produced the complex and profound novels ofhis literary career: The Ambassadors (1903) and TheGolden Bowl (1904).

Literary Technique:H. James began as a realistic writer and ended as a psychological novelist.Father of the British modernism; representative of Psychological Realism= a manner of writing that evolved in the late 19th and early 20th century. This genre is associated mainly with Henry James, who used his fiction to explore family relationships, romantic desires and small-scale power struggles in painstaking detail. UnlikeDickenss realist novels (which tend to level direct criticisms at social injustices)

orFlauberts realist compositions (which are made up of lavish finely-ordered descriptions of varied people, places, and objects), Jamess works of psychological realism focused largely on the inner lives of the characters. Jamess most famous novels - includingThe Portrait of a Lady,The Turn of the Screw andThe Ambassadors - are intentionally vague at times and intentionally portray characters with imperfect self-knowledge and unfulfilled yearnings.

Jamess emphasis on psychology influenced some of the most important writers of the modernist era, such asT.S. Eliot. However, psychological realism should not be confused with psychoanalytic writing and surrealism- two other ways of artistic expression that flourished in the 20th century and focused on psychology in unique ways.In his essay The Art of Fiction James claimed that the supreme virtue of a novel is its air of reality. He was the first to view novel as an artform, concerned with the objective and impartial presentation of the realities of life.

His novels are constructed as a succession of scenes in which the narrative, the dialogue and the description blend scenic method/scenic novels. In these novels what is narrated is filtered through the mind of a main character (Strether in The Ambassadors): this is the functional character/reflector= interprets what happens, suggests alternatives, sees deeper into the matter than all the others, filters the moral debate through his conscience; a central intelligence which gives consistency and unity to the events narrated and turns the novel into an open-ended experience.Where characters are concerned, his major focus was human consciousness, namely the analysis of the characters psychology (intelligent and subtle people).Feminist issues: treatment of marriage, difference between the sexes, psychological effect of womens submission in a patriarchal society.

The Portrait of a Lady plot overviewThe novel explores the theme of an American young ladys quest foridentity in Europe. Isabel Archer, a clever, sensitive (perhaps this sensitivity is her major flaw) and highly refined girl comes to Europe after her parents death as the ward of a rich aunt, Mrs. Touchett. Isabel gains the Touchetts affection gradually; as a result, Mr.Touchett leaves her a huge sum of money in his will so that she could obtain the independence she so much desires. Lord Warburton, a British aristocrat and friend of the Touchetts, proposes to Isabel, but she refuses him:

Madame Merle is an accomplished, graceful, and manipulative woman, a popular lady who does not have a husband or a fortune. Motivated by her love for Gilbert Osmond, Merle manipulates Isabel into marrying Osmond, delivering Isabels fortune into his hands and ruining Isabels life in the process. Without either Isabel or Pansys knowing it, Merle is not only Osmonds lover, but she is also Pansys mother, a fact that was covered up after the girls birth. Pansy was raised to believe that her mother had died in childbirth.

The atmosphere of a mind: Isabel Archer as functional characterIn the essay The Art of Fiction James explained his concept of the experience as the atmosphere of the mind: Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue. It is the very atmosphere of the mind; and when the mind is imaginative - much more when it happens to be that of a man of genius - it takes to itself the faintest hints of life, it converts the very pulses of the air into revelations.The author s intention is to write a novel centred on one character, while all the other characters contribute to painting her inner portrait, the atmosphere of her mind. For James the point of viewis simply that particular manner of telling the story by filtering it through the mind of a character- the functional character.

The Portrait of a Lady delves into Isabel Archers mind: the author creates for his readers an image of his heroine from outside opinions and from the interior of her own mind as if the readers were able to look from the outside in and from the inside out. In other words, the author creates two different levels of perspective: first, Isabel as seen by the world, second, the world as seen by Isabel.She is the central figure of the novel in which only her character is to be clearly shown. All other characters remain to some extent dim, undefined, obscured even to the reader. The other characters are there to interact with her. Their function is to bring out her nature and provoke her mind to activity so that its qualities are revealed.

The International Theme

The International Americans are Mr. and Mrs. Touchett, Ralph Touchett, Madame Merle, Gilbert Osmond. They are the people who, though American-born, have settled in Europe and have adopted European values. On the other hand, Henrietta Stackpole and Caspar Goodwood are only visitors and do not have the time or the desire to get contaminated by European values. Mr. and Mrs. Touchett, as well as Ralph Touchett are the good Americans in Europe, those who have assimilated the good values of Europe. Consequently, they are experienced and sophisticated in a positive way. On the other hand, Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond are decadent, libertine and artificial.Isabel is changed by her European experience, but her independence of mind saves her from being like the others. She is more akin to the Touchetts than to either Osmond or Madame Merle.

Topics for discussion:

Plot overview in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.Mention two characters from The Portrait of a Lady and characterize each of them in a 10-15 lines. Name and explain the main literary theme in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.Summary of Chapter 1 in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.Mention the time and place of action in Chapter 1 of The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.Which are the characters introduced in Chapter 1 of The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James?Make a brief characterization of each of the persons present or mentioned in Chapter 1 - The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.What does the author describe in Chapter 1 in The Portrait of a Lady? Mention the function of the description.How does the author introduce the literary theme of the novel in Chapter 1 in The Portrait of a Lady?Why is there so much emphasis on settings, buildings, landscape in Chapter 1 in The Portrait of a Lady?

Describe the Touchetts house, giving as many details as you remember. What are Ralph Touchett and Lord Warburton discussing about in the garden? What are their different views upon their lives?Which is Mr. Touchetts opinion upon young people and their lives?Justify the end of the novel The Portrait of a Lady, taking into account the following quotation: She () needed to feel that her unhappiness should not have come to her through her own fault.

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