The Portrait of a Lady

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1881

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-7

Chapters 8-14

Chapters 15-21

Chapters 22-27

Chapters 28-35

Chapters 36-46

Chapters 47-55

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Literary Devices

Point of View

The narrative perspective Henry James employs in Portrait is one of the most unique and critically contested aspects of the novel. James begins with third-person omniscient narration, which shifts among the perspectives of Isabel, Ralph, and Mrs. Touchett, among others. The narrator is a minor character, who sometimes uses the first person, addressing the reader directly and commenting on the characters.

Typical of Victorian novels, omniscient narration means that the narrator has complete access to some or all characters’ thoughts and feelings. However, James subverts expectations of omniscient narration in Portrait. For example, the narrator draws attention to elements of narrative that have been lost: “Of what Isabel then said no report has remained” (44). This produces uncertainty and ambiguity for the reader, who doesn’t know which information they will and won’t have access to.

The narrator gradually begins to withhold more information from the reader. The narrative then skips forward in time and operates for a while at a remove from Isabel’s interiority and her decision to marry Gilbert. It returns to her perspective and focuses intently on her subjective experience toward the novel’s end. Finally, the point of view cuts again away from Isabel, so that the reader is not aware of the thought process behind her final decision to return to her husband in Rome.

Allusion

James employs literary allusions throughout Portrait. Allusions to literature are used to characterize individuals through their taste, as well as to suggest themes and cultural contexts that appear in other works or in relation to other authors. For example, one description of Isabel’s freedom, “The world lay before her—she could do whatever she chose” (321), is an allusion to Milton’s Paradise Lost. The key theme of Paradise Lost is the biblical “fall” of the angels from heaven and Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. James therefore foreshadows the fall from freedom Isabel is going to experience in her marriage. Another significant allusion is the sonnet Gilbert writes for Isabel, which is titled “Rome Revisited” in a reference to Oscar Wilde’s “Rome Unvisited.” This allusion is significant because Wilde was a representative figure for aestheticism (See: Background), which James critiques.

James employs allusion self-consciously to highlight or subvert the narrative as a narrative. Ralph tells Henrietta, “I’ll be Caliban and you shall be Ariel” (130), which references Shakespeare’s The Tempest. However, she replies, “You’re not at all like Caliban, because you’re sophisticated, and Caliban was not. But I’m not talking about imaginary characters; I’m talking about Isabel. Isabel’s intensely real” (130). James therefore creates irony and verisimilitude as a fictional character suggests that she is talking about real life rather than imagined people.

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits to nonhuman objects. Architectural spaces and design elements are important throughout Portrait. Architectural spaces are used as metaphors for psychological interiority and the condition of characters’ mental states.

Design elements are closely connected to James’s critique of aestheticism and Gilbert Osmond’s character. James uses anthropomorphism to enhance the relatability and significance of both architecture and furniture throughout the novel. James describes Isabel’s childlike relation to a sofa as an empathetic conversation partner: “an old haircloth sofa in especial, to which she had confided a hundred childish sorrows” (38). James also characterizes important architectural spaces using anthropomorphism. Gilbert’s house in Florence “had a somewhat incommunicative character [… and] heavy lids, but no eyes” (231). The ominous human portrayal of Gilbert’s house foreshadows the gradual reveal of his antagonistic character.

In the drawing room at Gardencourt when she arrives to see Ralph before his death, Isabel’s mental state is reflected in the anthropomorphized room around her: “She grew impatient at last; she grew nervous and scared—as scared as if the objects about her had begun to show for conscious things, watching her trouble with grotesque grimaces” (560). This use of anthropomorphism makes Isabel’s inner turmoil tangible and physically associated with the room around her. It is also important because Gilbert’s obsession with objects and furnishings is a grotesque aspect of his character. Overall, James employs anthropomorphism to characterize spaces and characters’ states of mind.