The Portrait of a Lady, Essay Example

Modernity is often times, through the course of its study and application, defined by its ability to morph and become something new through questioning the traditional canon. Thus, the canon becomes the new. This transition is marked by French philosopher/sociologist, Michael Foucault, between different historical periods that share a brief space in time. This is no less true in the modern era. According to Foucault, the idea/canon of modernity has not shifted or transitioned since its inception. Modernity, as a staple, has in consequence, been able to shift the old canon into a new one, and yet maintain its definition through acquiring new definitions. In opposition to this concept, Charles Baudelaire describes the era of modernity as a severing of the tradition. In relation to this Henry James’s novel The Portrait of a Lady has been read as a portrayal of the protagonist’s, Isabel’s, transformation into a modern woman. Critics have interpreted this presentation as a celebration of the capabilities of modernity in the novel, and how modernity can be morphed through the language of suffering and melancholy that have both stood as staples of this canon. This paper will explore a counter definition that argues that the novel at once establishes modernity and sees a death in the traditional figures of the mother and wife through its morphing nature.

The novel’s opening scene shows the sick Mr. Touchett’s strong attachment to his wife’s shawl, which he uses to cover and protect his legs. The shawl in turn is a symbol of the traditional woman’s role in the family as wife (an archetype that is defined through savior and protector status). Mr. Touchett’s inability to give up his wife’s shawl indicates his anguish about the decay of his culture and tradition.  Shortly thereafter the reader learns that Mrs. Touchett, the modern woman, rejects playing her traditional role as a mother and a wife in order to maintain her self-autonomy, thereby embracing the modern. Mme. Merle and Henrietta are also modern women whose modernity revolts against the traditional functions of women. These modern women are first introduced to the readers in Gardencourt. The ghost haunting Gardencourt is a traditional archetype of the literary canon; a woman representing both mother and wife – the figure that Mr. Touchett laments at the beginning of the novel. The novel’s ending, therefore, does not mark Isabel’s full transformation into a modern lady but, paradoxically, merely the beginning of her adoption to the modern, a process that necessitates the revival of the old. It is only after seeing the ghost that Isabel determines to return to her husband, instead of embarking into a modern life that would in turn prove as a detachment from her old life and her previous identity/transformation. This is similar to the modern life that Mrs. Touchett, Mme. Merle and Henrietta live. This paper will seek to establish the loss of the traditional figure of the mother and wife in literature. This loss will be dissected and analyzed as a catalyst in the women’s identities that in turn redefine the public and private spheres and give birth to an in-between space that is neither private nor public. Kindness, love and virtue are not qualities of the women in The Portrait of the Lady, but rather traits of the invalid Ralph who occupies this in-between space. The closing scene of the novel marks James’s attempt to revive this traditional/archetypal figure of woman.