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Portrait Of A Lady Character Analysis

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Henry James with his intense knowledge of intimate human relationship with the self and with the world becomes an explorer of the intricacies of human life. A man of cosmopolitan perspective and international outlook, Henry James presents men and women as not merely confined within their own world but also as concerned with the outer world. For him, man is not static and during his journey of life he comes across several encounters –good or bad –through which he gains experiences which consequently enrich his life. This reality of human life forms the basis of the present novel The Portrait of A Lady in which a young innocent American girl during her physical and spiritual journey of life comes through several experiences, hence becomes mature …show more content…

Her sense of duty and love for her step –daughter Pancy clearly shows what critics like F.O. Matthiesson also feel that she is gifted with qualities of pity and compassion through which a higher form of humanity take birth in her soul.185-86. Now she understands that life is not so pleasant and happy as she has earlier comprehended it and that, to use Oscar Cargill’s phrase, “sheer liberty had none” 104-05, while duty has some meaning. Of course, after her painful experiences, Isabel with this moral understanding becomes mature enough to face risks and unknown trials. No doubt, she suffers but with a moral and spiritual enlightenment. After her departure from romantic idealization, imaginative colourful visions and mere bookish knowledge all based entirely on earlier immaturity and innocence, Isabel experiences the basic contradictions of human life. During her odyssey from illusion to reality, she feels the existence of the good with the bad, of the simple with the complex. She now perceives the selfishness underlying human relationships in the form of the sinister egotism of her husband named Osmond and of the calculated steps of Madame

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