Analysis On The Feminine In "the Portrait Of A Lady"

Henry James (1843-1916): The novelist who is famous for the style of writing and literature and art critics in U.S.A. "The Portrait of a Lady" is one of his early works, and also the representative work. The novel has given an account of the story about how a young bright American lady, Isabel, seeks love and the real life. Around this lady is a lot of distinct female images. These feminine have composed a "new U.S.A. female" group image together.This female group image is both traditional and modern, which is particular existence and also an entirety. They have been full of complicated angles, therefore the main body of the lecture carries out analysis on this group of female from three kinds of different understanding and explaining. Adopting the traditional society visual angle and new female doctrine theory and culture, the main body of the lecture analyses the characteristics of the various female images, synthetically displays female group image.Part I has adopted female doctrine criticism. Owing to his own experience, James has such intense female mental consciousness that he retains a partiality for the female subjects. This is also shown in "The Portrait of a Lady": Females have very strong independent characters, but judging from another angle, this independence is always peeped and controlled by the male. It lays out the lady's mentality portrait under the patriarchy: Representative woman self-complacency and the submission to the male.Part II has been the visual angle which comes to understand and explain from tradition. The female image has reflected persistence of traditional female image in "The Portrait of a Lady". They have reserved many characteristics of traditional female. The most obvious is: Insistence on image of the fair maiden and returning back to family, which mainly comes from two aspect effects: firstly, in the case of the external environments, the real society influences a variety of established female traditional ideas, and the literature tradition ,especially inl9 centuries in United Kingdom, also affects the traditional female image molding . Secondly, the writer keeps a conservative concept on marriage. It's because of these effects that the female images in this work reserve the traditional factors.Part III is that the visual angle is to analyze culture. International subject is one of the characteristics in Henry James' work. The personage image has this very deep cultural connotation under this subject. His confusion and obvious culture intention over cultural exchange are shown by molding the true female images in "The Portrait of a Lady" --Commending the American culture.