A Tragedy Of Personality

Henry James’ novel The Portrait of a Lady tells the story of an young American lady’s life experience in Europe in the Victoria period. The beautiful heroine Isabel Archer, who is naive, independent, fond of freedom and imagination, came to Europe, going against the unnecessary and overelaborate social rules. She is even accidentally trapped by scheming Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond, leading to her miserable marital tragedy. The tragedy of the heroine, in psychoanalysis, is caused by the complicated inner conflicts. Many critics have investigated all the causes of her tragedy, and the most prominent is Henry James’ international theme—an American innocent girl encounters the sophisticated in Europe. Applying the psychoanalysis based on Freudian theory of personality and self defense mechanism, we will be able to find out that the root of the heroine’s marital tragedy actually lies in the imbalance of her personality structure—id, ego and superego. Through the psychological analysis, the paper not only can trace after the heroine’s the psychological state in that society, but also can figure out that the heroine’s tragic marriage is inevitable in the Victoria period.In the introduction section, the thesis focuses on the introduction of Henry James himself and his biographical works, literature review of the research on The Portrait of a Lady at home and abroad and a brief introduction of Freudian theory of human psyche and the defense mechanism.The body of the thesis makes an analysis of personality structure of the heroine Isabel Archer, of which the purpose is to show her choice under her inner conflicts. In this section, the first chapter analyzes Isabel’s id, and the formation of her id under her family background. The second chapter discusses Isabel’s superego, and the conflict between her id and superego. The third chapter deals with Isabel’s ego and ego defense mechanism, which functions to balance id and superego, giving explanation on why Isabel makes the final choice.The conclusion section is a summary of how Isabel’s tragedy of personality leads to her marital tragedy, and her ambivalence in the social context at that time, indicating her complicated and profound psychological causes of her tragic end of life.