A Study Of The Portrait Of A Lady From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Henry James(1843-1916)is one of the most prestigious writers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in both British and American literature.Born into an affluent American family,Henry James has been taken to European continent many times since he was a child.Therefore,he has gained the transatlantic vision of both the New world and the Old.He has created many international novels,in which innocent Americans confronting sophisticated Europeans realize their maturation as a result of much struggling and suffering.Published in 1881,The Portrait of a Lady as one of Henry James’ international novels has won a great success among the readers and literary critics.The Portrait of a Lady has been analyzed from many perspectives,such as cultural study,philosophical reading,aestheticism,psychoanalysis,and so on.However,very few researchers interpret the novel from the perspective of ethical literary criticism.Through probing into the characters’ ethical choices and exploring various ethical phenomena,Henry James’ ethical ideas can be revealed in The Portrait of a Lady.This thesis intends to analyze The Portrait of a Lady from the perspective of ethical literary criticism which is an approach to literary criticism developing on the basis of introduction of ethical methods as well as the assimilation of them into the literary texture.The thesis aims to reveal Henry James’ ethical and moral ideas in The Portrait of a Lady from the three aspects: the relationship between human and society,the relationship between human and human as well as the relationship between human and himself.This thesis consists of five parts:Chapter one firstly introduces Henry James’ s writing experiences and literary achievements and then gives a brief summary of The Portrait of a Lady.Secondly,critical reviews on The Portrait of a lady from both at home and abroad are presented.The last part of this chapter introduces the theory of ethical literary criticism in a systematic way and clarifies the connections between the ethical literary theory and The Portrait of a Lady by finding the ethical factors in The Portrait of a Lady from three aspects in terms of human-self relationship,human-other relationship andhuman-society relationship.Chapter two illustrates the ethical phenomena of pursuing selfhood in terms of human-self relationship by disclosing the two forms of selfhood represented by two of the female protagonists—Isabel Archer and Madam Merle.Isabel’s pursuit of selfhood is the process of independence and self-fulfillment.However,in contrast to Isabel’s pure and noble pursuit,Madam Merle’s pursuit of selfhood is a evil and hypocritical one manifested by her manipulation and egoism.In the pursuit of selfhood Isabel’s ethical identity has been shifted from from an innocent,intuitive young lady to a mature,experienced married woman,while Madam Merle keeps struggling between animal factor and human factor,but fails to take control of her villainous side of animal factor and ends up in her disillusionment of good fame and fortune.Chapter three analyzes the ethical phenomena of pursuing matrimony in terms of human-other relationship.This chapter focuses on Isabel’s marriage dilemma and the resolution of this dilemma.Isabel’s marriage dilemma is concerned with three men,Caspar Goodwood,Lord Warburton and Gilbert Osmond.The relationship between Isabel and the other three men will be analyzed in terms of the pursuer-pursued relationship and the marriage relationship.Caspar Goodwood’s strong masculinity and Lord Warburton’s aristocratic background suppress Isabel.In the second half of the novel,Lord Warburton’s ambiguous approaching married Isabel poses a threat of possible extramarital relationship to Isabel,and therefore he is rejected again by Isabel.Isabel’s marriage with Osmond doesn’t bring her happiness,but she still chooses to uphold the holy matrimony,which illuminates Henry James’ marital ethnics in depicting Isabel as a defender of marital loyalty and responsibility.Chapter four focuses on the the ethical phenomena of pursuing freedom in terms of human-society relationship.This chapter mainly explores how the ethical environment influences the American expatriates in the novel.Isabel’s pursuit of freedom can be followed through her moral trajectory from Albany to London,London to Florence,and Florence to Rome,with each new city representing a new degree of social rigidity and human cruelty in Isabel’s life.Although Henry James leaves the result of Isabel’s pursuing freedom as a mystery,but we still catch the glimpses of the silver lining.In contrast,other American expatriates like Gilbert Osmond and Madam Merle,Ralph Touchett and Edward Rosier seem to have their hopeless pursuit of freedom.Gilbert Osmond and Madam Merle’s decadency to social conventions and tyranny leave them no hope for the realization of spiritual freedom.Ralph Touchett and Edward Rosier,however,suffer the disillusionment from their idealized cosmopolitanism.Chapter five concludes that ethical literary criticism offers a new approach to the interpretation of The Portrait of a Lady.Through the exploration of the ethical connotations in the three-layer relationship—human-self relationship,human-other relationship and human-society relationship,Henry James’ ethical ideas are presented to readers in The Portrait of a Lady.