A Paean Of Individualism

The Portrait of a Lady is one of Henry James's most famous fictions. Like most of his works, it deals with the international theme. As what he once wrote to one of his friends, the novel was about the European adventure of a new American female. The newness of the female character in this novel, Isabel, is her individualism, which in the traditional conception, may be contradictive with the word "lady" in the title of the novel. However, the newness of the novel just lies in the point that Henry James created a protagonist who finally achieves the conventional position of lady without losing her individualism.This thesis mainly explores the developing process of Isabel's individualism. The three parts in this thesis respectively analyze the initiation, the development and the maturity of Isabel's individualism.The first part discusses the initiation of Isabel's individualism. It focuses on the social influence, Isabel's father, Mr. Archer's influence and her reading hobby's influence on the formation of her individualism. Individualism is the national character of America, which experiences the War of independence, the westward movement and the civil war, and has become an approach of thinking and dealing with things in people's life in America in the period Isabel lived. The American individualism leaves clear mark on Isabel. Mr. Archer's way of bringing up his children, in another way. nurtures her individualism. Her hobby of reading also helps to enhance her individualism. The books she has read, including Elizabeth Browning, George Eliot and German Philosophies turns out have relations with individualism.The second part turns to the development of Isabel's individualism. This part focuses on her life in Europe before marrying Osmond. This part is also the expression of her individualism. The thesis selects three important concepts in individualism to manifest how her individualism pushes her to make important decisions in her life. The three concepts are autonomy, self-development and pride. These three elements work together in Isabel's mind whenever she is going to make a decision and lead to her decline of Lord Warburton and Mr. Goodwood's proposals and accepts Osmond to be her husband.The third part discusses the maturity of Isabel's individualism. This part mainly focuses on Isabel's final decision of returning to her unhappy marriage from three aspects: her final recognition of selfhood, the courage of taking responsibility and achievement of final freedom. This part is not a refutation to the second part. But it is the natural developing step of the second part. Isabel's individualism pushes her to make the decisions leading her into a miserable life condition. But from this consequence of her decision, she rethinks about herself and people around and her long-cherished individualism. Finally she gives a better definition of selfhood, freedom and individualism.