The Three Women Victims In The Portrait Of A Lady

Henry James is an excellent American novelist, art critic and stylist. He is also considered as one of the three great realist masters of the late19th century in America, the other two being William Dean Howells and Mark Twain. The Portrait of a Lady, one of Henry James’s early masterpieces, was published in1881and famous for its complicated psychoanalysis which marked the maturity of his literary career. With his narrative techniques, James successfully depicts three women images in the novel including Isabel Archer, Madame.Merle and Pansy.Based upon Beauvoir’s feminist theories, the thesis is to interpret these three women images as the victims of the patriarchal society embodied in The Portrait of a Lady from a feminist critical angle, and to analyze how James reveals the real situation of women in the man-dominated society. As a man writer of the conventional values, Henry James always insists on the established Victorian values and customs in a patriarchal society. Hence, the three women images created by him are sure to become the victims of the patriarchy and the thesis concludes that women images are put the central position in the novel, but they actually still live in the marginal position of a polite society which is popular with the patriarchal culture and they finally fall into the patriarchal victims which symbolizes all the women’s fate at that age. By reading the novel from the feminist theories, the writer aims to arouse people’s profound thinking of modern women’s situation in the transitional times.There are six chapters in all:The first chapter is the introduction part, the life and works of Henry James will be introduced and the structure of this thesis is also included; besides, this chapter talks about the research summary of the novel both at home and abroad.The second chapter is the theoretical framework, giving readers some brief introductions of feminist criticism and Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist theories on women in the patriarchal society.The third and fourth and fifth chapters are the main parts of the paper:chapter three will explore Isabel as a victim of the patriarchy; the other two women victims concerning Madame.Merle and Pansy are mainly discussed in chapter four; chapter five will explain the narrative techniques of Henry James including the center of consciousness and psychological realism which serve for the content of the novel and make the form and the content of the novel achieve a high unity and then reveal the theme of the novel.Finally the writer comes to the conclusion that the thesis mainly reveals three women images who are the victims of the patriarchy in The Portrait of a Lady. Although they are put the central position in the novel, in fact, they are still in the marginal position of the patriarchal society which is popular with the patriarchy. Henry James being a man writer lives in such kind of society, who has strong patriarchal thought, and can not break his limitations, so women created by him are doom to obey the social norms and fall into the patriarchal victims in the end which are the representative of women’s fate in Victorian times. And the thesis intends to reflect on its realistic significance of the novel and make people seriously think about women’s roles which are in a dilemma between the traditional values and the modern ones in the transitional times.