The Analysis On Androgynous Traits Of Isabel, Madame Merle And Pansy In The Portrait Of A Lady

The Portrait of a Lady, published in1881is Henry James’ representative novel during his early writing career. The heroine. Isabel, immigrates to Britain from America. Once, she begins to know Mr. Gilbert Osmond-an American spent many years in European countries. His gentleness and well-behaved manner has aroused Isabel’s interests to marry him. As time goes, she starts to realize her husband only cared about her properties. Although, Isabel sufferes in a struggling life, she returns back to her so-called family to carry her duties.Compared with Isabel, it seems to be able to classify Merle and Pansy as representative samples of other kinds of females at that time. Madame Merle is the type of the females who never gained her individual freedom with her incomplete androgynous traits. For Pansy, she is a typical one to live under patriarchal authority and religious system. Such kind of female would rather sacrifice the liberation to entertain others.This thesis will be divided into three parts. Chapter One mainly focuses on the analysis of three females’ androgynous traits in this novel. In other words, it is an exploration to reveal their personal traits and social status under the sovereign of males.Chapter Two is about the consequence of being possessed with the unbalanced androgyny under the gender conflicts. Under the dominant role of males, these three females are failed in unfolding their own androgynous traits successfully. Meanwhile, it is also an implication of their various tragic ends. In addition, this chapter extends a further discussion on gender conflicts. With the development of the novel, their flexural psychological development process can be considered as the rises and falls of their androgynous traits eruptions.Chapter Three places the importance on the formation of females’tragedies. With the decreasing of androgynous traits, the females are forced to be limited, affiliated and aphasia. Remarkably, their sorrows and sufferings which are irresistible and unavoidable will companion them in their future life. This chapter is functioned as a transition to facilitate the thematic sublimation in conclusion part.The conclusion is that Henry James created these three females who are labeled as his typical female characters to emphasize the difficulties for females in pursuing gender identity and acquiring more rights under patriarchal authority. These three females are the reflections of other female peers at that time. Obviously. Henry James does not only depend on blunt criticism, but also manifests the compliments on females" freedom pursuit and their demands on self-actualization. As the author of The Portrait of a Lady, he has carried out his duty by drawing an overall portrait of the females, offering a unique angle on the comprehension of androgynous females’sufferings under males’sovereigns. That is the only reason why Alwyn Berland proposed that The Portrait of a Lady is a leading mark of the art of fiction.