Portrait Of A Lady Identity

The characters in “The Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James are mostly American people who came in Europe at a moment in their lives. They have lived in Europe from the beginning of their life, as in the case of Madame Merle, or they came there in their adulthood, like Isabel did. Either way, the European lifestyle had an influence on their shaping of identity. Isabel Archer is the main character of James’s novel “The Portrait of a Lady”. The personality she has created while living in America was highly touched by moving in Europe. There she had known friendship, the feeling of love, of being wanted, but also feelings like disappointment and deception. Technically, Europe is the place where Isabel discovered …show more content…
She arrives in Europe with some standards, led by the idea of independence- where at the end of the novel she will be bounded to a man and when having the opportunity to escape the marriage, she makes the decision to return and assume her choices. Assuming her decision represents for her in the end a proof of independence. Madame Merle thinks that Americans are not welcome in Europe, and that is why they can be compared with parasites or homeless. She can prove this through the fact that she is a single woman, who travels a lot and who can be said that she did not find stability in this world. She did not find her place there in Europe. As it is revealed in the novel, Madame Merle was someday the wife of Gilbert Osmond and the mother of Pansy Osmond. The girl was raised in a convent school, which means that neither her father nor her mother involved in her …show more content…
I don’t envy them, trying to arrange themselves. Look at poor Ralph Touchett; what sort of a figure do you call that? Fortunately he has got a consumption; I say fortunately, because it gives him something to do. His consumption is his career; it’s a kind of position. You can say, ‘Oh, Mr. Touchett, he takes care of his lungs, he knows a great deal about climates.’ But without that, who would he be, what would he represent? ‘Mr. Ralph Touchett, an American who lives in Europe.’ That signifies absolutely nothing—it’s impossible that anything should signify less. ‘He is very cultivated,’ they say; ‘he has got a very pretty collection of old snuff-boxes.’ The collection is all that is wanted to make it pitiful. I am tired of the sound of the word; I think it’s grotesque. With the poor old father it’s different; he has his identity, and it is rather a massive one. He represents a great financial house, and that, in our day, is as good as anything else. For an American, at any rate, that will do very well.” (138) Madame Merle suggests that it is hard for an American to shape an identity in Europe. And when it happens, as in the case of old Mr. Touchett, it is very good thing, but rare for an American. He succeeded in making a good status in the English society and not being a “parasite” and an