Portrait of a Lady (version 3)
Portrait of a Lady (version 3)
Isabel Archer wants to be free more than she wants to be happy. This is the devastating irony at the heart of Henry James's masterpiece: a young American woman who dreams of independence, receives a fortune that grants her exactly that, and then uses her liberty to walk directly into captivity. We meet Isabel in Albany plain in appearance but ferocious in imagination. Her aunt carries her to England where an unexpected legacy gives her what she always wanted: the means to see the world, to know it, to become something. But James understands something merciless about freedom - that we often mistake it for wisdom, and choice for self-knowledge. As Isabel collects suitors, travels, marries, and builds her elegant prison, we watch a woman who can see everything except the thing that matters most: herself. The portrait in the title is not merely painted canvas but the image Isabel projects to others while remaining blind to her own nature. It is perhaps the most psychologically precise novel ever written about the tragedy of an intelligent woman who creates her own cage.
X-Ray
