<<贵妇人画像>>中伊莎贝尔•阿切尔性格的分析(英文)

Abstract: This paper aims to make a brief analysis of the Isabel’s personality in The portrait of a lady through analysis on Isabel’s idea in some aspects，such as her idealism, liberalism, sexuality and so on. Isabel is the major character in The Portrait of a Lady, so the development and transition of her personality serve as a clew in the story. Meanwhile, as a typical character both in Henry James’s great works and in the cultural merger, Isabel stands out as a representation. Therefore, through the analysis of her personality could help people have a better understanding to Isabel, a representation in the cultural merger at that time.

Key words: Isabel; idealism; liberalism; sexuality; marriage

摘要：本文从性格分析角度入手从几个方面包括自由观，理想主义，性观念，婚姻观等方面分析女主人公伊莎贝尔•阿切尔的性格特征。伊莎贝尔作为<<贵妇人画像>>中的主人公，她的性格发展以及转变是故事发展的主要线索。与此同时，作为亨利•詹姆斯笔下以及那个时代文化融合下的典型人物形象，伊莎贝尔具有一定的代表性。因此，对其性格的分析可以让人们对伊莎贝尔这样一个文化融合背景下的人物有更深刻的了解。

关键词：伊莎贝尔；理想主义；自由主义；性观念；婚姻

Introduction:
Henry James, American-born writer, gifted with talents in literature, psychology, and philosophy. James wrote 20 novels, 112 stories, 12 plays and a number of literary criticisms. His models were Dickens, Balzac, and Hawthorne. James once said that he learned more of the craft of writing from Balzac "than from anyone else".
"A novel is in its broadest sense a personal, a direct impression of life: that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of the impression." ［1］
Like all writers, James is concerned with the human situation, interpreting characters and life, in the actual situation of Americans confronted by the European scene he finds material that is in its very nature admirably suited to express his ideas about life and the general human condition as he understands it. James contrasts the two societies very carefully and presents their conflicting values: American culture is provincial, but it can produce people with moral and natural spontaneity; European culture is dense and rich, representing an accumulation of history and custom and a complexity of manners and types, but it is decaying and corrupt. Thus under the surface contrast of national cultures and societies lies a metaphoric theme how one can reach his perfect maturity, both moral and cultural. James belongs in the liberal Protestant tradition, shared by such writers as John Milton and William Blake, Emerson and Hawthorne. He cherishes the value of individual human integrity and considers the development of each individual potential as the greatest good. Consequently, whatever contributes to that development he considers good, and whatever impedes it evil. In James view, those impediments to human development are the various laws of man creation that dictate systems of behavior: the traditions of social history, the conventions of civilized society, and the rituals of institutionalized religion and the regulations of ethical codes. At the same time, James knows well that traditions, conventions and manners are necessary for the smooth functioning of civilized society that one is obliged to do things in certain acceptable ways in order that civilized human intercourse is possible. So compromise is necessary. On the one hand, James is opposed to completely giving one personality up to conventions; on the other hand, he is against refusing the necessary compromise. The ultimate value is always the individual, but he must adapt conventional manners to himself in such a way as to have them express him truly. The metaphoric theme of James international fiction just expresses this ideal compromise or reconciliation experience embodied in Europeans wedded to innocence embodied in Americans.      
One of the most finely detailed and individual creations in Henry James's splendid gallery of characters, Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady continues to interest readers more than a century. "The Portrait of a Lady" was published in three volumes in 1881. The masterpiece of the first phase of James' career, the novel is a study of Isabel Archer, a young American woman of great promise who travels to Europe and becomes a victim of her own provincialism. James began the novel without a plot or subject, only the slim but provocative notion of a young woman taking control of her fate. The result is a richly imagined study of an American heiress who turns away her suitors in an effort to first establish and then protect her independence. She is the perfect Henry James heroine, embodying all of the major preoccupations of his writing career. As such, she is also a mix of unlike elements. Isabel Archer is both innocent and knowing, even as the untutored, naive American, she marries the most European of re-made Americans, she loves liberty and yet she marries a man who would guarantee her constraint, and she has a strong distaste for the emptiness of conventionality while submitting to it readily and consistent［2］. At present, there’re a great number of scholars have carried out their own analysis of Isabel from different aspects, but a few of them look into the personality of Isabel through her ideal.转贴于 酷文网-论文下载中心 http://www.coolwen.net