In being able to rebuff a seemingly beneficial advance, Isabel demonstrates to those around her that choosing to remain unattached (and thus without the extended means of a married woman in late nineteenth-century England) is, in itself, a statement of freedom. She is justified in her choice because, as is considered after Lord Warburton’s initial proposal, she was never really given any choice at all. The narrator sums up Isabel’s state of mind: “What she felt was not a great responsibility, a great difficulty of choice; it appeared to her there had been no choice in the question” ［4］. To Isabel, to be married is to accept an easy path through the challenge she expects from life. The proposals of Lord Warburton and, previously to that, Caspar Goodwood, are threats to her freedom in that a future with guarantees – financial or otherwise - limits the circumstances in which life-changing choices can be made. She does, however, marry, and that to a man who schemes against her. The explanation for this, claims Sigi Jottkandt, is that Gilbert Osmond represents, for Isabel, the ideal of decision-making – the pinnacle of choice:
The image of Osmond strolling on the terrace with Pansy appeals to Isabel not just for its aesthetic value but also, more importantly, because it presents Isabel with a tangible image of a life dedicated to the continual act of selecting and choosing: the life of the connoisseur.［7］
Osmond, then, is not so much a choice as he is the promise of more choices. Furthermore, Osmond is a blank slate, and offers no threats of a predictable future. He is described by Madame Merle in blunt terms: “No career, no name, no position, no fortune, no past, no future, no anything”［4］. Perhaps a man with such unfinished qualities requires shaping, unlike the well-to-do suitors that present themselves (in their complete, assured state) to Isabel in the forms of Warburton and Goodwood. Osmond, then, is the ideal husband as he concurrently represents the mystery and challenge of a person not yet whole, and acts as a symbol for choice.
Counter to this notion is the idea that, for Archer, freedom (and the opportunity to make responsible choices) is something to be feared. “‘A large fortune means freedom,’” states Isabel Archer in conversation with her cousin, Ralph Touchett. She adds: “‘and I'm afraid of that’” ［4］. This generalization – that with capital comes freedom - is proven false by novel’s end in Isabel’s case as her acceptance of an inheritance is followed by turmoil. The statement, however, suggests something specific about Isabel’s conceived model of freedom. With freedom comes the responsibility that, underneath the surface, is objectionable to Archer. Describing her imagined burden of financial security, Isabel states, “‘one must keep thinking; it’s a constant effort’”［4］. Fear of the freedom that comes with money, in this case, lies in Isabel’s unwillingness to make decisions. While the readings of Isabel above would suggest that she revels in making decisions, it is more accurate to state that she never commits to anything because that way she can always claim to be committed to the struggle for greatness. As Isabel wonders about dismissing Warburton, though his offer of marriage is a great “chance,” she comes to some kind of realization: “If she wouldn’t do such a thing as that then she must do great things, she must do something greater”［4］. One might equate this never-ending search to do something great with the prize-fighter who trains incessantly to be given the chance to fight the most worthy opponent, only to decline every invitation with the demented thinking that there is always someone better to wait for. More concisely, and as stated by Sigi Jottkandt, “freedom, for Isabel, means inhabiting the state of possibility”［7］. Ralph Touchett would add:”‘She’s as good as her best opportunities’”［4］. Though the rhetoric of the dream is magnificent, the action that accompanies this thinking is nil. This line of thinking (that Archer is a representation of the failure of striving for a certain type of freedom) is explored by critic Kristin Sanner. Having researched the life of the novel’s author, Sanner suggests that Isabel Archer is a representation of Henry James. James, notes Sanner, was a product of expectation in some sense. Having been encouraged by his father not to become a soldier in the American Civil War, he was allowed to follow that passion which was most prevalent in his life: writing［8］. Society, however, may not have been forgiving of an artist who put his own artistic visions ahead of fighting in the battle that consumed so many other (perhaps “less artistic”) men of his generation. Sanner notes: “As one who chose to follow what he felt he could do best, he certainly had to contend with a society that would have seen him (and did see him) as emasculated and unpatriotic. In Isabel Archer, however, he shows us the consequences of not following that passion”［8］. Here, then, is a suggestion that Archer is a victim of the trap of expectation that threatened to consume James. In order to demonstrate what society can do to dreamers (like himself and Archer), James creates a circumstance in which a person with significant potential and spectacular dreams is stifled by their own unwillingness to follow through on their passions. Isabel, a proponent of personal freedom, settles for a marriage that is smothering because she is unable to follow her rhetorical sense of freedom with the action that it requires to evolve. It should be said that the husband whom Isabel chooses to take is not really of her world. Osmond is very much a symbol of old Europe. He is described by the narrator as having a beard “cut in the manner of the portraits of the sixteenth century”［4］. This is relevant in that Isabel’s eventual husband is a representation of a world she has no previous experience in; it is a world that has its own customs and practices that she, a girl of the New World (and thus new Europe), is foreign to. After being married, the narrator notes Isabel’s conclusions: “She was to think of him as he thought of himself – as the first gentleman in Europe. So it was that she had thought of him at first, and that indeed was the reason she had married him. But when she began to see what it implied she drew back”.［4］ Not only is Osmond a representation of old Europe, but the parallels drawn by the author between Osmond and a character in a portrait suggests that he is the archetype of those characteristics. Perhaps Isabel puts her trust in a man she finds represents something that is foreign to her so that she is protected from the dangers of newness. It is further demonstrated that Isabel is out of her element – so to speak - as her incongruous presence among her new acquaintances is described in the novel:
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