“[W]ho’s ‘quite independent,’ and in what sense is the term used? - that point’s not yet
settled.” - Chapter 1
Posed during the course of a casual conversation between Ralph Touchett and Lord
Warburton in the opening chapter of James’ novel The Portrait of a Lady, this deceptively
simple question serves as the introduction to what is arguably one of the work’s subtlest, and
most wide-ranging themes. Although the conversation between the two men remains light in
tone and their attention is soon turned to other topics, the question returns even more
pointedly with the frustration of Ralph’s curiosity, when he later asks his mother, the author
of the telegram in which the word “independent” had been so ambiguously used, what
exactly she had meant. If the issue were only of trifling importance and not something to be
considered seriously, it might have been quickly and easily answered, dissipating all mystery,
or even entirely forgotten. Mrs. Touchett’s response that she doesn’t remember and never
knows what she means, has the result of delaying any true resolution, besides drawing greater
attention to the issue; moreover, it signals that the answer to be provided will not prove to be
as simple as the question appeared in the asking (49). In spite of James’ reputation for a
tendency to obliquity, the issue of independence is raised in fairly explicit terms; the precise
nature of the word on the other hand is what remains unclear. Thus the challenge represented
in this question depends heavily on fitting the term “independent” to its most appropriate
meaning, essentially a matter of definition. The array of possibilities Ralph himself
considers offer a starting point for an inquiry, the options ranging from a justification
dependent on monetary wealth to one based on the strength of individual will: “is it used in a
moral or in a financial sense? Does it mean that they’ve been left well off, or that they wish
Combined with the broad scope of the question of independence and its significant
implications as to gender, money, and personal idealism; it is thus necessary to establish and
justify the terms used here, particularly to defend this analysis’ use of the word “will” in
place of independence. While it is true that “independence” might have been retained with
less trouble and with the further advantage of adhering to the term predominant in the novel,
it lacks the full range of connotations that are actually represented. Will is undoubtedly the
richer of the two options for it carries with it the greater number of connotations; moreover, it
is appropriately both a verb and a noun, and can thus represent, which is so crucial to the
range of possibilities for Isabel’s demonstration of her own will, either the active or the
essential. Unlike independence, it takes into consideration the fact that the body may or not
possess the physical capacity to carry out a particular inclination of the mind, while also
acknowledging the strength or determination of mind which produces that inclination though
it may not be actually be expressed through the movements of the body. Additionally, the
word also implicitly draws on the moral ideas of free will, and the paradoxical nature of its
full realization through service to something other than one’s own will. While separate from
the theological construct of free will, the “will” that forms the subject for this thesis
nonetheless brings into play many of the same existential questions about how it can be
achieved, the obstacles that stand in the way of its highest fulfillment, and what the costs of
obtaining it might possibly be.
To return to the relative importance of will more generally, there is additional
justification for this thematic reading of the novel in the second part of Mrs. Touchett’s
explanation, which is surprisingly neglected in the scholarship; for her seemingly offhand
half of this analysis: clarity in expressing the will (49). While this specific instance deals
with the difficulties of modern verbal or written communication, it is actually another form
of communication that stands at the center of the novel, the question of effectively expressing
one’s identity as an individual.1 Independence and freedom in the existing body of
scholarship has been roundly and fully acknowledged; however, much of it has skirted the
issue of identity, of which freedom is a crucial element in Isabel’s sense of self. The issue is
not only one of asserting Isabel’s capability to act independently, according to her wishes, it
is also a matter of her expressing herself as an individual who defines herself by the force of
her will. These two themes are so closely intertwined that they appear to be mere shades
apart, yet the distinction is key, and helps unfold some of the complex layering of Isabel’s
psychology of self-determination as it relates to the world surrounding her. Her vow that
“she would be what she appeared, and she would appear what she was” serves as the best
illustration of this overlap between the separate elements of her identity and the ability to
express her will: it is only through the latter that she is able to make known the former, and it
is through the latter that she is able to take the measure of the former (54). Besides this
relative gap in the criticism, there has also been too little comparison done between the ideas
of freedom as expressed in the novel and those written by James in considering the principles
of writing fiction. It would be far beyond the scope or aim of this thesis to attempt to make
any direct connections to events in James’ life, or claim access to authorial intention;
however, it seems appropriate in this thesis to occasionally examine the theme as it appears
in his non-fiction writings. After all, this same element of exercising the will is just as
1 Eric L. Haralson, and John Carlos Rowe. A Historical Guide to Henry James. Oxford University
important for James the writer as it is for James the philosopher, and can be seen in his
criteria for judging the merits of a novel: “there will be no intensity at all, and therefore no
value, unless there is freedom to feel and say. The tracing of a line to be followed, of a tone
to be taken, of a form to be filled out, is a limitation of that freedom and a suppression of that
very thing that we are most curious about.”2
Chapter I: Will and the Woman
The Portrait of a Lady is largely a novel about the self-perception of individuals, but
equally included in this is the way in which that identity is received and understood by
others, whose perspective is limited for the most part to what can be outwardly seen or that
the individual can sensibly express. Working with unequal access to personal motivations
and weighing the relative importance of certain characteristics according to their own scales,
it can be easily believed that the impressions held by individuals themselves are rarely
identical to the ones held by those regarding them. Differences between the two impressions
would not be so important were it not for the fact that this interaction between society and the
self is comprised of both an active and a passive component, that the process does not stop at
forming and possessing these impressions but ends in acting upon them. Not only does
society develop a particular set of beliefs about an individual, with ignorance or indifference
as to their accuracy, it imposes expectations that have risen out of that impression. Under
these expectations, certain codes of behavior become either acceptable or inappropriate, with
the result that the individual is subject to limits placed on his or her freedom. Thus, what
begins as a limitation upon the ability to have knowledge of an individual ends in a
corresponding restriction on what that same person is permitted or allowed to do. In Isabel’s
case, many of these limitations proceed directly from the quality of gender; for while she sees
herself first and foremost as an individual whose presence comes from the sexless mind
rather than the body; the world around her, including both her male and female
acquaintances, relates her identity directly to the fact that she is a woman.3
To a certain extent, this imposition of others’ meanings is also observable in the
critical reviews written about the novel after its initial 1881 printing, many of which, through
their judgements concerning Isabel’s action and character, serve as both historical context
and a real life parallel for the gender-informed views portrayed in the work itself. Moreover,
if the reviews can be said to represent society in the capacity described above, then James’
later 1908 preface stands in for the individual - possessing a greater awareness of the
underlying intent and opposing a reading of its own. From the perspective of modern
feminist critiques of the novel, the approach taken by many of these assessments is not only
surprising but telling; one review written by John Hay, for example, offers a revealing
critique of the heroine, noting the title as being too generous for the figure who stood out as
“the least clearly painted, least perfectly understood,” as though femininity should by nature
be ideally defined by transparency. His choice of example, Isabel’s response to her
respective marriage proposals, is equally indicative of this interpretation, for he argues that
the reader, after he or she has finished the novel, “know[s] as much of the motives which
induced her to refuse two gallant gentleman and to marry a selfish scoundrel as we do of the
3 Priscilla L. Walton The Disruption of the Feminine in Henry James. University of Toronto Press,
impulses which lead our sisters and cousins to similar results.”4 In both American and
English reviews, the analysis of Isabel’s character is largely perfunctory, and in more
extreme cases, they display a remarkably strong tendency to devote as much if not a great
deal more to examining the composition of the minor characters, particularly the male
figures. While Gilbert Osmond and Ralph Touchett are especially praised for their
construction and at some length, the title character is more summarily discussed and overall
dismissed as having been vague and underdrawn.5
On the whole, the initial critiques ignore or significantly reduce the psychological
portrait given of Isabel to a bare image of action, dialogue and plot on the grounds that she
lacks substance, at least of any easily intelligible kind. One review even goes so far as to
wonder if Isabel is the character intended to be understood as the title “Lady” or if another,
more robust woman – perhaps Mrs. Touchett or even Henrietta might not truly be the subject:
“There are, indeed, portraits of ladies enough and clear enough; the only one who is not
portrayed so as to make the reader understand her is the heroine.”6 This supposed lack of
definition in Isabel’s character is also implicitly indicted in the critique that the novel remains
“unfinished,” and has “threads of narrative hanging loose,” all comments regarding the
haziness of Isabel’s motives in the final scene.7 In contrast, James, when working out the
plan for the novel in his notebook, actually anticipated that he would likely be open to
criticism for the way in which he closes but does not finish his novel, leaving his heroine “en
4 Roger Gard. Henry James: The Critical Heritage. Barnes & Noble, 1968. Pp. 139.
5 Graham Clarke. Henry James: Critical Assessments. vol. 2, Helm Information, 1991. Pp 109-112.
Anonymous Review: “If Mr. James had called his book “The Portrait of Two Gentlemen,” we might have admitted the aptness of the description”
6 Clark. V.2. pp. 135. March 1882 Review in Blackwood’s Magazine.
l’air.”8 Although the ending is well covered in the reviews, none offers the explanation that
James himself does for it, that “[t]he whole of anything is never told; you can only take what
groups together. What I have done has that unity” – precisely the treatment given to the
composition of Isabel as a true individual.
A “Slight Personality”
Besides responding to such attitudes current at the time regarding women as a literary
focus on the one hand and as individuals striving for fulfillment on the other, James’ 1908
preface relates to the reader several important details regarding his own attitude towards his
character. In questioning how he is to accomplish his task practically as a writer, he is
simultaneously considering the social atmosphere – the reading audience into which he is
sending his work - as well as the conditions most favorable to its acceptance and success:
“By what process of logical accretion was this slight “personality,” the mere slim shade of an
intelligent but presumptuous girl, to find itself endowed with the high attributes of a
Subject?” (8-9). By itself, the short phrase, an apposition joined to a qualifier, “intelligent”
but “presumptuous,” is a rich and suggestive one; however, James also recognizes the need
not only that his young woman should be inherently special but that the circumstances
organized around her should accordingly constitute what he refers to as “an ado,” for, as he
says, “Millions of presumptuous girls, intelligent or not intelligent, daily affront their destiny,
and what is it open to their destiny to be, at the most, that we should make an ado about it?”
(9).9 Thus, James gives his heroine both qualities and opportunities and these in themselves
8 Henry James, et al. The Notebooks of Henry James. G. Braziller, 1955. Pp. 15-18.
9 Virginia C. Fowler. Henry James’s American Girl: The Embroidery on the Canvas. University of
set the story into motion - as though he were conducting an experiment of observation, to see
and let play out what an extraordinary young woman, placed in equally unusual
circumstances, might actually do.
The reason that he should create this young girl as opposed to some one of these other
more conventional millions, is that she gains importance as she has the apparent means to act
as a distinct individual with the opportunity to choose and self-determine, as opposed to the
mass of women he refers to in the collective, all those whose opportunities are lacking
though their desire to exercise their spirit can be recognized as the same. This reference to
women in the collective is one that reappears in the novel multiple times, and at these
moments their supposed opinion is presented in a format similar to a poll, which tends
overwhelmingly toward one side, and serves the purpose of underscoring – in contrast to a
general similarity – the remarkable and therefore worthy uniqueness of his own female
character. To take an example given in the body of the novel itself, a detail is given
concerning Isabel and her sisters, which informs the reader that “Nineteen persons out of
twenty (including the younger sister herself) pronounced Edith infinitely the prettier of the
two” – a consensus from which the last person not only separates herself but disdains their
thinking as that of “aesthetic vulgarians” (41). In the same way that that twentieth woman
distinguishes herself – standing apart from the majority of her sex and from her own sex as it
were, so too is Isabel supposed to differentiate herself amidst the crowd of millions by her
choices and her reasons.
Framed by this double challenge of conceiving a woman who asserts herself as a
personality apart from her gender and as an object of interest to a reader, James’ portrait is
also given as a contrast to novels in which the female character is only significant in relation
to how her family and general acquaintance perceive her. When speaking more closely about
his technique and the decision to “put the heaviest weight into _that_ scale [of the young
woman’s consciousness], which will be so largely the scale of her relation to herself,” James’
choice of metaphor is not only visually effective, but gives a good literal sense of the
substantial importance with which he invests Isabel (11). Even more significantly, his
conception of the novel, as related in the preface, reflects the central question of the
protagonist; for it is the “engaging young woman” who comes into imaginative being before
all the other elements of the story, most notably that of plot, are conceived and set into place
around and in relation to her (4). According to this order of existence, James’ young
personality can reasonably be understood as possessing qualities relatively self-contained and
essential, which do not understand themselves by the surrounding people or conditions,
though these are entities with which it must come into close and seemingly inevitable
dialogue. The accomplishment Isabel seeks in making herself understood, just as much as
for James in making her, his creation, understood, lies far less in the conception than it does
in the execution, and the latter, by way of metaphor, lucidly remarks that “the job will be to
translate her into the highest terms of that formula” (11). In this sense, translation provides a
convenient analogy for what both hope to do and do effectively, for it is the attempt to bridge
separate objects, and if it does not entirely unify them, it at least allows for meaningful and
Isabel, as she is presented within the events of the narrative, follows a similar
pattern of development: first having an awareness of the qualities that comprise who she
believes she is, and later, through the lens of these qualities, coming into a correspondence
with the external world of society with its various expectations and judgements. To put it
more briefly, she holds and recognizes an image of herself, and learns that others either
disapprove of the image she models for herself, or fail, either from ignorance or selfishness,
to understand or honor it. It is essentially a dilemma of communication, of expressing the
self to separate entities that possess their own conceptions of themselves which define her
against her wishes or misrepresent her to others. In this view, it should be noted that Isabel
makes her appearance only after her person has been the subject of speculation for her cousin
Ralph and his friend Lord Warburton, and accordingly, she has not only to try to
communicate to them a sense of her identity but to resist the ideas that they have already
formed and are using to measure her. Whenever Isabel’s acquaintances describe her to
others, and she is spoken of almost as often as she thinks about herself, she thereby loses
control over her representation as manifested verbally. Such moments appear repeatedly
throughout the novel, but perhaps none is more critical for the long-term security of her
identity than when Madame Merle offers a reductive if somewhat accurate report to Gilbert
Osmond, whose designs on Isabel are influenced by the portrait thus offered: “She
corresponds to your description; it’s for that I wish you to know her. She fills all your
requirements” (206-207). While it is true that each one is only responding to his or her
conception of her, it must be fully understood that their actions nonetheless have serious
consequences, affecting both Isabel’s physical and psychological person.
James’ comment about translation, made in the preface, comes out much more
explicitly in a similarly assessing exchange between Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow, Isabel’s sister and
brother-in-law, the latter of which refers to his sister-in-law as being written “in a foreign
tongue” whereas his preference rests with something that “he can make out”. During this
conversation, Mr. Ludlow suggests that she should marry an “Armenian or Portuguese,”
partly to emphasize the degree to which his sister-in-law differs from what he is familiar
with, but partly – and perhaps more importantly in this context – to suggest that marriage
offers the best means of translation. What makes his statement especially noteworthy is that
he does not scruple about the quality of the translation from the original, making the point
that it is of greater priority that he should be able to understand than he should actually
understand her as she is – a distinction that cannot be overstressed. His wife does not
directly support that view for obtaining clarity; rather, she takes up the argument that her
sister needs the guidance of her aunt, who, because of her expatriate American life, is “just
the sort of person to appreciate her.” Beyond her assumption that their characteristic quirks
might allow them to stand on more equal footing, she also muses on her hope that Isabel
might be able to use the relationship, with all its grand opportunities, as a chance to
“develop” (38). Discussed in such a way, it must not be overlooked that neither of them see
the solution as a means for understanding Isabel better themselves, but having someone with
her – husband in the one proposal, aunt in the other – to serve as a mediator or transformative
influence.10
Regardless of the person chosen, both Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow assume that Isabel’s
development will come about through the presence of another person, and do not account for
the fact that this growth is something Isabel plans to carry out with the help of her own
observations rather than another’s guidance: “I’m not a candidate for adoption” (30). While
Isabel is constantly described as reflecting on herself and the qualities of her own character,
she is by no means unaware of the women around her, and she engages in making
assessments of them as they do regarding her. Considering people and experiences according
to her own beliefs and hopes, Isabel, during the early part of her travels in Europe, evaluates
nearly all the women she meets, whether aunt, acquaintance or friend, not only on the basis
of their personal originality but on their deftness, at the same time, in moving through and
interacting with the surrounding society, a characteristic she particularly notes in her friend
Madame Merle: “She was deep, and her nature spoke none the less in her behaviour because
it spoke a conventional tongue” (167). For this reason, the way she understands other
women – from their ways of navigating life to their overall attitudes – is crucial to how she
identifies and defines the qualities she either sees in herself, admires in others without
necessarily planning to emulate, or hopes to curtail as less noble parts of her identity.
Unlike her friend Henrietta, who stubbornly resists acceptance of her hosts’ morals
– whether British or expatriate American - and even attempts their ideological conversion,
Isabel acknowledges herself to be less than firm in the sort of people she holds as the most
persuasive models of self-loyalty: “So long as I look at the Misses Molyneux they seem to
me to answer a kind of ideal. Then Henrietta presents herself, and I’m straightway convinced
by her; not so much in respect to herself as in respect to what masses behind her” (87-88).
Yet despite Isabel’s awareness of other women’s success, this does not mean that these
individuals, because of their shared gender, are necessarily better equipped to understand her
understanding, for though she is able to penetrate into her niece’s matters somewhat more
deeply - Isabel tells Mr. Touchett about Lord Warburton’s proposal first because “he knows
Lord Warburton better” but Mrs. Touchett guesses without being told because she “know[s]
her best” – the extent of her knowledge is still rather limited (122). What she possesses is a
basic sense of her niece’s capacity for being surprising or wanting things settled according to
her own wishes, and in this way she is prepared to receive Isabel’s acts by understanding
them according to this characteristic; but this is a far cry from an intimate awareness of her
nature. In one respect, however, Mrs. Touchett is unique in her relationship to her niece, for
she early on makes the claim that she “shall do absolutely nothing with her, and [Isabel]
herself will do everything she chooses,” a vow of restraint entirely different from the plans of
intervention conceived of or plotted by the other characters (49).
If Mrs. Touchett takes a distinctly hands-off approach to her niece’s affairs, this is
more than amply made up for by the fact that nearly every other character in the novel
speculates on or has designs of directly manipulating the way in which Isabel will act: “It
was as if they had simply, by an impulse of their own, floated into my ken, and all in
response to my primary question: “Well, what will she _do_?” (12). Similar to Mr. and Mrs.
Ludlow, who make a direct connection between a translation of one’s nature and marriage,
Isabel’s cousin Ralph also connects the possibilities of what she might do with her role in
society as a woman. Although he freely and even proudly admits her exceptional character,
it is notable that his thoughts still turn toward the usual situation of dependence on a male
presence. When he asks himself what she might do, he cannot help but acknowledge that the
question is a highly irregular one, for “with most women one had no occasion to ask it …
furnish them with a destiny” (64). Madame Merle and Gilbert Osmond, in their own way,
make an even stronger, arguably the strongest, connection between Isabel’s future and
marriage, as they both direct the question of what she will do into an issue of what she can do
to benefit themselves, the former openly confessing to the other that she doesn’t “pretend to
know what people are meant for,” and only considers “what she can do with them” (207).
Marriage
The fact that Isabel has no wish nor any plans to get married partly reflects her
preference for originality among her female peers, for quite conspicuously, all the women
around her either currently are (Mrs. Touchett, her sisters), have been (Madame Merle), or
soon become married (Henrietta), and by not marrying she can set herself apart in the way
that James’ proverbial twentieth woman does. At the heart of her reasoning, however, her
hesitations regarding entry into the married state are founded in a degree of apprehension
concerning the pressures that might be put upon her identity as a result of such a relationship.
To go back to the years of adolescence, for instance, her early interactions with young men
were characterized by a sense of awkwardness and a consciousness of laboring under the
strain of being thought clever while at the same time avoiding a “bookish” reputation (41).11
When Lord Warburton, her first suitor, makes an unexpected proposal to her, she refuses him
on a similar basis, of how little time they have spent together and how little he actually
knows of her. If this were not enough of a discouragement against a permanent union with
such an inadequately-informed individual, she also doubts if she can even express her
reasons to him in such a way that he would be able to understand. Despite the fact that Isabel
11 Elizabeth Allen. A Woman’s Place in the Novels of Henry James. St. Martin’s Press, 1984. Pp.
gives him a verbal response in the negative, these circumstances essentially invalidate the
authenticity of his proposal, and because of this, it rather seems to her that she has not
actually made a decision at all: “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” (101). At
bottom, Isabel’s lack of agency in this case comes from the fact that Lord Warburton does
not really present her with a true option; and it is this same problem that characterizes her
other proposal and eventual marriage.
Caspar Goodwood, by way of contrast, would appear to be a much different suitor
than Lord Warburton, and to a certain extent he possesses very different personal qualities
from his English counterpart; however, the fact of his proposing not long after and in the
same place as his rival raises the possibility of these differences being somewhat superficial.
Besides the obvious fact that they are both refused, it must be noted that Isabel’s reasons for
refusing them are taken from the same basic principles of preserving her agency. Although
the energy associated with Goodwood is far more overtly charged with an element of
physicality - “she saw the different fitted parts of him as she had seen, in museums and
portraits, the different fitted parts of armoured warriors--in plates of steel” – the
diminishment of her ability to make a choice remains the same: it is merely a shift from
being faced with an invalid decision to confronting an unyielding insistence. In one respect
however, Goodwood poses a threat to Isabel that Lord Warburton does not: that is, that the
intensity of his physicality has the effect of emphasizing Isabel’s own embodied sex and
denying her the equality she seeks in pursuing a life of the mind.12 When Goodwood tries to
12 Dorothea Krook-Gilead. The Ordeal of Consciousness in Henry James. Cambridge University
persuade her by insisting upon the conventional claim that “an unmarried woman – a girl of
[Isabel’s] age” is hampered at every step,” she counters the claim of age and gender by
asserting that she more properly belongs to the “independent class,” resituating herself along
an axis of freedom instead (142-143). Whereas Lord Warburton belongs to the social class
of the English lord, and Goodwood to the physical class of man, it is precisely to this
independent class that Isabel’s eventual husband Gilbert Osmond seems to most
appropriately belong; as she eventually comes to learn, this is far from being the case and she
ends up losing what she had most hoped to preserve.
The social connection formed by Isabel’s marriage to Osmond must be recognized
as having a double significance, for not only does it have the consequence of forcing her into
passivity by restricting what she is allowed to do or say, it also pressures her into
participating in acts she would otherwise refuse: “There were certain things they must do, a
certain posture they must take, certain people they must know and not know” (361).
Goodwood and Warburton’s insistence on being present in Isabel’s life after her marriage
represents another note of irony in her situation; she not only must come to terms with her
deepening awareness of Osmond’s oppressiveness, she must face the interrogation and silent
judgment of her two former suitors. Consistent with his aggressiveness in following Isabel to
Europe after his first refusal, Goodwood bluntly demands proof that she is not happy with her
husband, yet he is also unwilling to accept her confessions of actually being so and relinquish
his justification for intrusion: “I’ve been watching her; I was an old friend and it seemed to
me I had the right. She pretends to be happy; that was what she undertook to be; and I
thought I should like to see for myself what it amounts to” (416). Lord Warburton on the
other hand, though decidedly more restrained in his approach is no less a burden on Isabel’s
mind because of his addresses to her step-daughter Pansy, which she suspects as an indirect
and morally precarious way, because of his continued romantic feelings, of being near to
herself. This duality of can’t and must can be particularly seen in Osmond’s directions
regarding Pansy’s projected marriage, in which Isabel has no power to promote Rosier’s suit
to her husband, and more unpleasantly, must do everything in her power to bring about a
match with Lord Warburton.
Ultimately, the marriage Isabel had envisioned as a means of self-actualization, a
union with a cultivated man who would share her individuality and value her own, is
revealed as a relationship entirely arranged to benefit Osmond at her expense. He not only
attempts to impose on her a structure of conventions, it is also his design to use Isabel’s
wealth and the support demanded of her as his wife for the purposes of promoting himself in
the eyes of society: “He had expected his wife to feel with him and for him, to enter into his
opinions, his ambitions, his preferences” (362). In contrast to Isabel’s initial attraction to
Osmond’s apparently paternal qualities, the son she has with him does not survive and
arguments over what to do about Pansy’s marriage arrangements lead to chilling struggles
between their respective wills. There is deep irony in the fact that a social relationship
typically considered creative should result in such barrenness for herself, and this
circumstance hints at Ralph’s earlier assessment of Osmond as being nothing more than a
“sterile dilettante” (292).13 Although there are many visualizations of the way Osmond
13 Maurizio Ascari. “Three Aesthetes in Profile: Gilbert Osmond, Mark Ambient, and Gabriel Nash.”
himself defines his marriage to Isabel, one of the most suggestive emerges when Goodwood
visits the Osmonds, and Gilbert justifies his speaking for his wife by claiming that they are as
matched a set and “as united, you know, as the candlestick and the snuffers” –the matter of
who represents which being abundantly clear (420).
To analyze the gender aspect of the novel structurally, Isabel’s marriage to
Osmond, besides being unhappy, does not serve as the story’s conclusion according to the
pattern of many nineteenth century works. In pieces of fiction that follow that narrative
pattern, the heroine’s marriage typically marks the establishment of her identity and formal
inclusion into society; instead, the exact opposite occurs here, for Isabel’s identity has been
stifled in her marriage and her now established routine of receiving guests in the role of
obliging wife beside cultured husband prevents her from fulfilling the promise of being what
she seems and seeming what she is. Moreover, the scene that does constitute the novel’s
final moments offers a challenge to marriage, in Goodwood attempts to persuade her to leave
her husband and take himself instead, an act which his insistent physicality would make
another surrender of herself.
***
In light of these hindrances to identity as expressed through free action by the
imposed constraints of gender and what is expected from traditional gender roles, it does not
seem illogical to turn more hopefully towards financial independence, the second option that
appears in Ralph’s array of possible definitions. What might have offered Isabel the personal
development and preservation she longed for, marriage with Osmond, proves not only to be
transcend or at least mitigate these problems; however, as it shall be shown, it poses
significant problems of its own.
Chapter II: Will and Wealth
Another of the possibilities given for the meaning of independence, money, both as
an object and a study, has had a long, rich and highly varied history, occupying many
thinkers throughout the centuries and circulated in daily use by people of all social classes
and levels of education. No less a part of his own life than of anyone else’s, James too had a
vested interest in the nature and use of money, and it was a theme he frequently wrote about
in letters and personal papers, several times admitting to having “finance on the brain.”14 For
him as for others, money served the ordinary function of paying bills and purchasing the
necessary basics, and the care he showed in keeping up with his personal finances is evident
in the notebooks in which he set down tidy accounts of his expenses and payments received.
Though he did not have a wife or children and traveled fairly often, James still had to attend
to his needs as a long-time bachelor and this entailed the establishment of his own household
and looking after its general care and management. Moreover, the extent of his social life,
with its many friends and frequent travels to visit them also made wealth a necessary
convenience. Since money played such a predictably significant part of his life, it is only
natural that James should also handle it in his novels, and indeed, the prominent place he
gives to it is well-noted and documented in the academic community. In his private musings,
moreover, he frequently mixes ordinary conceptions of money’s use with less material
objectives of literary achievement and hopes for monetary gain, under the belief that it will
14 Henry James. The Letters of Henry James. Edited by Percy Lubbock, vol. 1. Charles Scribner’s
represent more significantly the state of his fame and success – perceiving acquisition as a
symbolic indication rather than an ends unto itself.15 In short, he saw his ability to write
translated into wealth, and his wealth in turn functioning as a potent symbol for success and
merit in his profession.
An Intellectual Inheritance
In the same way that James did not live without the presence of money in his life,
neither did he live without being influenced by the opinions on finance held by the public, or
the theories that different economists had proposed pertaining to money, from its essential
use to the nature of its benefits. One such theorist, Emerson, can be directly proven to have
had a significant influence on James, having been an intimate friend of the family and a
writer with whose works James was highly familiar, having composed pieces on both the
man and his ideas.16 Moreover, despite James’ multi-cultural background and final
resettlement in Europe, he fully acknowledged the influence of his American birth, and this
circumstance lends even greater weight to the influence Emerson would have had in regards
to his novels and philosophical speculations. Among Emerson’s numerous essays, Wealth is
naturally one of the most useful for this part of the present inquiry, a work as morally driven
as it is politically American. His definition of wealth, in almost all aspects of possession and
disposal, is bound by ethical responsibilities and uniquely distributive, founded on the highly
democratic ideal that the ownership of significant resources entails the work of bringing
15Alice Morgan. “Henry James: Money and Morality.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language,
vol. 12, no. 1, 1970, pp. 75–92.
16 Henry James. Partial Portraits. Macmillan Company, 1889. Pp. 1-33. Reviews a two-volume
abundance to where it is most lacking: “giving on all sides, by tools and auxiliaries.”
Another example of this strong moral sense can be observed in the claim that man has the
obligation, during the course of his own life, to contribute something for all to consume, less
for the sake of repaying the expense his being imposes on society than to assert his essential
dignity: “nor can he do justice to his genius without making some larger demand on the
world than bare subsistence.” A combination of economic philosophy and humanistic
celebration, the argument set forth is that man “needs to be rich” not so much to prevent
himself from becoming a burden, but because his fine qualities require and deserve (like will)
nothing less than to be exercised and appropriately set off. Going beyond an understanding
that wealth exists as something merely beneficial, the essay believes that it is simply man’s
natural instinct to desire a portion equal to what he is worth. However, this is not to be taken
in the spirit that wealth is an advantage for everyone; rather, the implication is that this would
be an undesirable circumstance, because some men are born to own and “animate all
possessions” - as Isabel supposedly adorns everything she touches - while others are
incapable or deficient in the required characteristics.
The qualities of the former, deserving sort enhance the value of the things that they
use, while those who are not equal to the responsibilities of wealth are often overwhelmed
and corrupted by what they possess. Yet, it is still the overall belief that the relationship
between morals and money is such that he who has none of the latter will be hard-pressed to
maintain the purity of the former, that a “man in debt” is nothing more than a slave because
virtue is a “luxury few can afford.” The admiration Emerson shows for both wealth and
labor, through seemingly contradictory, can be explained by the understanding that riches are
rewarded, leads to wealth anyway: “the greatest extension to our powers as if it added hands,
feet.”17 And certainly, wealth does secure material comforts – but, in the universal sense,
these only go so far as what can be purchased or hired, leaving unanswered the more
important question of how the person possessing the money can be helped by that fortune to
express him- or herself in their capacity as an individual, acting in the interests of their
aspirations and personal happiness. This issue, whether money helps or hinders the actions
manifesting self-expression, is what makes the role of wealth in James’ novel such a
complicated one; for not only is money an object surrounded by numerous assumptions
regarding its desirability, these assumptions are themselves often founded on hopes of
fulfilling this deeper wish for selfhood, the satisfaction of which is more difficult to
determine than the simple possession of financial resources.
The two states of wealth and happiness, because of this challenge of differentiation,
have been subject to conflation to the point that they become almost synonymous, so
frequently does wealth seem a definite, or at least highly probable, sign of individual
freedom. To emphasize the degree to which this belief has dominated general thinking and
its outward manifestation in language, James, in his novel, frequently chooses to denominate
wealth by the term “fortune,” suggesting with his choice both pecuniary resources and the
wherewithal to determine one’s course contrary to a limited, preordained fate. Contained in
this one word, fortune, suggestively used some forty times, the two definitions not only
exhibit the strength of the association between them, but force the reader to consider how
these meanings are actually related to and effected by the other. The word “means,” used
17 Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Conduct of Life. James R. Osgood and Company, 1871. Gutenberg
less often in the novel than fortune, but just as illustrative, provides another example of the
subtle linguistic and conceptual connections that from constant, popular use become almost
subliminal. Though some patterns of James’ thinking might lead one to assume that he
subscribed to the idea that the more money one can own, the happier one becomes; it would
be more accurate to say, on basis of the views of his novel, that he was a realist who on the
one hand, understood the need for money and feared poverty’s effects, but was also aware
that it was not a straightforward, certain, or universal means for happiness.
The Fortune of a Fortune
A testament to the influence of words, the characters’ understanding of wealth and its
properties in use rests almost entirely on how they choose to define the word, and their
actions are accordingly informed by these respective philosophies. Isabel’s cousin Ralph, for
instance, who plays the largest part in rearranging the ultimately tragic terms of his father’s
will, refers many of his decisions to the following definition of wealth - “I call people rich
when they’re able to meet the requirements of their imagination. Isabel has a great deal of
imagination” – which he considers more philosophically than practically (160). For those of
the upper classes, especially the aristocratic, with their notions of honor and noblesse oblige,
as represented by Lord Warburton, wealth is proven mainly by the donation of large sums of
money, acts carried out as much for the material benefit as the observation of the public: “He
isn’t very rich,” the other young man mercifully pleaded. “He has given away an immense
deal of money … I suppose it was his own,” said Lord Warburton; “and in that case could
there be a better proof of wealth?” (22). Warburton’s view represents a position closely
aligned with the external aspect of wealth, that there should be an honest and direct
disappointed preconceptions of what they call her development: “fortune [seemed]” … “just
the proper setting for her sister’s slightly meagre, but scarce the less eminent figure. Isabel
had developed less, however, than Lily had thought … [development] being somehow
mysteriously connected with morning-calls and evening-parties” (271-272).
In addition to the belief that the wealthy can be discovered by certain visible, and
easily definable signs, there are also assumptions which link money to a sense of justice and
merit in an Emersonian sense, to a certain fineness of morality. Mrs. Touchett, Isabel’s
financially conscious aunt who hesitates not a moment before selling her house in the wake
of her husband’s death, is observed to keep a “moral account book,” a physical emblem of
this financial-moral association, in which she presumably keeps a record of such debts
incurred and payments received (177). As with “fortune,” James could have chosen other
words, yet this combination is what he decided on for the published edition of his novel, a
circumstance which demonstrates a degree of persuasive deliberateness. Illustrated thus,
virtue acts as a form of currency like money, which can be used and recorded according to
debts and payments, as if a measurable transaction. Extending from this morally based
system, there is the equally Emersonian assumption that money is a blessing whose
possession or lack should be reflective of one’s quality of character, especially given to those
born without it but who possess goodness deserving of that support. Leaving aside the more
idealistic notions of wealth’s usage, and the question of whether or not it is more essentially
beneficial than otherwise, there is the additional issue of determining how much any person –
with an eye to either maintaining or promoting their overall moral health - should responsibly
be given, as Mr. Touchett worries when discussing the bequests laid out in his will: “I don’t
judgment on the part of the giver, but also makes that individual highly responsible for the
consequences that follow the conferring of the gift. The logic that the virtuous deserve
wealth would suggest they, because of their character, will be able to wisely maintain it, in
fact, that they will be the best equipped to do so, which is the view that Ralph takes: “It
surely depends upon the person. When the person’s good, your making things easy is all to
the credit of virtue. To facilitate the execution of good impulses, what can be a nobler act?”
(162).
Even if the person receiving the money can be morally trusted, there is still the
potential for danger from those who surround that individual, drawn to his or her side by the
possibility of allying themselves with or more directly making use of the money. When
Ralph informs his father of his intentions, the retired banker worries if his son might be
setting Isabel up for ensnarement, rather than freeing her: “Doesn’t it occur to you that a
young lady with sixty thousand pounds may fall a victim to the fortune-hunter?” When Mr.
Touchett goes on to point out that “even one is too many” if successful, Ralph insists that he
has factored that in and does not consider such a circumstance probable. Yet, though he
seems so certain of his plan working out smoothly and ending happily, it must be noted that
his answer does not adequately answer the concern of the older man. Despite the fact that he
has so much confidence in Isabel’s abilities and intelligence, Ralph has only known her for a
very short time and not seen her act under the pressure of extraordinary conditions, such as
would be represented by the bequest. Moreover, the argument his father makes has too
strong a logic behind it, one that even he has to acknowledge: “She’ll hardly fall a victim to
more than one” (162). Long after the conversation finishes and the project has been assented
representing a controlling figure – poised to wipe out the freedom conferred by the much
larger fortune of seventy thousand pounds, revealing the fragility of Isabel’s situation,
assuming that it was initially empowering.
In this same discussion, Ralph appears to suggest to his more reluctant father that
almost no amount could be sufficient to the needs of Isabel’s imagination, the satisfaction of
which was earlier set forth as his measure for and understanding of wealth. Although the
bequest is only later revealed as having been seventy thousand dollars, Ralph’s criteria at the
time does not appear to involve any discussion of an upper limit – guided as he is by the
belief that Isabel’s qualities and dreams should weigh more heavily against the perceived
poverty of her current financial situation. Yet when he speaks of what is necessary to his
own well-being, he denies any application of the same principle to himself; instead, he very
simply – with as much conviction as when he first presents his principle for giving – requests
that his share of the inheritance be kept in proportion to what he can manage, anything else
being a burden and not a blessing: “It is not against me,” said Ralph. “It would be against me
to have a large property to take care of. It’s impossible for a man in my state of health to
spend much money, and enough is as good as a feast” (158). While his generosity shouldn’t
be taken as anything less than genuine, the fact that he so easily adopts the project of
enriching his cousin seems to imply ever so subtly that there will be revealed to himself and
Isabel, over the course of the novel, a greater wisdom in the latter action than success or
happiness deriving from the former one.
While Ralph is the one who essentially introduces this theme and is most directly
responsible for the financial turning point in the story, the inheritance, the subject is not less
discussion about money, there is already a rather doubtful comment on the autonomy
conferred by wealth represented in the absence of Isabel herself from the scene, the issue of
which sets into motion many of the events of her life and has an enormous impact on her
happiness. The very way in which she accesses her money only further complicates the
rather dubious belief that wealth will bring with it greater freedom, as she does nothing to
actively cultivate her funds, but only lives passively off the interest generated by the
principal sum. Besides serving as the moment that brings a significant change to Isabel’s
fortunes, this conversation concerning Mr. Tocuhett’s will also emphasizes the air of mystery
and ambiguity which consistently hangs about money in the novel. In this case as well as in
Isabel’s marriage to Gilbert Osmond, there is a decision involving money made with only
partial or inaccurate information: in the former, Ralph and Mr. Touchett rely on a number of
assumptions about Isabel and in the latter, she miscalculates the true weight Osmond places
on that aspect of their relationship, learning only later the nature of his devotion to her
wealth.
In light of the fact that the observations of youth often inform the actions of
adulthood, it would be wise to examine the role that money played in Isabel’s early life in
order to explain her own notions of its value, and obtain a better sense of the theories which
ultimately guide her in its usage. A prescient and somewhat foreboding circumstance, it is
revealed in the course of relating her childhood, that Isabel’s father not only left his
daughters no money, but spent a great deal of the fortune that would have been left to them if
better managed. Had the case been merely one of poverty and not of misuse, the example set
might have been one urging frugality and caution; however, the affection Isabel associates
not wholly covering his less admirable qualities: “Since [her father’s] death she had seemed
to see him as turning his braver side to his children and as not having managed to ignore the
ugly quite so much in practice as in aspiration. But this only made her tenderness for him
greater” (39-40). By these highly personal associations, extravagance, living beyond one’s
means, was established for Isabel from very early on as an indication not of carelessness but
of being “too generous, too good-natured, too indifferent to sordid considerations.” Unaware
of less sympathetic criticism and defensive against suggestions of parental neglect, she
perceived the occasionally perilous circumstances that her father’s management placed her in
as deeply exciting and romantic. The relevance of her father’s past behavior is that it
continues to have an impact on how she herself behaves; it informs her notions of wealth
before she has any, and the corresponding tendency to give to others without thinking of the
cost certainly played into her marriage with Osmond. To a certain extent, Isabel’s choice to
accompany her aunt to Europe in the first place may even owe its original inspiration to the
posthumous influence exerted by her father, as if he had left her, in lieu of monetary
resources, a legacy made up of the ideas that he himself lived by: “He wished his daughters
… to see as much of the world as possible … had transported them three times across the
Atlantic … a course which had whetted our heroine’s curiosity without enabling her to
satisfy it” (40).
As a general rule, nothing in Isabel’s early life prepared her for the management of a
large fortune, and if this circumstance was not established firmly enough in these passages
about the example set by her father, she voices multiple times her ignorance regarding
money, in the abstract as well as when she commands a fund of personal wealth. When the
idea of what money it brought in; nor does she have any sense of how poor she was actually
made by her father’s carelessness and overspending: “she has less money than she has ever
had before. Her father then gave her everything, because he used to spend his capital. She has
nothing but the crumbs of that feast to live on, and she doesn’t really know how meagre they
are--she has yet to learn it” (161). She is even led by her naiveté to believe that she has
enough independence to be able to cover the majority of her expenses in relation to the
journey made to England (“she supposes herself to be travelling at her own expense” ) and it
is only from her aunt and uncle that the reader receives any full account of how she stands, a
detail that accords well with the former’s pragmatic approach to selling her own house after
her husband’s death, and the latter’s longstanding position as the head of a bank (48).
Whether family or friend, nearly everyone around Isabel possesses a better understanding of
the money’s value than she does; and she in the innocence and boldness that first merited the
wealth she received, is for that same reason vulnerable to the ill-fated guidance of those who
love her and the depredations of the calculating.
The first person to learn of Isabel’s inheritance outside of the family circle is Madame
Merle and for this reason alone the moment when she is informed deserves particular
attention, but the scene takes on even greater significance in light of her unexpected reaction
to the news, which is a physically demonstrated, almost ecstatic appreciation at the mention
of the seventy thousand pounds Isabel will receive: “Madame Merle’s hands were clasped in
her lap; at this she raised them, still clasped, and held them a moment against her bosom
while her eyes, a little dilated, fixed themselves on those of her friend” (181). While she is
elsewhere described as a woman with full control of herself who takes exceeding care never
excitement and interest more characteristic of her attitude toward wealth than the manner she
chooses to display before others, an attitude of which Isabel remains perilously unaware.
The gesture made with her hands is very telling, and becomes even more so when paired with
her comment about Isabel, that she will quickly grow used to her wealth each time she places
her hand in her pocket. Even her eyes reflect her intention, and it can be easily imagined that
she is not seeing her friend sitting in front of her, but is absorbed in contemplating a vision of
the sum. Though not fully explained until later, this expression of word and deed shows her
own ambitions regarding the inherited fortune – more than what she would do with the
money were it hers, but what she, in actuality, means to carry out through Isabel’s marriage
to Osmond and her expected provision for Pansy’s dowry – both achievements which mean
more to her than if she were to have the money for herself.
Although Madame Merle’s means of supporting herself are never revealed, though
dimly hinted at in moments of more suggestive gossip, her situation stands out as a
provocatively incongruous one reflective of the general inscrutability that surrounds if it does
not more essentially define wealth. Despite the mystery of her unusual financial position, her
philosophy, on the other hand is far more straightforward, aligned with the materialistic view
that wealth is not only something to strive for but is also the element by which one most
expresses his or her personal reality.18 When she puts to Isabel questions pertaining to the
self - “Where does it begin? where does it end?” - her own answer, before she even listens to
her companion’s, seems as uninhibited as her aforementioned reaction while being informed
18 William James and John R. Shook. The Essential William James. Prometheus Books, 2011. Pp.
of Isabel’s newly acquired fortune: “I’ve a great respect for things! One’s self--for other
people--is one’s expression of one’s self; and one’s house, one’s furniture, one’s garments,
the books one reads, the company one keeps--these things are all expressive.” Entirely
lacking Merle’s longer experience or cynicism, Isabel strongly challenges this assertion,
claiming that the objects which surround her have little connection with herself or any deeper
quality but are merely items required by the society in which she lives: “Nothing that belongs
to me is any measure of me; everything’s on the contrary a limit, a barrier, and a perfectly
arbitrary one … imposed on me by society.” The clothes which Madame Merle explicitly
mentions as being a large part of her identity, “I know a large part of myself is in the clothes
I choose to wear,” Isabel refuses to accord any more importance than as a reflection of her
dressmaker (175). Yet the belief that no object – including wealth - is capable of expressing
her identity cannot but be seen as posing a considerable challenge to the individual,
especially one who is limited by gender, and to whom great achievements mean so much.19
Along with Isabel’s unexpected inheritance comes a physical and emotional
acculturation to her wealth, indicated by the phrases used to reference the change, such
“stepping into,” and the violent intensity with which such a change might be felt: “as if a big
gun were suddenly fired off behind her; she’s feeling herself to see if she be hurt.” When the
executor speaks with her to inform her of the terms of Mr. Touchett’s will, Isabel is even
reported to have “burst into tears” – which, in light of her initial shock, might be either of
gratitude or fear (181). It is somewhat difficult to determine which they might represent,
19 Sigi Jottkandt. Acting Beautifully: Henry James and the Ethical Aesthetic. State University of New
given the distance of a second-hand description, so they may seem either positive or negative
depending on the reader and what their own reaction might be. To be sure, she could
certainly be overjoyed at hearing the news, but this seems somewhat unlikely, if only for the
reason that she has so little awareness of her true financial standing; but it be could just as
likely that she, behind the intervening door, is having to reconcile and resign herself to an
irrevocable change. For Isabel, James seems to imply, this is a process that involves not only
a reassessment of herself but a reinforcement of many ideas about her identity that she had
held prior to receiving the inheritance given by her uncle. This initial period of her wealth
might be termed the honeymoon period, for during these first moments, she enjoys the
possibilities offered by her unexpected fortune. It is important, however, to note that the
outcome of her conversion is not that she now regrets or seeks out wealth, rather she had
simply “grown used to feeling rich,” a habit which, in itself, carries no strongly positive or
negative charge (193).
What finally brings her to fully embrace and, to some extent, even revel in her
newfound fortune, is its ennobling effect on the image of herself that she has formed, and in
light of her earlier denial of self-expression by external possessions, this absorption into
herself may be the only way she feels she can accept it: “Her fortune therefore became to her
mind a part of her better self; it gave her importance, gave her even, to her own imagination,
a certain ideal beauty.” Her view of what she can do with the inheritance is rather abstract,
and the image presented of a young woman “lost in visions” suggests something slightly
foreboding in regards to her ability to keep herself and her ideals as straightforward as she
conceives them. She typically considers her visions collectively, in all their wonderful glow,
fine her visions, remains a shadow at the edge of her thoughts. The more ability she believes
herself to possess the brighter and more intimidating the grand things that she must
accomplish, and it is a hint to her later marriage with the impecunious Osmond, a supposed
fulfillment of her mission, that she describes herself as “rich, independent, generous” (193).
This little sequence of adjectives, in the order they appear, briefly summarizes all the
characteristics she attributes to herself, and serves as an equation of her thinking: because she
is both rich and independent, the logical conclusion is that she must also be generous.
Isabel’s friend Henrietta, on the other hand, takes a much more suspicious view of
money: “She had not congratulated this young lady on her augmentations and begged to be
excused from doing so … If Mr. Touchett had consulted me about leaving you the money …
I’d have said to him ‘Never!” Though in agreement as to the fact that money does have the
ability to offer an individual more chances than otherwise, she regards it as giving rather too
much freedom and allowing one to indulge their worse tendencies rather than develop better
ones: “Leave it to some one you care less for--that’s what I should have said … Your
newly-acquired thousands will shut you up more and more to the society of a few selfish and
heartless people who will be interested in keeping them up” (187). Her concession of
opportunity is also qualified by her prediction that the consequence of Isabel’s fortune will be
a narrowing rather than an expanding of her horizons; more than any other character, she
challenges the conventional – or at least more widely held – notion, that money provides a
reliable solution to problems.
Enriching the Interesting Woman
Despite the fact that money can have serious consequences, that does not mean that it
charitable cause, or the purpose of securing basic necessities, it can also be used as a form of
idle amusement. Reviewed on its own, the scene in which Mr. Touchett’s will is discussed
and changed appears only altruistic, if slightly tinged with romantic feelings; however, an
element of entertainment enters when a former conversation is taken into account, which
sheds light on what might be another if not one of the most significant of the true giver’s,
Ralph’s, motives. In the opening pages of the novel, Ralph can be observed almost making a
bet with Lord Warburton, teasing him about wanting to see his “idea of an interesting
woman” and deriving considerable pleasure in the imagining of what such a person and the
overall outcome might be (23). Somewhat coincidentally, it is not long after that Isabel
arrives at Gardencourt, as though she were the embodiment of Ralph’s conjectures and a
serendipitous answer to his desire to fill and enliven the short time that he has remaining.
Besides coming at a convenient time, her visit and her person are both novelties to him,
which his conscious pressures of time and illness might easily persuade him to stimulate into
more colorful movement, as a little drama staged for his own benefit. Alongside his reasons
for wanting to be distracted and positively amused, one has to wonder if he is not also taken
with the idea of being able to exercise a degree of indirect power in his relationship with her.
Later when speaking with Isabel, shortly after their introduction and she has let slip
that she prefers to settle things herself, or else have them arranged that way by someone else,
Ralph makes the comment that he shall “settle this, as [he] like[s] it” – referring to his
cousin’s visit, in the immediate sense, and anticipating the monetary gift he makes her, in the
long term (29). There are further echoes of Emerson, in the sense that a sort of social
contract has been enacted between the two, with the primary difference being that the
almost compulsory use of it. For Ralph, whose physical condition prevents him from
carrying out the ideals he sees reflected in his cousin, giving a portion of his resources to
someone who can carry them out is – to put it rather crudely, but perhaps not inaccurately, to
take her into his hire. While the inheritance can’t be taken away from Isabel once she has
received it, she is subject to constant feelings of gratitude, which if they do not always
prevent her from taking certain actions – such as her marriage to Osmond - are always
present to her consciousness of what is right and should be done. The fact that the money
she receives is a gift has the effect of obliging her to act according to a sense of what is due
such large generosity, therefore prompting her to keep the feelings of her donor closer than
her own. It is true that she has a genuine friendship with Ralph but the question remains to
what degree the tie between them is constituted by her knowing, once Madame Merle reveals
it to her, that the fortune she possesses came from that same friend, and his having the
satisfaction that he enabled and socially elevated her. There is some difficulty in separating
out how she herself defines their relationship, for he is essentially a benefactor, and to Ralph,
she represents an investment, albeit partially emotional, that he has made in a capable person,
and from whom he hopes to see a return in impressive or noble deeds.
If friendship can be seen as one variety of social contract, with its own set of
obligations, marriage is certainly an even more binding one, virtually permanent and heavily
weighted by its legal and spiritual terms of promise. Isabel’s friendship with Ralph has the
consequence of forcing her to remember, initially very pleasantly, that she is set down in his
moral account book, and owes him a debt of gratitude. It is only when she commits herself
to this latter commitment, which is even less unbreakable, that she becomes fully conscious
