Portrait of a Lady

The Portrait follows Isabel Archer, a young woman of great ideals and substance in the midst of turning away very eligible suitors for a life of adventure and self discovery in Europe. She gets a visit from her aunt from England after her father passes and leaves her the family home in Albany New York. She follows her aunt Mrs. Touchett to England and Garden Court where she charms her uncle and cousins Ralph Touchett. Upon his death, she is left with a large inheritance that allows her to ignore marriage proposals from even a Lord. When Lord Warburton, Ralph’s long time friend proposes to her, the new wealth gives her freedom to ignore him. “Quote…” 

The Portrait first came out in 1847 a Victorian time when most women without sustainable jobs to support themselves often found a suitable marriage as the only path to a stable life. Isabel goes against this predicament exploring her independence and boundaries of society through an extended stay in Europe. She meets Gilbert Oswald in Rome and incorrectly imagines him to be more charming and interesting than he really is. She is drawn to his daughter Pansy, who is kept away by her father in a convent and adds warmth and emotion to an other wise bland Osmond. Isabel marries him and her mistake is quickly revealed as Osmond’s cloak comes off and a sea of mistrust begins to part them. “She had taken all the first steps in the purest confidence, and then she had suddenly found the infinite vista of a multiplied life to be a dark, narrow alley, with a dead wall at the end.” 

Portrait almost seemed like a cautionary tale at one point, what a woman could end up when she had too much money, independent and “imagination” That a man still had the ultimate power to determine a woman’s happiness, path, independence. If one incorrectly picked the wrong partner, her life could still be determined by him