James Web Paper 2

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Call me Isabel (Archer). I’ve been that girl looking on the picnic on a sunny green, the ferocious, “ridiculously overactive imagination”, the woman who mistook a man for who she wanted him to be, the painter of blank canvases, and the hostage of a kiss. Call me Isabel.

Mind the Gaps

In our discussion of The Portrait of a Lady, Anne asked our class to consider “who is the tyrant” of the novel.  She was inquiring what character or concept constrained the formerly free and independent character of Isabel Archer.  A discussion ensued about whether Gilbert Osmond or Isabel Archer’s imagination was the tyrant.  I would like to propose a third interpretation; Henry James, himself, is the great tyrant of his own novel. 

Wai Chee Dimock’s article “Subjunctive Time: Henry James’s Possible Wars” broaches the idea of a “time-line that makes a subsequent event an important context for a text written prior to it” (249-250). The idea that literature is not temporally bounded is fascinating to me, and it is through this lens that I explore the connection between Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and an episode of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Normal Again.”

Throughout the essay there will be clips from "Normal Again."

While speaking with Professor Dalke during our conference, the conversation turned towards Ralph from A Portrait of a Lady; and how I came to adopt him as my favorite character for his more pure-minded intentions, while Professor Dalke found him to actually be quite evil and suspicious, since he himself was manipulating Isabel for his own amusement. Finding that an interesting angle that I had not considered before, I decided to write a more creative-minded piece that emphasized not only Ralph’s motives for manipulation throughout the book, but also the love he held for Isabel (whether cousinly or otherwise, is up to reader discretion).

Isabel Archer, protagonist of Henry James’ novel The Portrait of a Lady, is “guided in a selection chiefly by the frontspiece” when looking for reading material (The Portrait of a Lady 23).  

The Ever-changing Portrait of Isabel Archer

Never a calm in the waters of her mind

Floating freely throughout time, without consideration

Inner beauty, outer tenacity

The future, an open adventure

No stings to break, no tethers wanted

Unadulterated freedom on the horizon

Straining to escape grounded boundaries