Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady

In this University Forum, the novelist and short story writer Colm Tóibín and the literary critic Jean Strouse (biographer of Alice James, sister of William and Henry) came together with the analysts Lucy LaFarge and Shelley Orgel to discuss The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James's classic novel (1881). The panel addressed the process by which the main character, Isabel Archer, comes to recognize aspects of her inner life that she's long concealed from herself. Highlighting how the speakers’ perspectives on Isabel's achievement of insight reflect their views about different kinds of knowing, the conversation explored the significance of literature for psychoanalytic thought. In this essay I will consider how the panel examined the relation between conscious mentation and unconscious motive, the structure of secrecy in literary representation, and what is at stake in attending to the gaps and contradictions embedded in narrative form. Moreover, I will consider how the panel's commentary on these fundamental issues about knowledge, meaning, and narrative representation brought to light how creative writers and analysts can negotiate literary texts with different assumptions and aims.

Before addressing the panel's discussion of The Portrait of a Lady, however, it is important to sketch out the basic plot of the novel. The story begins as Isabel Archer, a young American woman, arrives at Gardencourt, an English country estate owned by her wealthy uncle, Mr. Touchett, soon after her father's death. Eager and optimistic upon her arrival, Isabel leaves behind a difficult childhood marked by the early loss of her mother and unreliable care from her narcissistic father. With a sense of hope for a new beginning, Isabel embraces her life at Gardencourt, entertaining suitors while developing relationships with her cousin Ralph, a consumptive, and her uncle Touchett, who is ill and close to death. As Ralph's affection for