Henry James’Experiment on Narrative Techniques in The Portrait of a Lady

School of Dongwu,Soochow University,Suzhou,China Email:ylzhaoapril@163.com

[Abstract]Henry James,the master of American realism,is particularly noted for his technical innovations with which he has always been concerned during his literary career.James’international novel as a special brand of fiction requires corresponding narrative techniques.He meets the challenge and becomes one of the greatest craftsmen in American literary history.The Portrait of a Lady is a representative novel of James’early phase.It explores the different influences of European civilization on American expatriates in Europe.In order that the conflicts of the two cultures can be reflected in a realistic and effective way,James employs a“limited narrative point of view”:the narrative is filtered through a major character’s“gaze”and“consciousness”and this major character is often called the“center of consciousness”.This technique allows the author to remain outside the novel as much as possible and the reader is to see almost every occurrence,every character,and every setting through the point of view of the“center of consciousness”.Since it is impossible for the marvelous“center of consciousness”to know every event and every character around him or her,James’narrative techniques provide the reader with questions rather than answers.The reader,by sharing the central consciousness’point of view,is motivated to make an analytical appreciation.

[Keywords]narrative innovations;international novel;center of consciousness;reader

Introduction

With his critical essays on the art of fiction,Henry James advocates a greater realism in American literature.He emphasizes the inner awareness and inward movement of his characters in face of outside occurrences rather than merely delineating their environment in detail,thus introducing new narrative devices into the novel.His highly selfconscious characters prepare the way for modern stream of consciousness technique that is now so widely employed by modern writers.Besides his technical innovations he brings a number of new themes to American literature:the myth of the American abroad and the encounter of the New World with the Old.James incorporates this myth into the“international novel”,which is really Jamesian.According to Van Wyck Brooks,James is most of all a“historian”of his age—an author who interprets a generation of people on both continents across the Atlantic.

As James spent much of his youth travelling between the United States and Europe,he developed an understanding of Europe rare among Americans in his life and this constant oscillation between the two worlds became the major theme of his fiction and an attraction throughout his life.In such early works asRoderick Hudson,The American,and The Europeans,James explored the effects of European civilization and corruption on Americans.The Portrait of a Lady,which he wrote between 1880 and 1881,concerns the American expatriates in England and Italy and is considered a representative novel in the development of his characteristic narrative technique and themes.The novel presents the juxtaposition of New World innocence and Old World experience,American freedom and European convention.It is an examination of the conflicting values of the two societies.

The international novel,being different from any other brands of fiction,requires corresponding narrative techniques in order that the theme might be reflected in a proper way.James’view that“the only reality lies in the impression made by life on the spectator”makes him shift the grounds of realistic art from the outer to the inner world.This shift has a profound influence on his selection of the narrative point of view in his novel.First is his“limited point of view”:the narrative id nevertheless filtered through a major character’s gaze and consciousness so that external reality exists only as reflected in the mind of what James calls the“vessel of consciousness”or“reflector”.The author’s task is to present this character’s consciousness,representing not action,but mind.This character into whose consciousness the subject of the novel is put is often called“center of consciousness”or“central consciousness”.The centers of consciousness are always sensitive,intelligent,perceptive Americans coming to Europe and are matured by expatriation,by whom Europe,Europeans,and European civilization are observed,perceived and judged.InThe Portrait of a Lady,it is Isabel’s consciousness or what she perceives that forms the content of the stories and develops the events of the novel.The reader relies on her to gather information or intelligence.However,though the center of consciousness is an intelligence of high order,he or she is not superhuman,and not exempt from human uncertainties or conflicts.By making experiment on his narrative“point of view”,James arouses the reader’s curiosity and affords him an opportunity to decide what is the truth in the story for himself.In The Portrait of a Lady,the reader is not fully informed of the personality,the motives,and the goals.Through the center of consciousness,the reader takes hold of those tight threads,and follows them into the heart of the matter.Moreover,the reader also analyzes information through his own understanding,so he sometimes sees more than the center of consciousness does.The central consciousness gathers his information and reaches his conclusion while the reader,provided with more information than what the central consciousness knows,arrives a better judgement of the situation.James’narrative techniques have proved effective in reflecting the themes of the novel.

The Portrait of a Ladyis told with remarkable technical virtuosity.In retrospect we can recognize its importance as an experimental novel for it has made noteworthy innovations in the art of storytelling.This thesis aims at throwing some light on James’narrative innovations characteristic of his fiction.

Presentation of Events and Characterization Through the Center of Consciousness

For Henry James,novels must be realistic as he said“the air of reality(solidarity of specification)seems to me to be the supreme virtue of a novel—the merit on which all its other merits helplessly and submissively depend”(James,1984,p.53).In his famous essayThe Art of Fiction(1884)as an answer to a lecture by the British critic Walter Basant,Henry James argued that“the only reality lies in the impression made by life on the spectator,”and“realism is therefore merely the obligation that the artist assumes to represent life as he sees it,which may not be the same as life as it‘really’is ”(Spiller,1955,p.129).In his introduction toThe Art of Fiction,Hazard Adams says:“James is a‘realist’and believes that the novel is a‘personal,direct impression of life’that must have an air of reality…”(Rowe,1985,p.230).In order to achieve an air of reality,Henry James employs a central character about whom the story develops.The reader is informed of all kinds of impressions which places,persons,events in the novel have made on the central character.James assumes to make this central character“represent life as he sees it,which may not be the same as it‘really’is.”

Isabel Archer is the center of consciousness inThe Portrait of a Lady.In writing the novel,James begins his experiment on the“point of view”narrative.The phrase itself occurs incessantly in the novel.The selection of the“the center of consciousness’point of view”means the loss of a single,universally objective reality.The author is committed,henceforth,to a standpoint philosophy,which suggests that the best world for Henry James would be that which is observed from the most sensitive,yet discriminating standpoint.In his preface toThe Princess Casamassima(1886),James declared that“I never see the leading interest of any human hazard but in a consciousness(on the part of the moved and moving creature)subject to fine intensification and wide enlargement…The person capable of feeling in the given case more than another of what is to be felt for it,and so serving in the highest degree to record it dramatically and objectively,is the only sort of person on whom we can count not to betray,to cheapen,or,as we say,give away,the beauty of thing.”(Berland,1981,p.49).Isabel has the qualities that make her qualified as the center of consciousness.Just as Courtney Johnson,Jr says,“the‘center of consciousness’characters,from one story to another,began to exhibit,not necessarily in perfect consistency,certain positive characteristics—a striking capacity to appreciate the surface of life and all the depth of it,a compassion accompanying this,and an objectivity.”(Purdy,1991,p.5).Isabel Archer possesses all the attributes of James’typical American.She is innocent,intelligent,and most importantly,has the capacity to appreciate new experiences.According to Ralph Touchett:

Isabel Archer was a young person of many theories,her imagination was remarkably active.It had been her fortune to possess a finer mind than most of the person among whom her lot was cast:to have a larger perception of surrounding facts and to care for knowledge that was tingled with the unfamiliar.(pp.52-53)

These qualities allow Isabel to react spontaneously to any new experience.Her responses to places,persons,and occurrences around her indicate a depth of perception absent in other people.As a result,the reader can depend on her to get the truth in the end because of comparative objectivity.

The way James introduces his characters to us depends entirely on the kind of role the center of consciousness is to play in this story.The main characters are never described as they are(i.e.,as the author knows them to be)but—by and large,as the center of consciousness sees them.We know them at first only by the first impression that they make on the center of consciousness.We get to know them better what they are like in the way that,in life,we get to know people better through acquaintance.And just as in life we are seldom,if ever,quite certain what another person is like,so in a Jamesian novel we are often at sea about particular characters for considerable portions of the book.

A case in point is Madame Merle.The author lets us know right from start how Isabel sees her.When she meets Madame Merle for the first time,Isabel thinks her a very attractive person.Her friendship with Madame Merle ripens quickly during the days of Mr Touchett’s illness.The gates of the girl’s confidence are opened wider than they have ever been.She says things to this amiable auditor that she has not yet told anyone.Though here the reader is given a few insights into the character of Madame Merle as Isabel feels that she is not a person with natural manners—the precise nature of her character is not revealed until fairly far into the book.Only at the end of an intimacy of three months Isabel comes to some additional recognition about Madame Merle.She is now aware that the latter“remained after all something of a public performer,condemned to emerge only in character and costume,”and“she belonged to the‘old,old’world.”Isabel never loses the impression that“she was the product of a different moral of social clime from her own,that she had grown up under other stars.”(pp.274-275).After Isabel’s engagement to Osmond,Mrs Touchett warns her that Madame Merle has not acted honorably in the entire matter but Isabel refused to believe it.Until at last when Madame Merle returns to Rome a short time after Lord Warburton’s departure and questions her about his whereabouts in a threatening and irritating voice,Isabel recognizes that“this bright,strong,definite,worldly woman,…was a powerful agent in her destiny”and“she seemed to wake from a long pernicious dream.”Now“a strange truth was filtering into her soul …Madame Merle’s interest was identical with Osmond’s:that was enough.”(p.428)The reader,as well as Isabel,goes over several stages of awareness.He first feels admiration for Madame Merle,then has additional recognition of her personality,and finally achieves a complete understanding of her nature.Here both the reader and Isabel realize that Madame Merle has skillfully created a visible exterior to cover up her inner corruption.She represents the European personality that sacrifices all that is human and natural and sincere for something that represents the perfect form and ceremony.

Despite playing a crucial role in characterization,Isabel’s consciousness also views the events of the novels.Nearly every detail is to be observed and then analyzed by her.The result is an intensified unity of vision.However,since almost detail is observed and analyzed by the central consciousness,the narrative tends to turn on mystery and delay revelation.Just as Henry James points out“if we were never bewildered there would never by a story to tell.”What bewilders both Isabel and the reader inThe Portrait of a Ladyis Madame Merle’s and Osmond’s real personality and the true relationship between them.The final revelation is presented in Isabel’s vigil.Isabel’s vigil before the fire is a terrible scene of her recognition and dismay,with which the author is highly pleased.“My young woman’s extraordinary meditative vigil on the occasion that was to become for her such a landmark,”he wrote in the preface to the New York Edition,“is obviously the best thing in the book.”(Bamberg,1975,pp.14-15).What he quite impersonally admires in retrospect was that,while Isabel never stirs in her chair or speaks aloud,the episode is as thoroughly dramatic as the most sensational scene might be.“Reduced to its essence,it is but the vigil of searching criticism,but it throws the action further forward than twenty incidents might have done.”(Bamberg,1975,p.14)The vigil is a representation of her motionless lucidity of her act.It is,we may summarize,an act of consciousness on Isabel’s part.And what she sees,“under the spell of recognition”,is the truth of her life,her marriage,her husband and herself.The knowledge that she is completely and cruelly deceived induces her condition of utter wretchedness and dry-eyed misery of despair.Isabel’s recognition scene is as vivid and pivotal as a dramatic soliloquy.Now the reader sees that the full story is kept back not because James is interested in suspense in the melodramatic sense,but because if we were in the secret the nature of Isabel’s discovery of her situation could not be so effectively revealed.

Conclusion

Thus in James’s fiction we have the central consciousness as the narrator of the novel,and it is through the central consciousness that we perceive the characters,events.James prefers this method for several reasons.First,because the beauty and intensity of a situation rest for him on the subjective act of experience.And second,because the strictly enforced point of view,solidly imposed between the objective situation and the reader,commits the author in a way that the“mere majesty of irresponsible authorship”rarely does.

As omniscient author reports on his characters and their reactions,and can demand of his audience only that they take his word for it,providing that his word is reasonably convincing.The author who devises a particular and consistent point of view places the relevant data in the reader’s view,but his own authority is relatively unseen and unfelt.In its place he establishes the illusion of a direct relationship between character and reader.He has,in the words which James admiringly quoted Taine as saying about Turgenev,“perfectly cut the umbilical cord that bound the story to himself.”(Berland,1981,p.48)And thus the apparent indirection of an imposed center of consciousness becomes not an indirection at all,but a device bringing the reader directly to the heart of the matter.The author separates himself from the scene by the use of the center of consciousness who is actively involved in the unfolding story at the same time that he is acutely aware of the manifold aspects of his involvement.The readers react to certain characters and events as this central consciousness would react to them.Moreover,for Henry James,the focused vision of the center of consciousness can convey more verisimilitude to the canopy of life,and with greater intensity,than the“inclusion and confusion”of the panoramic vision of the all seeing.The author may indeed know more than he seems to tell,but his omniscience is not flung at the reader indiscriminately.

James as a writer who gives the international novel its richest treatment has always concerned with the problem of American expatriates in Europe.Almost all the centers of consciousness in his novels are Americans.The reader follows the center of consciousness to see Europe and Europeans.In The Portrait of a Lady,we see Europeans’(including Gilbert Osmond,Madame Merle)emphasis on form,ceremony,and ritual which seem to suggest the artificial.By employing an original narrative point of view—the central consciousness,James has presented Europe and Europeans in a more effective and realistic way.