The Portrait of a Lady

“The old gentleman at the tea-table, who had come from America thirty years before, had brought with him, at the top of his baggage, his American physiognomy; and he had not only brought it with him, but he had kept it in the best order, so that, if necessary, he might have taken it back to his own country with perfect confidence.”

This early description of Mr. Touchett describes his transition from America to Europe, introducing the theme of The Expatriate Experience and Cultural Belonging. The humorous description of Mr. Touchett carrying his “American physiognomy” around like luggage emphasizes how Mr. Touchett has remained American despite his many years living abroad. Other expatriates in the novel will have varying feelings toward their situation.

“Isabel stared; the idea of letting shops was new to her. ‘I hope they won’t pull it down,’ she said; ‘I’m extremely fond of it […] I like places in which things have happened—even if they’re sad things. A great many people have died here; the place has been full of life.’ ‘Is that what you call being full of life?’ ‘I mean full of experience—of people’s feelings and sorrows.’”

This passage prefigures the importance Isabel ascribes to architectural spaces throughout the text: an increasingly developed metaphor of architecture as representing the condition of life and psychological processes (See: Literary Devices). Here, Henry James characterizes Isabel as prioritizing experience over happiness.

“Altogether, with her meagre knowledge, her inflated ideals, her confidence at once innocent and dogmatic, her temper at once exacting and indulgent, her mixture of curiosity and fastidiousness, of vivacity and indifference, her desire to look very well and to be if possible even better, her determination to see, to try, to know, her combination of the delicate, desultory, flame-like spirit and the eager and personal creature of conditions: she would be an easy victim of scientific criticism if she were not intended to awaken on the reader’s part an impulse more tender and more purely expectant.”

James uses a run-on sentence to echo the complex, layered elements of Isabel’s character. The direct reference to the reader emphasizes the novel’s unique use of narratorial voice and point of view (See: Literary Devices).