Portrait of a Lady
...creates contrast is through Isabel’s sister, Lilian. He mentions that Lilian couldn’t keep up with Isabel’s originality. As a result of mentioning this information, he shows that if anything, Isabel has superiority due to her ability to be original. James proves this point again in the middle of chapter six. He quotes, “it seemed to her often that her mind moved more often than theirs, and this encouraged an impatience that might easily be confounded with superiority”. By adding more basis of her superiority over normal people, he is able to set a solid foundation to as why she is the ideal lady. Using the element of contrast, the foundation of the portrait is built, similar to an artist sketching the outline of a face in a canvas. James is able to add more and more to the image he wants to paint and therefore helps create meaning for his title. One of the major elements that James uses in his novel to give significance to the title is repetition. He uses repetition to make sure that his audience has the right image of Isabel. There’s one part in the novel where he devotes a whole chapter in describing Isabel. This chapter not only focuses on Isabel but rather becomes the bulk reason to the significance of the title. Chapter six, in respect with the rest of the novel, is the essence of Isabel’s portrait. James writes bundles of redundancy about Isabel, yet the information he gives varies. He rants about her characteristic of independency such as “It was one of her theories that Isabel Archer was very fortunate in being independent and that she aught to make some very enlightened use of that state.” The use of repetition rather completes the portrait that James is trying to paint and creates significance to the title by showing that Isabel is independent, which plays a major part in her life since the independence is what causes her to betray so many people. Once in a while, James changes the narrative between different characters. This element doesn’t necessarily add significance to the title itself but rather helps to complete it. By showing or telling what other people think or feel about Isabel, James can help support the image that he wants to paint. Moreover, he chooses to use the characters that play a great role in Isabel’s life. The use of different points of view also help to emerge, or rather reveal the conflicts in which Isabel goes through as part of discovering herself. The conflict of being independent and being submissive to love itself is one of the conflicts that dif...