“The Portrait of a Lady” (post 10) by Henry James: Two Characters, Besides the Protagonist, with Multiple Personality; and the Abrupt Ending

Ralph’s Other Person

“He had caught a violent cold, which fixed itself on his lung and threw him into dire confusion. He had to give up work and apply, to the letter, the sorry injunction to take care of himself. At first he slighted the task; it appeared to him it was not himself in the least he was taking care of, but an uninteresting and uninterested person with whom he had nothing in common. This person, however, improved on acquaintance, and Ralph grew at last to have a certain grudging tolerance, even an undemonstrative respect, for him” (1, p. 52).

Madame Merle, Confidence Woman

Madame Merle is a completely trusted friend and mentor of the protagonist. And she is a welcome guest in the homes of many reputable people.

But it is she who facilitates Isabel’s meeting and marrying the sinister, two-faced, Mr. Osmond.

And near the end of the novel, it is revealed that Madame Merle and Osmond had conspired to arrange the marriage in order to get Isabel’s large inheritance. Moreover, Merle is revealed to be the mother of Osmond’s teenage daughter.

Is Madame Merle a confidence woman or a split personality? Search “confidence man,” especially the novels by Herman Melville and Thomas Mann, to understand that the best confidence people are the ones with multiple personality.

Abrupt Ending

James wrote in his notebook: “The obvious criticism of course will be that it is not finished—that I have not seen the heroine to the end of her situation…This is both true and false. The whole of anything is never told; you can only take what groups together. What I have done has that unity…It is complete in itself—and the rest may be taken up or not, later” (1, pp. xxv-xxvi).

However, the problem with the ending is not its irresolution, but the narrative inconsistency (see post 2). And, unlike most of the novel, the writing doesn’t flow, it has become awkward, for no apparent reason. 

I suspect that the personalities of Henry James who did his literary criticism were not the same as the ones who wrote his novels, and that the ones who wrote the beginning and middle of this novel were not the ones who wrote the abrupt ending.

1. Henry James. The Portrait of a Lady [1881/1908]. Editing, Introduction, Notes by Roger Luckhurst. New York, Oxford University Press, 2009.