Isabel Archer and the Enclosed Chamber: A Phenomenological Reading

Isabel Archer and the Enclosed Chamber: A Phenomenological Reading by Sandra K. Fischer, State University of New York at Albany James's ending to TAe Portrait of a Lady historically has disconcerted or at least puzzled many readers.1 Caught up in the mystique of Isabel's alleged extraordinary character, taken in by her charisma, or involved in die results of her ruinous mistake, readers "interpret" a suitable romantic ending to die tale just as Isabel herself might. Everyone agrees tiiat she returns to Osmond; James offers us no room for hedging over tiiat. But several critics see an "improvement" in the marital relationship, with Isabel gaining the upper hand and bringing new freedom to Pansy as well. "For many people art means rosecoloured window-panes," James writes in "The Art of Fiction." A willful misreading of die end of TAe Portrait of a Lady is exactiy die kind of critical act for which James there issues a caveat: "picking a bouquet for Mrs. Grundy" (AF 17). Basing his interpretation on the imagery of the final scene, John Rodenbeck, for instance, decides tiiat "It is Caspar who gives Isabel her freedom, reconciling her to what lies beyond die bolted door. . . . The bolted door is opening, and Isabel is stepping out, to mingle with the world. . . . When Isabel goes back to Rome, therefore, at the end of die book, she has not fled. Having burst the bolted door, she has simply turned back, widi die full power of her new liberty, to do her duty and get Pansy equally free" (339). This critic, like others, falls into the trap of making the imagery achieve more than it actually does, to coincide witii our best hopes for the heroine.2 Nowhere does Isabel "step out"—she in fact walks into die house from die Gardencourt lawn. She has fled—she runs blindly back to die house. Nor has a bolted door burst—Isabel reinforces the lock by putting her hand on the latch. If she is reconciled, it is to that within the chamber, not beyond the door.3 The temptation of such an interpretation is to view Isabel as her admirers do, not as she is. Despite her supposed great potential and unusual character, Isabel is a repressed and rather mundane person. Altiiough duped by die Osmond-Merle conspiracy, with diem Isabel finds her true home, die place she belongs. Her acquiescence to die Osmond way of life is a coming home for Isabel because it offers her the private life of the isolated, enclosed chamber. Ralph is correct in his assessment that Isabel wants to see life, not experience it, for throughout the novel she flees from intimate encounters, especially those with any sexual possibilities. Osmond's reserve, his social mask, his sterile decadence, and his isolation are attributes tiiat, in the end, appeal to her as components of tiie least compromising alliance in her climactic Hobson's choice. James forces the attentive reader to interpret the end of die novel in light of all tiiat has come before, "to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge die whole piece by die pattern" (AF 11). Thus, we cannot view die house imagery of die final few paragraphs in a vacuum. Consistently diroughout the novel, James experiments with the possibilities of the metaphor of enclosed space, utilizing it primarily to reinforce his literary concern with psychological reality.4 Houses, rooms, corners, curtains, walls, doors, and keys—all contribute to our understanding of human inter-relationships, manifestations of personality, and individual self-images. In his book-lengtii study of James's use of imagery, Robert L. Gale bases his argument on a similar critical methodology. The apology for his work includes die principles tiiat the figurative language of James's writings forms an organic whole; that it reveals his compositional habit of mind and narrative emphases; and that it helps "explicate his texts" in that it "habitually paints setting, characterizes, foreshadows, implements plot, and reinforces theme" (4).6 Similarly, Richard Gill has shown die monumental effect of die English country house on James and his narrative imagination, operating as necessary mise en scène: historical...