The Political Context of The Portrait of a Lady

The Political Context of The Portrait of a Lady by Cheryl B. Torsney, West Virginia University Historian A. P. Thornton writes: "Imperialism is a relationship comparable to marriage in its resistance to comprehension" (Field xiii). This assessment could serve as a provocative headnote to Henry James's TAe Portrait of a Lady, a novel concerned obviously witii marital confusion and discord caused by distorted expectations but less obviously with political relationships. Although many insist that James was apolitical, concerned only with his art, Isabel Archer's struggle for power over her destiny is nothing if not poUtical; Osmond's courtship of her, nothing if not imperialistic; and her decision to return to him, nothing if not resistant to comprehension.1 Many valuable studies attempt to explicate Isabel's motivations using textual and psychological approaches, yet none successfully deals witii the central political issue of the work.2 PhilosophicaUy a daughter of Emerson, Isabel wishes to remain a sovereign entity, yet as die novel progresses she is manipulated and invaded by forces eager to bring her under tiieir control.3 Such activity is a paradigm of imperialist politics. I do not, however, intend to construct an allegory here; rather, I wish to suggest that James's deep interest in the political battles of his day, a major one concerning die imperial effort, manifests itself in TAe Portrait of a Lady. Furthermore, I wiU demonstrate tiiat his evolving political attitudes evidenced in his essays and letters direct many of his revisions of the novel for the 1908 New York Edition. I Young Henry James's most popular work, Daisy Miller (1878), was stiU receiving accolades as England and die United States prepared to move into the new decade tiiat would permanently expand tiieir frontiers. The 1870s had seen die first English use of the word imperialism, tiien an uncharged term to name the policy pursued by Prime Minister DisraeU to expand and strengthen the British colonial empire (Cohen 10). Late in the decade, however, the term must still have been relatively new since in 1879 A. H. Thompson, in an article for TAe Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, cites an article from the London Tunes tiiat highlights the unusual word by putting it in quotation marks: "Lord Beaconsfield 'is avowedly devoted to what is now weU known as "Imperialism," tiiat is to say, to a system under which the people are to submit to a course of secret poUcy directed to objects of conquest and aggrandizement few of them would approve,' and die actions and policy of tiie Tory Premier and his tools, his 'Jingoism' and his 'Jingos' are roundly censured" (Winslow 39). A. L. Hobson, the first historian of imperialist philosophy, writes that Britain's conscious poUcy of colonial conquest and expansion began in tiie decade of the seventies. Partly because of middle-class support created by newspaper propaganda, die movement gained strength through the eighties, the apex of imperialist endeavor. After 1880, in fact, liberalism went out of fashion, and die public cheered die normally conservative gestures of tariff barriers, colonial conquest, and tiie arms expenditure associated witii preparation for war (Lichtheim 83). By the tarn of the century a world map resembUng a Monopoly board, afl of die properties held by a few players, had resulted from European colonial annexation. During these last decades of tiie nineteenth century, the British government was headed alternately by conservative Tory pro-imperialists and by die radical Liberal anti-imperialists. This conflict was dramatized by Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, representing die Tory imperialist interests, and WiUiam Gladstone, die champion of the radical Liberals. Their sparring spanned die closing decades of die centary. Gladstone began serving in government in 1833, so by the time he became a national figure in 1853 with the debate over die budget, he had already developed important experience and his political style, one of moral fervor and commitment to justice. In 1859 he joined die political group that would become die Liberal party. One of Gladstone's biographers explains die serious moral politician's popularity, which would remain essentiaUy intact for die next quarter of a centary: "The most important Volume 7 86 Numbers 2-3 TAe...