『귀부인의 초상』과 도덕적 결말 = The Moral Ending in The Portrait of a Lady

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady(1881), Isabel Archer's return to Rome at the end attracted much controversy because the cause of her return is not fully explained in the novel. However, the major motive for her return is the result of her pledge to the people around her. More significantly, the pledge Isabel had made is closely linked to her sense of obligation, since she has preoccupied with the sanctities and solemnity of marriage to Gilbert Osmond. This sense of the pledge is accomplished by her total abandoning of the personal and practical advantages. For Isabel, marriage means a total commitment of one person to another and therefore is to be regarded as indissoluble. Isabel's devotion to Osmond accounts for her moral consistency not from reasoning, but from her sense of duty as a married woman. Isabel does not change her attitude toward Osmond even after she comes to know the conspiracy and malignity of her husband and Madame Merle. Her acceptance of destiny can be seen as a moral superiority to these people who have so calculatingly exploited her.
Isabel's action in the end, then, is seen to be fully consistent with what she did earlier. Because she was preoccupied with her ideal of freedom and independence, her marriage to Osmond was made through her own decision, bearing all responsibilities for herself. And when Isabel knows that her husband is the reverse of what she thought he would be, she does not flee from her own decisions because her moral notion makes her unable to abandon the consequences of her actions. Along with this, Isabel's return to Rome is considered as James's scheme of showing how his heroine cannot be destroyed despite the flaw of her character. Indeed, James has much interest in the survival of the heroine in terms of morality in the fact that the innocent character is not morally corrupted in the midst of the complicated world. Consequently, in her full knowedge of the world, Isabel asserts her morality and is never defeated.