***Group Read: The Portrait of a Lady, Chapters 45-55

This is our final thread! It's been great fun reading along with everyone.

Related threads: General * Chapters 1-11 * Chapters 12-22 * Chapters 23-33 * Chapters 34-44

Reference: Sparknotes for this book. An excerpt from the analysis of Chapters 45-48:

In this section, all of the people who love Isabel the most—Caspar, Ralph, and Henrietta—have come to Rome and reentered her life, and as a result, this section is dominated by a new kind of tension in Isabel's life. On the one hand, she is happy to have her friends close at hand; on the other, being around people who know her well makes it much more difficult for Isabel to sacrifice her happiness for the sake of social propriety and her marriage. She is cold to Ralph, evasive with Goodwood, and fatalistic with Henrietta. When they leave for England, Isabel is at the same time sad (after all, Ralph is going home to die) and relieved. With her friends gone, Isabel will be able to devote herself to working for her marriage. She has discouraged Warburton from marrying Pansy, as her conscience seemed to require, but her duty to Osmond stops her short of helping Pansy marry Rosier. Instead, she tells Pansy that she must do as her father wishes.

In previous chapters, Osmond has emerged as a sinister, even monstrous character, treating other people (especially women) as objects ... In this section, Osmond's self-absorption and ominous quality of mind come out in a new way: his increasing paranoia. Deeply threatened that his wife, rather than being a reflection of him, seems to have ideas of her own—and possibly recognizing that Isabel is more intelligent and charismatic than he is, and furthermore that his social status is based on his access to money that belongs to her—he begins to harbor dark fantasies that she is consciously working against him and that her goal in life is to thwart his desires.

I thought that the Spark Notes was a nice sumup of things.

I ended up really liking Miss Stackpole! This kind of caught me by surprise. And I was glad to see the tables turned on Madame Merle, but I actually did feel some sympathy for her in light of the fact that Pansy dislikes her so much. That must really hurt. And I was thinking that in a twisted sort of way, Merle was paying Isabel a compliment by picking her out for Pansy's stepmother.

Isabel is a tragic character in a lot of ways, blind to what is going on around her until the very end. But she is stoic, I guess.
--BJ

I really came to like Henrietta Stackpole also ! She's brash and more assertive than typical women of that time period, but a decent sort inside.

As for Merle ... A few pages before the "big reveal," I had a brain flash and realized what was going to happen. And I was surprised how sympathetic James made me feel about her. I felt her sense of loss, and could understand the motives behind her scheming.

And here she is off in exile to America because Gilbert, Isabel and Pansy don't want to see her.

Good for you figuring it out!
--BJ

NOT LOOKING! (looks through fingers covering eyes)
Will come back tomorrow when I'm finished!

If you read the comments on my thread, you know I loved this book. I rated it 4.5 stars and made the bold assertion that James tops Jane Austen and George Eliot. I may have to back down on that claim because it has been (yikes) over 40 years since I read Pride and Prejudice, my favorite J.A. novel. I've read Middlemarch twice and think it is an awesome book, but I also think there were some pretty darn dull chapters in it! I can honestly say I was never bored with Portrait. I was depressed and exasperated but not bored.

There is so much to say about the last eleven chapters of this book. I felt bad for Pansy. She looked to Isabel like a childish martyr decked out for sacrifice and scarcely presuming even to hope to avert it. (Ch. 45) Her only hope was to marry Lord Warburton, and I give her credit for not giving up her true love (Rosier with his silly bibelots), knowing how much this would displease her father. Gilbert wanted to "capture" the aristocratic Lord that his wife had spurned more than he wanted his daughter's happiness. Too sad.

I was gratified that Isabel finally wised up to Madame Merle in the beginning of Ch. 47...Madame Merle had ceased to minister to Isabel's happiness, who found herself wondering whether the most discreet of women might not also by chance be the most dangerous. At this point, Isabel was suspicious of the relationship between M.M. and Gilbert, which intensified in Ch. 49 when M. Merle returned to try to persuade Isabel to use her influence with Lord Warburton -- To let us have him! That us was the aha! moment when I finally realized the secret that the countess reveals to Isabel in Ch. 51.

Isabel was not my favorite character in the book. In fact, the ambiguity of her actions kept me from rating the book 5 stars. In a way (no rotten tomatoes, please) she was a "poser" like her husband, and they deserved each other!

Ralph was my favorite character at the beginning and he remains so. He was humble and loyal to his friends. He was intelligent except for his major blunder of making Isabel a wealthy woman. I liked the three prickly women: Harriet, the Countess, and Mrs. Touchett. They offset the sweetness of Pansy and Isabel, providing comic relief and a touch of reality. The only real villain in the book was Gilbert Osmond in whom I could find no redeeming characteristics.

So we come to the end, and Isabel is heading back to him...
She came to her senses about Madame Merle. I can only hope that with the influence of her friends, especially Harriet, the Countess, and her loyal puppydog , Caspar Goodwood, that Isabel will overcome her misguided sense of duty and attain the independence she desired before she got caught in Gilbert's trap.

What did everyone else think about the ending?

Donna, I love your analysis. Better than Sparknotes!

I liked Isabel a lot initially and Ralph seemed a milquetoast at first. But by this point in the book I was disappointed in Isabel and quite liked Ralph. I felt bad for him because his act of kindness had such far-reaching consequences.

I was really pulling for Isabel to strike out on her own and tell Gilbert to take a hike. She goes back to him but we don't know how it turns out. So I prefer to imagine that she goes back to Rome, decides he's a putz, and finds some way to live independently.

I am glad I joined the group read. . . I'm not sure I would have had the patience to stick with the slow pace of the book otherwise. Having said that, I understand perfectly why James wrote in this manner. My impatience most assuredly was not with the writing, but rather with the situations in which these characters found (or placed) themselves.
We can always hold out hope that Isabel went back to Rome, straightened her affairs and dumped Osmond, before heading out on her merry independent way . . .

Maybe Isabel will return as is her "duty" but also set some terms. Gilbert does, after all, need her money.
--BJ

I finished this yesterday and the ending is definitely open to interpretation.

I thought it was ironic that Isabel finally seems to realize she could love Caspar Goodwood. I think she suspected it all along and that's why she kept running away from him.

Did anyone else catch the comments toward the end about how Isabel would be happy again one day? I appreciated that bit of hopefulness.

I'm still trying to figure out the last paragraphs about Henrietta teaching Caspar about patience. Is that supposed to imply that if he has patience he will get Isabel one day? Or that patience will help him be happy in the future?

Maybe Caspar and Gilbert will have a duel. I know who would win that! :) (That would be a quick change to action.)

I just don't know what I think about Caspar. I have thought about him and thought about him, but I haven't come to any conclusions.
--BJ

I too really loved this book (true confession: I've read it before, as a teenager, and had a vaguely favorable impression, but couldn't recall anything other than the faintest outline of the plot). I am still thinking about the ending and needed a couple of days to pull my thoughts together, of which I have a lot, so apologies for what might be a longish post.

I feel very sorry for Isabel—I see her as flawed but making errors mainly of youth and overconfidence and naivete and idealism—I think she is at heart a good person, and now by the end a wiser and sadder person. I am still rooting for her to realize some of the potential Ralph and others saw in her--is that too optimistic?

How and why does Ralph blunder? Does he overestimate Isabel’s strength, and ability to resist, or does he underestimate the existence, power, “dark arts” of someone like Osmond? I wonder this because Ralph is so intelligent, perceptive, insightful, and right about so much—how do we make sense of this major miscalculation? I loved the following passage (Ch. 34), where Ralph explains his feelings about Isabel's engagement.

You were not to come down so easily or so soon... You seemed to me to be soaring far up in the blue—to be, sailing in the bright light, over the heads of men. Suddenly some one tosses up a faded rosebud—a missile that should never have reached you—and straight you drop to the ground. It hurts me—hurts me as if I had fallen myself.

The "faded rosebud" image strikes me as the perfect summation of Osmond's charms.

Isabel does a lot of musing about defiance--she does not want to defy her husband, believes it is wrong to defy her husband (marriage has certain obligations and she takes them as seriously as she takes anything), and she doesn't believe she is defiant. I personally, and maybe this is my 21st century perspective, want her to be really defiant--her compliance strikes me as such a defeat. And yet, she defies Osmond in really important ways-- she visits Ralph even though she knows it annoys him, fails to deliver Warburton, goes to England over his explicit objections, and, in his view "intends to carry out her ideas." In particular, she fails to change her basic nature to be what he wants her to be (although I had the feeling if she felt she had it in her power to change herself, she might). It seems like where it most matters, she puts her sense of what is right above pleasing or submitting to her husband's wishes, and this enrages him. Do you think their future is one where she becomes more and more submissive, or one where she asserts herself more?

A passage that intrigued me (from Chapter 44), where The Countess is preparing to visit the Osmonds in Rome:

…one of the impressions of her former visit had been that her brother had found his match. Before the marriage she had been very sorry for Isabel, so sorry as to have had serious thoughts—if any of the Countess’s thoughts were serious—of putting her on her guard. But she had let that pass, and after a little she was reassured. Osmond was as lofty as ever, but his wife would not be an easy victim. The Countess was not very exact at measurements, but it seemed to her that if Isabel should draw herself up she would be the taller spirit of the two. What she wanted to learn now was whether Isabel had drawn herself up; it would give her enormous pleasure to see Osmond over-topped.

Isabel has seemed to be fearing and dreading the crisis where she openly defied him, and yet also knowing that it was inevitable--by the end she has openly defied him, and yet is going back--what will happen when she gets there?

At the end, when she is in the garden with Caspar, and breaks away from him after their embrace, James writes "But when darkness returned she was free." I wondered whether that could mean a flash of insight that showed her how to be free, not just literally of Caspar's embrace, but of her whole situation? From that point on she becomes very decisive.

On wising up to Madame Merle, I loved the part (in Chapter 49), where James writes “It will perhaps seem to the reader that Isabel went fast in casting doubt, on mere suspicion, on a sincerity proved by several years of good offices.” This just struck me as so dry and understated—of course THIS reader has been waiting for Isabel to cast doubt for hundreds and hundreds of pages!

>10 BookAngel_a: I wondered that too about patience. I think it implies both things, and is open-ended on purpose. Caspar obviously takes it one way, but I wonder if Henrietta didn't mean it as "someday." She doesn't strike me as someone who is resigned.

OK I guess that's enough!! Reading this as a group read was fun.

I too found Caspar a puzzlement--I just don't know what to think about him. One thing I do think is, if you go back to the very beginning, Isabel has a horror of inflicting injury on another person, and it is one of her principles that she should never do so--Caspar is surely one of the people she has hurt, and she is aware of it. (Actually it is almost painful to go back to chapters 4 and 6 and remind yourself of what Isabel used to think)

You're right - this was a good book to read as a group. I guess we'll just have to keep wondering about Isabel. Or believing what we want to believe about her and the others. ;)

I do think if Ralph would have let his father leave Isabel 5,000 pounds as originally planned, she might have been happier. The great amount of money seemed like a responsibility that was too heavy for her. She felt like she had to bestow it on someone worthy, and she chose to do that by marrying. If she'd only had 5,000 Osmond wouldn't have gone after her either. It wouldn't have been worth the effort to him.

I'm so glad we're still talking about this book. To me, that's the sign of either a good book or a good group...maybe both. ;-)

Laura, if I haven't done so already, I want to thank you for your leadership in this group read. The SparkNotes opening on each section was a great way to give us a focal point for discussion.

I thank everybody for all your comments. It helped me see things I had missed and appreciate Portrait even more.

>14 Donna828:: aw, thanks Donna. It wasn't much effort, just remembering to create the threads, and the SparkNotes was in self defense because I was unable to tihnk on my own how best to kick off discussion!

This has been a really great experience as a participant as well. And I think that's due to this being such a great group !!

Adding my thanks, too, Laura. This was a great read!
--BJ

Great notes everyone . . . Shall we read something else as a group?

This was indeed a really good book that Im glad I picked up and also read with the group. I was trying to listen on an audio book but this book was alot better actually reading. I have to say like Middlemarch I will have to read for the full effort.

I know that I have to keep in mind the time period but there were indeed some parts with Mr Osmond that I would of told him where to stick it. For one Osmond would not allow his daughter to marry the man she loved because he does not have enough money. Well hello until Osmond married Isabel what money did he have??? And then Osmond is going to discourage Isabel from going to see a dying Ralph the man that Osmond should of been thanking in the first place for his well being. Yea I cant find one good thing either to say about Osmond he is basicly an ass and needs a good beat down from just about any and everybody.

Madame Merle a part of me wants to actually feel for her but for the most part its just not going to happen. The last couple of chapter really answered alot of questions for me about this woman. She is nothing more then a kept woman. You have to love the Countess because she is all in your face at the end and puts it all out there. She is in a horrible marriage and she knows it and not afraid of saying it. And she doesnt apoligize for it and she is more then welling to say look I have not been a saint and dont pretent to be an angel. And the countess puts the questions out there that I know has been in my mind for most of the book. Okay if Madame Merle has no husband and no fortune how does she have the resources to travel. She is nothing more then a leach and a freeloader. And why does she care so much about who Pansy marrys. And then the Countess is like okay my brother is not going to like this but I dont like him and he doesnt like me so here it is.

So if there is a moral to this story it may well be "Be careful what you wish for because you may just get it." And if that is the case you will have to choose to either put you big girl pants on and lay in the bed that you made for yourself or go against society and maybe even yourself and get out before everything is a bust.

>18 ALWINN:: ALWINN, you had me laughing out loud with your post. You really tell it like it is, and I loved reading it.

I too want to thank you Laura for a wonderful reading experience. And I agree with Donna that it was probably due to a combination of great book AND great group.

#17 We're starting a group read of Jane Eyre on the 15th if you're interested. By all means join in the discussion!