The tone of The Portrait of a Lady is a sympathetic one. This is true for the first two-thirds of the novel, when the narrator is in more of a distanced position looking in on the lives of the characters. The sympathetic tone also comes through in a different way when the narrator essentially merges with Isabel’s inner thoughts and feelings.
The following passage—in which the narrator is still introducing readers to Isabel in Chapter 6—shows the narrator speaking candidly and critically about Isabel’s stubbornness without being overly judgmental:
It may be affirmed without delay that Isabel was probably very liable to the sin of self-esteem; she often surveyed with complacency the field of her own nature; she was in the habit of taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right; she treated herself to occasions of homage. Meanwhile her errors and delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying. Her thoughts were a tangle of vague outlines which had never been corrected by the judgement of people speaking with authority.
The narrator’s compassionate tone is exemplified in the line about how Isabel’s “errors and delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying.” As a stand-in for a “biographer,” the narrator grants Isabel “dignity” by not sharing the specifics of her short-sightedness.
The narrator is even sympathetic to Osmond after all of his manipulation and cruelty, writing at one point that readers who find Osmond to be selfish should “remember the familiar proverb about those who live in glass houses,” meaning they should remember that they, too, can be selfish and should not judge him for it. Even after highlighting all of the negative aspects of men like Osmond who represent European Old World snobbery and coercion, the narrator still encourages readers to withhold their judgment.
While there is still somewhat of an emotional distance to these compassionate narratorial comments, the narrator’s tone becomes much more emotional near the end of the novel when Isabel is struggling with her decision whether to stay with Osmond or not. The following passage from Chapter 55 shows how the narrator’s tone almost seems to merge with Isabel’s own emotions as she reflects on the adulterous kiss she has just shared with Goodwood:
“The world’s very small,” she said at random; she had an immense desire to appear to resist. She said it at random, to hear herself say something; but it was not what she meant. The world, in truth, had never seemed so large; it seemed to open out, all round her, to take the form of a mighty sea, where she floated in fathomless waters […] She believed just then that to let him take her in his arms would be the next best thing to her dying. This belief, for a moment, was a kind of rapture, in which she felt herself sink and sink.
In this passage, the narrator again reflects on the contradictions of Isabel’s mind, but, similar to how Isabel has changed over the course of the novel (letting go of her self-assurance and naivety), the narrator has also changed over the course of the novel, becoming more of an extension of Isabel herself. The line in which they state that “the world, in truth, had never seemed so large” could come from either the narrator or Isabel herself. The imagery here—of Isabel floating in “the fathomless waters” of “the mighty sea” before letting herself sink—also contributes to an emotional and melancholic tone.
The tone of The Portrait of a Lady is a sympathetic one. This is true for the first two-thirds of the novel, when the narrator is in more of a distanced position looking in on the lives of the characters. The sympathetic tone also comes through in a different way when the narrator essentially merges with Isabel’s inner thoughts and feelings.
The following passage—in which the narrator is still introducing readers to Isabel in Chapter 6—shows the narrator speaking candidly and critically about Isabel’s stubbornness without being overly judgmental:
It may be affirmed without delay that Isabel was probably very liable to the sin of self-esteem; she often surveyed with complacency the field of her own nature; she was in the habit of taking for granted, on scanty evidence, that she was right; she treated herself to occasions of homage. Meanwhile her errors and delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying. Her thoughts were a tangle of vague outlines which had never been corrected by the judgement of people speaking with authority.
The narrator’s compassionate tone is exemplified in the line about how Isabel’s “errors and delusions were frequently such as a biographer interested in preserving the dignity of his subject must shrink from specifying.” As a stand-in for a “biographer,” the narrator grants Isabel “dignity” by not sharing the specifics of her short-sightedness.
The narrator is even sympathetic to Osmond after all of his manipulation and cruelty, writing at one point that readers who find Osmond to be selfish should “remember the familiar proverb about those who live in glass houses,” meaning they should remember that they, too, can be selfish and should not judge him for it. Even after highlighting all of the negative aspects of men like Osmond who represent European Old World snobbery and coercion, the narrator still encourages readers to withhold their judgment.
While there is still somewhat of an emotional distance to these compassionate narratorial comments, the narrator’s tone becomes much more emotional near the end of the novel when Isabel is struggling with her decision whether to stay with Osmond or not. The following passage from Chapter 55 shows how the narrator’s tone almost seems to merge with Isabel’s own emotions as she reflects on the adulterous kiss she has just shared with Goodwood:
“The world’s very small,” she said at random; she had an immense desire to appear to resist. She said it at random, to hear herself say something; but it was not what she meant. The world, in truth, had never seemed so large; it seemed to open out, all round her, to take the form of a mighty sea, where she floated in fathomless waters […] She believed just then that to let him take her in his arms would be the next best thing to her dying. This belief, for a moment, was a kind of rapture, in which she felt herself sink and sink.
In this passage, the narrator again reflects on the contradictions of Isabel’s mind, but, similar to how Isabel has changed over the course of the novel (letting go of her self-assurance and naivety), the narrator has also changed over the course of the novel, becoming more of an extension of Isabel herself. The line in which they state that “the world, in truth, had never seemed so large” could come from either the narrator or Isabel herself. The imagery here—of Isabel floating in “the fathomless waters” of “the mighty sea” before letting herself sink—also contributes to an emotional and melancholic tone.
