Character Sketch of Isabel Archer

Isabel Archer is the lady whose ‘portrait’ James offers us in the novel. She is the woman “affronting her destiny”. At the beginning of the novel, Ralph wonders, “What will she do?” Towards the close of the novel, Henrietta asks Isabel, “What have you done with your life?” Between these two questions lies the tragic-comedy of the life of Isabel.

The character of Isabel Archer is fully developed by James. Her development is the development from happiness to suffering, from love to hatred, from vivacity to dispiritedness. Isabel’s character is the central character around which other characters, such as Ralph, Caspar, Lord Warburton, Henrietta, Osmond, Madam Merle and the Touchetts rotate.

One of the distinguishing features of Isabel’s character is her deep love for liberty and freedom. It is her innocence and independence which attract Daniel Touchett to give her financial freedom. She tries her best to maintain her mental freedom even in the face of adversity and also to maintain her dignity and individuality throughout. It is this quality that draws Ralph to her. Neither Ralph’s sympathy nor Lord Warburton’s glamour can overcome her sense of freedom, and eventually, both are fascinated by her.

Another feature is her romantic idealism. From the very beginning, Isabel’s approach to life is romantic, idealistic and theoretical. James observes that she is a person of many theories; her imagination is remarkably active. One can notice how Isabel puts her theories of self-development into practice. One of the methods is that of refusal or rejection. She avoids any commitment to anyone. Caspar Goodwood suggests coercion, oppression and constraint on the plain physical level. Lord Warburton suggests immobilisation on the social level. Isabel rejects the first on physical reasons and the second on theoretical grounds of indefinite expansion.

Isabel is a pretty young woman of sparkling vivacity. She brings freshness and charm wherever she happens to be; however, she is sexually cold and frigid. When she is faced with an emotional situation, such as her suitors proposing to her, she becomes unnerved and fear-ridden. From her lovely physical make-up, mental independence and rich legacy, the reader can well deduce that Isabel was apparently made for happiness, but events took such a sharp turn that she fell victim to her own idealistic notions. Her ‘sentience’ is the vital force of her ‘choice’, but her choice deceives her because she wishes to see life whole and full. She chooses Osmond, prompted by his idealism and sophistry, and this wrong choice lands her in misery and sorrow.

Her choice of Osmond as a husband is a result of both admirable and not-so-admirable elements in her nature. Her excessive confidence in her own judgment, her sense of her own superiority, her shying away from indications of violent passion, are no less weighty elements in her decision than her eagerness for experience, the liveliness and freshness of her responses, her admiration for what seems to be unworldliness, the superiority to things material, a devotion to things beautiful. The qualities and shortcomings of Isabel are explained, even her return to Osmond- her fear of sex, her high sense of marriage, her moral seriousness, her pure conscience, her linking to a civilised way of life, her promise to Pansy and her preference for a life of suffering. In the words of Richard Chase, “Despite her deeply repressed sexuality, Isabel remains among the most complex, the most fully realised and the most humanly fascinating of James’s characters.”